Invented Tradition and Ethnic Conflict in the South Caucasus

The first systematic study of the role of historians and soviet nationality policy in engendering ethnic conflict followed by ethnic cleansing in Nagorno Karabakh in the South Caucasus

The legacy of Caucasian Albania, an otherwise obscure and enigmatic Christian kingdom that disappeared in the ninth century CE but remerged in the Soviet-era South Caucasus, has played a perhaps surprisingly significant role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.


Comprising eight chapters and an introduction and conclusion, this book gathers some of the world’s leading authorities on Soviet nationalities policy and South Caucasian history to examine the role of historians and Soviet-era nation-building policies in fanning the flames of ethnic/territorial conflicts across the troubled landscape of the South Caucasus. Its initial section contains conceptual and historiographic contributions on Soviet nationality policy and how it shaped and birthed nations in part through the creation of national history textbooks. It then examines the conflict over Nagorno Karabakh/Artsakh and the uses of the Caucasian Albanian past in fanning the flames of hatred and cultural vandalism in the region. It will be essential reading for scholars specialising on post-Soviet history, nationalism and the South Caucasus.