Almost Every Nation in the Caucasus Sees Itself as a Victim of Genocide, Gumilyev Center Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 19 – Many nations of the Caucasus north and south typically treat their national histories as “the history of oppression or discrimination” and often suggest that they have been targets of genocide by outsiders who have dominated them in the past or even now, Yevgeny Bakhrevsky says.

            The senior scholar at the Lev Gumilyev Center suggests that “’Genocide’“is popular among present-day nationalist ideologues not only in the Caucasus, but this region is one of ‘concentrated genocide,’ something that makes the study of this phenomenon there especially interesting” (gumilev-center.ru/sovremennye-koncepcii-genocida-narodov-kavkaza/).

            As Bakhrevsky points out, “in international practice, the term ‘genocide’ is used quite rarely,” with only three cases enjoying nearly recognition – in Nazi Germany, in the former Yugoslavia, and in Rwanda. But there is much discussion of other genocides and many argue that more actions should be classified as genocidal than is universally accepted.

            The Caucasus provides an object lesson in how claims of genocide arise and spread to phenomena many outsiders do not accept as genocide, the Russian scholar continues. And he provides a detailed and heavily-footnoted catalogue of genocide claims in the region that highlights just how far this process has spread.

            “Beyond any doubt,” Bakhrevsky says, “the main ‘genocide’ of the Caucasus is ‘the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.” Turkey and many of its allies actively deny that what happened then was a genocide, but Armenians have attracted the support of many others for this claim and become a model for other groups as well.

            Related to the Armenian claim is the one about the genocide of the Pontic Greeks who were also largely wiped out during World War I. Among those who have recognized this genocide are Greece, Cyprus, Armenia, Sweden, and the US State of New York.

            Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has called for recognition of the Azerbaijani genocide, which in Baku’s telling involves not only the actions of the Russian Imperial authorities after the region was absorbed but also Armenian actions during the Russian Civil War, Moscow’s imposition of Armenian returnees on Azerbaijani territory after World War II, and Hojali, where Armenian forces massacred Azerbaijani villagers in February 1992.

            Azerbaijan has also called for recognition of the genocide of Mountain Jews, 3,000 of whom were killed by Armenian units in 1918-1919. But several nations have accused Azerbaijan of carrying out acts of genocide against them, including the Talysh, Lezgin, Avars, Kumyks, Balkars, and Nogays.

            In recent years, demands by Circassians for recognition of the Russian acts of genocide against them at the end of the Caucasian wars have attracted much attention, Bakhrevsky continues. Georgia officially recognized these events as a genocide, and the international community focused on them in the runup to the Sochi Olympics, which took place on the site of the expulsion of Circassians in 1864.

            Other groups which have suggested that genocides were conducted against them include the Chechens, the Ingush, the Georgians, the Abkhazians, the Ossetians, the Russians, the Cossacks, and two subgroups of the Georgians, the Megrels and Svans.