Caucasus Survey

Abstract The paper deals with “national revival” in late Soviet Armenia, seen through the lens of football, focusing on the success story of fc Yerevan Ararat in the Soviet football league. This research is based on two academic currents, one dealing with “the nationalities question” in the ussr , and, the other focusing on the relationship between nationalism and sport, particularly football. Supporting Ararat in the late Soviet decades became an experience that provided an expression for Armenian national identity that was going through a revival in the 1960–1970s. Ararat became the centre of consolidation of Armenian national sentiment in late Soviet years. The promotion of the club was part of a larger policy of the Republic’s government, which sought to strengthen the football club as a locus of loyalty and consolidation of the Armenian public. It was both a safety valve for channelling nationalist sentiment, and an instrument for strengthening Armenia’s distinct national identity. Thus, the story of Ararat-73 offers insight into the peculiar relationship between local nationalism and Soviet government policies. On the one hand, the Soviet government allowed and even in certain ways encouraged the national “revivals”. At same time, the government policies sought to contain and manage rising nationalisms.

Mikayel Zolyan

The Story of “Ararat-73”: Football and National Identity in Late Soviet Armenia

《“亚拉腊-73”的故事：后苏联时期亚美尼亚的足球与民族认同》

Abstract The post-2020 escalations in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, culminating in the Azerbaijani military offensive of September 2023 and the subsequent mass exodus of the Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, once again underscored the persistent deadlock in the peace process and the failure to achieve compromise. This article aims to analyze the genesis of maximalist attitudes within Armenian and Azerbaijani societies in the years preceding the 2020 war, as well as the factors contributing to the endurance of these attitudes in the years that followed. Drawing on the analysis of maximalist attitudes formation during the interwar period (1994–2020), the research delves into the obstacles encountered by peace activists and peacebuilders in their efforts to counter dominant nationalism, alongside other challenges and structural impediments in the peacebuilding process. Finally, the study investigates the determinants that shaped the post-war attitudes in Armenia and Azerbaijan preceding the pivotal events of September 2023.

Nazrin Gadimova-Akbulut

Anush Petrosyan

Perceptions at War: Exploring Public Attitude Formation in the Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict

战争中的感知：探索亚美尼亚-阿塞拜疆冲突中的公众态度形成

Abstract Despite their long-lasting work in Armenia and Turkey, peacebuilding practitioners of civil society have an ambivalent relationship with the term peace and refrain from defining their role as peacebuilders. Informed by the anthropological research adopting the local turn in peace and conflict studies, we explore how civil society practitioners in Armenia and Turkey perceive the concept of “peace” ( խաղաղություն or khaghaghutyun in Armenian and barış in Turkish) and how they position themselves regarding the meanings they attach to this term. In this paper, we present data collected through semi-structured interviews with civil society practitioners from both countries, investigating the perceptions and practices in the aftermath of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020. We found that the flexibility of the term normalization in comparison to peacebuilding is preferred among civil society practitioners working for the Armenia-Turkey dialogue. We also show that the political context shapes local meanings of the word peace. While in Turkey, the authoritarian regime, restrictions on NGO s, and rise of ultranationalism make open advocacy for peace with Armenia difficult and risky, the war with Azerbaijan firmly structures where and how the word peace can be used in Armenia – even though it is not clear what is meant by it in either case. Finally, our research points out a neglected aspect of professionalism in this context and shows how it requires emotional labor to suppress enthusiasm and hope for peace. We close our paper with a call for further research among the youth and exploration of effective communication, alternative approaches, and terminologies that can foster meaningful dialogue and reconciliation without provoking divisive sentiments.

Kübra Zeynep Sarıaslan

Armine Avetisyan

Local Meanings of Peace: The Politics of Words and Emotional Labor among Civil Society Practitioners in Armenia and Turkey

地方和平的意义：亚美尼亚和土耳其民间社会实践者中的词语政治与情感劳动

Abstract This article deals with the issues associated with missing persons in Georgia, which are deeply interrelated with the conflicts over the disputed territories of Abkhazia since 1992 and South Ossetia from 1991. The article examines the historical, democratic, and human rights context of these issues in Georgia to understand the situation in the country and its effects on how the missing are dealt with. The article deals with the various processes that are working on the missing. The legislation concerning missing persons in Georgia is reviewed and found to be scattered, incomplete and in need of reform. The article also recommends that Georgia allocate more resources to its efforts and better assist the families of the missing. It is also recommended that a Families’ Needs Assessment be carried out and that an Office of Missing Persons be established.

Jeremy Julian Sarkin

Law and State Practice in Georgia: Dealing with the Issues Concerning the Search, Exhumation and Identification of Missing Persons in Conflict Zones

格鲁吉亚的法律与国家实践：处理冲突地区失踪人员搜寻、挖掘与身份识别问题

Abstract This article analyzes the reconstruction of the image of Prince Kelesh Bey Shervashidze (b. 1747) in the memory politics of Abkhazia through the prism of cultural resistance, from the perestroika period up to the present day. It argues that Abkhaz politicians use a dual approach to constructing the figure of Kelesh Bey. On the one hand, an anti-colonial narrative of the prince in opposition to the Russian and Soviet colonial system is created, and on the other hand, a more traditional colonial narrative aligned with Russia’s patronage of Abkhazia’s unrecognised statehood is also encouraged. However, the controversy over these discourses is formal in nature. The only real purpose of reviving the Russian and Soviet readings of Kelesh Bey is to hide Abkhaz cultural resistance from Russia, owing to the latter’s own dualistic status as embodying both Abkhazia’s former imperial center and its modern patron.

Ketevan Epadze

Reconstructing a National Hero in the Post-colonial Memory Politics of Abkhazia: Debates over Kelesh Bey Shervashidze

在后殖民记忆政治中重构阿布哈兹的民族英雄：关于凯莱什·贝伊·谢尔瓦什泽的争论

Abstract Three years after the forceful imposition of Soviet rule in Georgia, the Bolshevik leadership there, itself fractious and lacking a broad base of popular support, faced a large-scale armed uprising in August 1924. Making use of a range of recently available and underutilized primary sources from the period as well as the existing secondary literature, this article considers the 1924 uprising in Georgia from several different perspectives – of the Georgian Government-in-Exile in France, of the leadership of the Communist Party in Georgia, of the Georgian secret police, the Cheka , and of the central Bolshevik leadership in Moscow – in order to explore the likely causes and consequences of these events.

Timothy Blauvelt

Ketevan Akhobadze

Perspectives on the August 1924 Uprising in Georgia

1924年8月格鲁吉亚起义的视角

Abstract Published just prior to WWII in German, allegedly by a Jewish convert to Islam who had fled the Bolshevik Revolution, and currently dubbed the national novel of Azerbaijan, Kurban Said’s Ali &amp; Nino gets less attention than it deserves. And to the extent that this little-known work of classical stature is recognized by the international reading public, it is for its combination of the East-West dichotomy and cosmopolitanism. But even as Kurban Said’s love story between a Muslim bachelor, Ali, and a Georgian damsel, Nino, does favorably present cosmopolitan yearnings within the framework of westernization, this article highlights the evil Armenian leitmotif in it, through surveying the misdoing of Ali’s rival Nachararyan and how that relates to ethno-political conflict in the Caucasus.

Abbreviation
Journal Impact	0.38
Quartiles(Global)	POLITICAL SCIENCE(Q4)

ISSN	2376-1199, 2376-1202
h-index	12

Publication Information	Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers，Publishing cycle: ，Journal Type: journal，Open Access Journals: No
Basic data	Year of publication: 2013，Proportion of original research papers: 100.00%，Self Citation Rate:20.00%， Gold OA Rate: 11.11%

Caucasus Survey

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The Story of “Ararat-73”: Football and National Identity in Late Soviet Armenia

Perceptions at War: Exploring Public Attitude Formation in the Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict

Local Meanings of Peace: The Politics of Words and Emotional Labor among Civil Society Practitioners in Armenia and Turkey

Law and State Practice in Georgia: Dealing with the Issues Concerning the Search, Exhumation and Identification of Missing Persons in Conflict Zones

Reconstructing a National Hero in the Post-colonial Memory Politics of Abkhazia: Debates over Kelesh Bey Shervashidze

The Story of “Ararat-73”: Football and National Identity in Late Soviet Armenia

Local Meanings of Peace: The Politics of Words and Emotional Labor among Civil Society Practitioners in Armenia and Turkey

Perceptions at War: Exploring Public Attitude Formation in the Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict

Perspectives on the August 1924 Uprising in Georgia

Kurban Said’s Ali & Nino, and the Nachararyan Factor