The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus

by Christoph Zürcher

A brief history of the Caucusus region during and after the Post-Soviet Wars

The Post-Soviet Wars is a comparative account of the organized violence in the Caucusus region, looking at four key areas: Chechnya, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Dagestan. Zürcher’s goal is to understand the origin and nature of the violence in these regions, the response and suppression from the post-Soviet regime and the resulting outcomes, all with an eye toward understanding why some conflicts turned violent, whereas others not. Notably, in Dagestan actual violent conflict has not erupted, an exception of political stability for the region. The book provides a brief history of the region, particularly the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting changes that took place in the wake of this toppling. Zürcher carefully looks at the conditions within each region―economic, ethnic, religious, and political―to make sense of why some turned to violent conflict and some did not and what the future of the region might portend.

This important volume provides both an overview of the region that is both up-to-date and comprehensive as well as an accessible understanding of the current scholarship on mobilization and violence.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, War, Soviet Union, Politics, Asia

308 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2007

Reviews

[Kristian Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on the conflicts in the Caucasus. Zurcher sheds light on many of the most important factors that led to the conflicts and perpetuated them as well as issues that have developed as a result. Highly recommend.

[مي صالح زيتون · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was informative but my God i am sorry to say it was so hard to read, it took me so much time to read the 230 pages. It is written so rigidly and so academically like a phd thesis. I was easily distracted while reading and i couldnt wait for it to be over.

[Kristian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview of Post-Soviet conflicts in the Caucasus.

[Fergus O · Rating 4 out of 5]

somehow this lead to jujitsu training camps in dagastan

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful study into general conflict theory and how it pertains to understanding the wars that broke out during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I have to say that I walked away from this book with a far greater understanding of the nature of organized violence, factors that allow sporadic violence to become organized violence, and how the generally assumption that mountainous terrain, ethno-cultural diversity, and poor economy are directly linked to conflict likelihood is not supported by the evidence in the conflicts of Chechnya, Georgia, and Armenia. My only issues with this book dealt with the style rather than the content. I guess I can forgive both the author, and apparently the editor that must not have shown up for work, for the unsettling amount of typos. I also guess that I can live with the possibility that it is linguistic "nit-pickiness" on my part that he translated non-English terms for me without informing me of what language the word originally was written. I assume it was Russian (as I'm still learning it), but given the context it could easily have been Georgian, Armenian, etc. It would have been nice if he had included what language it was in. My biggest issue was with the lack of chronological order in which he told the narrative of the Georgian conflict. While the other sections were fairly structured in their historical narrative, the section on Georgia seemed to jump around with people and events to where I had difficulty knowing who did what when. Nevertheless, I thank the author for giving me enough insight into post-Soviet Georgia to not see (in the Russian-Georgian War of 2008 which this book did not cover) the Georgians as the innocent victims they were portrayed as in the media at the time. To be fair, other readings on what Russia was doing at the time indicate that their motives were not all that noble either. The only other issue was, in the concluding chapter, the author mentions that Tajikistan was the only other former-Soviet republic besides the ones in the Caucasus in which organized violence emerged and I did not understand why he would leave their story out. Would it have been too much to leave the title at "The Post Soviet Wars" and add one more section?