Contested Frontiers: Borders and Border Spaces in the South Caucasus from the Second Half of the 19th Century to the 1920s
Journal: Borders in Globalization Review
Year: 2024

A closer look at the 19th century ethnographic maps of the Caucasus reveals the demographic diversity of the region at the crossroads of three empires: the Persian, the Ottoman, and the Russian. To consolidate their power in this peripheral region, these empires, and later the Soviet authorities, experimented with various scenarios of resettlement, making the region an imperial “laboratory” with massive border shifts. This article discusses the processes of border development in the South Caucas