The Caucasus as Contact Zone
Languages, Religions, Peoples, and Cultures
Tsypylma Darieva, Florian Mühlfried
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The Northern Caucasus and the Southern Caucasus are closely inter-twined with regard to history, socio-economic structure, culture, and religion. As a part of multinational empires, the Caucasus has always been a contact zone marked by ethnic and linguistic diversity and a rich cultural heritage. Ethnic affiliation and its representation are made anew, solidified, and dissolved over and over again. At the same time, there is a tradition of a local cosmopolitan culture sustained by interregional trade, normative orders, and cultural exchange. This “cosmopolitanism from below”, however, is more and more in danger.
(Osteuropa 7-10/2015, pp. 45–70)