Confrontation between Shamkhalate and Kabarda in the 16<sup>th</sup> century (the issue of international relations in the North Caucasus)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problems of the development of the regional system of international relations in the North Caucasus in the 16th century. The era of the Horde khans and Shirvanshahs is forever a thing of the past, and they were replaced by new empires: the Safavids, the Ottomans and the Moscow state. With the help of world-system analysis the article reveals the transformation of the political landscape of the region that took place at that period. A new look at the Caucasian communities and their place in the history of civilization, as well as the forms happened to occur in the process of their integration into a particular state is offered to the reader's attention. The methods of identity formation used at that period are of great interest, as well as the hierarchical ideas that existed in the field of international relations. For the first time, the paper comes as an attempt to reconstruct the views on the balance of power then prevailing in the North Caucasus that correspond to the epoch under study.