On the Caucasus and Its Boundaries

Abstract

The author successively discusses a variety of existing interpretations of the Caucasus as a historical-ethnographic area, as a number of neighboring physical-geographical areas and their parts (related furthermore to different natural countries), as a geopolitical region, and as a historical- geographical (or cultural-geographical) region; as well as corresponding essentially different foun- dations for the definition of its spatial boundaries. The most common is the historical-geographical understanding of the Caucasus and its boundaries, which had originated in the period of Russian empire’s territorial formation and was further fixed in the social consciousness during the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. This notion of the Caucasus and its boundaries has shaped the Caucasian territorial identity among the part of Armenians and Azerbaijanis residing within the limits of states of the South Caucasus.