Analogie historyczne w sytuacji postkolonialnej

Abstract

The historical experience of the region on the frontier of civilizations that is the South Caucasus is marked by alternating periods of short-term independence and long-term subordination. The geographical location at the meeting point of the Great Steppe, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia invariably means that political and strategic interests intersect in the region. Thus, since ancient times, the subjugation of the South Caucasus has been a goal within the imperial policies of the powers located south of the Arax River and north of the Great Caucasus range (the most commonly accepted borders of the region). Short-lived periods of formal independence usually did not entail full internal sovereignty and subjectivity in external actions. Different forms of dependency - political, economic, military or cultural and social - defined the internal situation in the region. Historically, the South Caucasus has been stuck between Rome and Persia, Arab caliphates and Byzantium, Turkish states and Persia, being also the object of destructive Mongol and Tamerlan invasions. Since early modernity, the region has been a space of clashing influences and attempts to gain dominance of three imperial ideologies and, at the same time, civilizational visions - Persian (Iranian), Turkish (Ottoman) and Russian (including a somewhat different form of Soviet).