Caucasian Breakdown

So... things between Georgia (as in the Caucasian Republic of Georgia, not the U.S. State of the same name) and the Russian Federation have continued to be interesting. In theory, the Russians are acting as 'peace keepers,' and confining their efforts to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Of course, their definition of peace-keeping seems very different from that of the rest of the world. Much in the same vein as the U.S. 'private military contractors' (wink wink) in Iraq, come to think of this. Don't you love euphemisms?

So what is all this nonsense about anyway? Well, although I'm posting this rather later than I would like, I think it my duty to put out some factual information before the vapid, pop-culture psuedo-intellectuals decide adopt the issue as their latest cause célèbre en masse, without knowing or caring about the people on the ground, and proceed to flood cyber-space with bullshit telling us what we 'need to know' about this or that.

So... Russia, the 'Evil Empire' as some of you who remember the Reagan years might know it. What is their deal? Well... the long and the short of it is that Russia has not enjoyed the most cordial relations with their Caucasian neighbors to the south. I refer in this case to Chechyna, but also Dagestan, Ingushetia, and of course Georgia.

First of all, though, let me clear up something. When I say 'Caucasian,' I do not in fact mean 'white.' Well, not directly. In this context, Caucasian refers to the Caucasus region, which includes the independent states of Armenia, Gerogia and Azerbaijan, as well as portions of the Russian Federation and perhaps Iran and Turkey. The region is far from homogeneous, however. Its more of a patchwork of ethnicites, languages and religions - Apostolic Armenians, Shi'ite Azeris, Caucasian Jews in Azerbaijan, Orthodox Abkhaz and Cossacks, Sunni Laz and Adjarians, Buddhist Kalmyks, and many others. Indeed, historically Arab georgaphers knew the region as al-Jebel al-Alsun, the Mountain of Tongues.

So how does this relate to Mother Russia, you ask? Well, this goes waaaay back to the Tsarist days of Russian expansion. See, one of the greatest ambitions of Russian Imperialism was the acquisition of warm sea ports; a quest which literally took them across Russia, from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Amongst the most important acquisitions were the warm, rich lands in the south.

Fast forward to today. Sure, sure, the Soviet Union has collapsed, but even so, three things have remained at the core of Russian identity - Православие (Pravoslavi, or Orthodoxy) самодержавие (Samoderzhavi, or Autocracy) and народность (Nardnost, or National Spirit). Hell, Russia can claim a direct inheritance from the ROMAN EMPIRE! Long after Rome had fallen in the West, Konstantinopolis continued to rule the East. Even after the Turks finally conquered the city in 1453, Muscovy claimed to be the 'Third Rome.' In fact, the very word Tsar (formerly transliterated as Czar) is derived from the word 'Caesar.' The Russians are a proud people, in spite of widespread poverty, depression and government corruption.

BUT... what really bothers the Russians is the loss of what they see as 'their' territory. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, not only did the Warsaw Pact countries like Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Poland go their own ways, but countries like Lithuania, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Lativa and Ukraine (and please bear in mind that Kiev is the birthplace of Russian culture) have broken away from Russia. This left many ethnic Russians stranded well beyond Russian borders, incidentally. Moreover, huge tracts of land in Asia, such as Sakha, Komi, Buryatia, Karelia and Tatarstan, have pretty much complete autonomy within the Russian Federation. As far as many Russians are concerned, the Russian Empire... no, the very SOUL of the Russian people, is being broken apart.

And thats really what Chehnya boils down to. It's not about oil or gas, as the Russians have plenty of resources. Nor is it about religion, as Islam is a majority in other areas where the Russians have few problems with the local populace. No, its really about territory; no matter how small a scrap of land, the Russians see it as part of THEIR Empire, and its a humiliation they will not accept.

I am reminded immediately of a poll I had once heard about that was conducted in Russia. The question was something along the lines of 'what ethnicity wouldn't you want moving next to you.' Incidentally, aside from western Europeans, the highest rated groups were the Gypsies, Caucasians and finally Jews. Asians and other (non-Russian) Slavs were mostly tolerated. No doubt this extreme bias reflected the (then) heightened tensions with Chechnya, as well as revealing some disturbingly widespread racial prejudices.

But, getting back to the Caucasus, this current spat of things with Georgia actually owes to the the geo-political situation in the Balkans, which goes back to another pillar of Russian identity, pan-Slavism. See, one of the main arguments for Russian expansion always hinged on the argument that the fellow Slavic peoples (particularly the Orthodox Slavs) were being oppressed by the Ottoman Turks and Austro-Hungarians. Mother Russia, then, stood to 'protect' these little Slavic brethren through military force. Similar sentiments were used to justify Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe. Of course, as always, nobody actually bothered to ask the people living there in the first place, but then I guess thats the point.

Today, the Warsaw Pact and Yugoslavia are things of the past. But the Russians still see this as 'their' backyard. So between the missile defense system in Poland and American/Western support for an independent Kosova, the Russians once again find themselves fearing that they have lost their voice on the world stage. Well, if we can back Kosovo, the Russians say to us, then they will back South Ossetia. As usual, the western media has completely forgotten about Kosova's sovereignty and moved on to the fast paced world of celebrity sex tapes and iPhones, but Russia... Russia has made good on her promise. This whole thing in South Ossetia is basically a pissing contest between Russia and the US/EU, with the Georgians caught up in between.

It doesn't help that Georgia has been seeking NATO membership, another move that I heartily support.

Now, as my old Russian teacher knows, I love the Caucasian peoples. Such a beautiful mosaic of cultures. But I don't see how South Ossetia and Abkhazia will fare any better by being annexed into the Russian Federation. Certainly their Chechnyan brethren have not fared well. But then, the geographic borders of the entire Caucasus region do not actually reflect the distribution of peoples living there, and indeed should extend well into Iran and down to the Mediterranean coast were we to draw them in any logical pattern anyway.