North Caucasus: the Mountain of Languages and the Language of Mountains

Abstract

The North Caucasian region is called the Russian Babylon due to its polyethnicity, multilingualism, religious syncretism, ancient mountain ethical codes coexisting along with state institutions of self-organization. Compared to other locales, it still manages to preserve many archaic forms of socio-normative and spiritual culture, although here, too, the first signs of a systemic crisis due to globalization processes are already visible. According to the articles presented in this journal issue, one can judge the current state and prospects for the development of the national languages and literatures of the Abkhaz, Balkars, Dagestanis, Kabardians, Karachays, Chechens, South and North Ossetians. Philosophers, literary scholars, folklorists, linguists raise and try to solve many urgent problems related to oral folk art, the status of the Russian language in the region, mass and literary bilingualism, the quality of literary translation, ethno-gender stereotypes, intertextuality mechanisms, as well as the possibility of using digital technologies in modern philological research.