Armenia and the Caucasus in the Genesis of the Soviet–Turkish Entente

1973 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard G. Hovannisian

On 26 April 1920, three days after the opening of the Grand National Assembly in Angora (Ankara), Mustafa Kemal addressed his first officially confirmed message to the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) of Russia. Shortly thereafter, Bekir Sami Bey (Kundah), Turkish foreign minister, departed for negotiations in Mosocow.A draft treaty was initialed in August and delivered to Angora in September, and in March 1921 the governments of the Turkish Grand National Assembly and of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic established formal bonds by concluding the Treaty of Moscow. During the few intervening months the small Caucasian Armenian republic, which had been created in May of 1918 and which had become the fulcrum of Armenian aspirations for an independent state encompassing both the Russian Armenian provinces and the contiguous Turkish Armenian provinces of eastern Anatolia, was crushed by the invasion of General Kazim Karabekir's XV Army Corps. The offensive, begun after attainment of a vague Soviet-Turkish understanding, not only overturned the Allied-imposed Treaty of Sévres, which had awarded to the Armenian republic much of the four eastern vilayets of Van, Bitlis, Diyarbakir, and Erzurum, but also restored to Turkish dominion the sanjaks of Kars and Ardahan, since 1878 parts of Russian or Eastern Armenia. What was more, Nationalist Turkey annexed the Surmalu district, embracing Mount Ararat, the historic symbol of the Armenian people.

1954 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 599-601

The six signatories of the European Defense Community Treaty — France, the German Federal Republic, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg —met in Brussels from August 19 to 22 to consider changes in the treaty which the French Premier, Pierre Mendès-France, felt were essential if it were to be ratified by the French National Assembly. Such a meeting had been proposed by Mr. Spaak, Belgian Foreign Minister, and endorsed by the other Foreign Ministers of the Benelux nations on June 22. After a meeting with Mr. Spaak in Paris on June 30, Mr. Mendes-France agreed on the usefulness of such a meeting as soon as the French government had made known its views on the treaty as it stood at that time and before the French National Assembly voted on its ratification.


2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele E. Commercio

Freedom from the Soviet empire created an opportunity for elites of each former Soviet Socialist Republic to “nationalize” their newly independent state. Most observers of contemporary Kazakh politics would agree that Kazakhstan has taken advantage of this historic opportunity, and can thus be classified as a nationalizing state. For Rogers Brubaker, a nationalizing state is perceived by its elites as a nation-state of and for a particular nation, but simultaneously as an “incomplete” or “unrealized” nation-state. To resolve this problem of incompleteness and to counteract perceived discrimination, Brubaker argues, “nationalizing elites urge and undertake action to promote the language, culture, demographic preponderance, economic flourishing, or political hegemony of the core ethnocultural nation.” While the foundation of any Soviet successor state's nationalization program is a cluster of implemented formal policies that privilege the titular nation, these policies are often reinforced by informal practices, primarily discriminatory personnel practices, with the same function. Much has been written about Kazakhstan's nationalization strategy, and not surprisingly scholars rely on what they know about formal policies and informal practices to characterize that strategy. Little has been written, however, about the “Pugachev Rebellion” in Ust'-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, and nothing has been written about the relationship between the official Kazakh reaction to what I call the “Pugachev incident,” and Kazakhstan's nationalization strategy in general. This article sorts out confusing events surrounding the Pugachev incident, and offers an interpretation of the official Kazakh reaction, which is best understood when situated in the broader context of Kazakh nationalization, to the incident.


2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serhy Yekelchyk

In February 1944, as the victorious Red Army was preparing to clear the Nazi German forces from the rest of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, a surprise official announcement stunned the population. The radio and the newspapers announced amendments to the Soviet constitution, which would enable the union republics to establish their own armies and maintain diplomatic relations with foreign states. While the Kremlin did not elaborate on the reasons for such a reform, Radianska Ukraina, the republic's official newspaper, proceeded to hail the announcement as “a new step in Ukrainian state building.” Waxing lyrical, the paper wrote that “every son and every daughter of Ukraine” swelled with national pride upon learning of the new rights that had been granted to their republic. In reality, the public was confused. In Ukraine's capital, Kiev, the secret police recorded details of rumors to the effect that the USA and Great Britain had forced this reform on Stalin and that Russians living in Ukraine would be forced to assimilate or to leave the republic. Even some party-appointed propagandists erred in explaining that the change was necessitated by the fact that Ukraine's “borders have widened and [it] will become an independent state.”


Significance Both Arab governments have had informal ties with Israel for some time. Unlike the UAE, which announced its recognition plans on August 13 in return for Israel halting its plans to annex Palestinian land, Bahrain’s September 11 move did not specify any direct benefits for the Palestinians. Impacts US officials will further seek to foster regional unity against Iran with a new push for detente between the Arab signatories and Qatar. The deal is a personal boost for beleaguered Israeli premier Binyamin Netanyahu, whose foreign minister will not attend the signing. Collaboration with Israel could help revive Bahrain’s fortunes as a hub for financial technology. The agreement further reduces the leverage of Palestinians seeking an independent state. Other Gulf countries will likely weigh US internal developments and regional political shifts before considering a similar move.


2014 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-257
Author(s):  
Elguja Dadunashvili ◽  
Agnes Korn

This article, which is based on fieldwork carried out 2007–2009 in various regions of Georgia, studies the Islamic circumcision ritual (Turkish sünnet, Azeri sünnǝt, Georgian ts‘inadatsveta) in the Caucasus and neighbouring regions. It specifically focusses on the tradition called Kirvalıq as practised by Azeri Turks in Georgia. This tradition establishes a relation between the boy and a kirva (“godfather”), who holds the boy during the ritual; the relation is understood as being a very close blood relation although the kirva and the boy are technically not related. In fact, the person chosen as kirva by the boy’s parents is often a member of another ethnic and/or religious group. This specific type of Kirvalıq is also found in Eastern Anatolia. We argue that the Kirvalıq serves the purpose of increasing the family’s network ties and thus contributes to the coherence of multiethnic and multireligious communities.



2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 183-212
Author(s):  
Mare Kõiva ◽  
◽  
Kristina Muhu ◽  

The paper compares changes in the celebration of holidays in the period from 1992 to 2018. The data originate from large Estonian children’s lore corpora from 1992, 2007, and 2018. The first collections are preserved at the Estonian Folklore Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum (ELM) in Tartu, Estonia, and the 2018 collection as well as the digitized data of the earlier campaigns are available in the digital archives EFITA – the Research Archives of the Department of Folkloristics of the ELM. The calendar corpus allows us to monitor changes in the structure and essence of folk/ethnographic/local traditions, feasts celebrated at home, church feasts, and public holidays at school. The authors indicate that endeavours to establish national public holidays to accompany traditional agrarian ones began in the early 20th century. During the 20th century, the system of holidays changed three times (1918, 1940, 1991) due to political changes: the establishment of an independent state in Estonia, the loss of independence and continuation as the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, and restoration of independence in 1991. In addition to state, church, and folk holidays different ways to introduce novel international holidays (Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween, Mother Tongue Day), and a search for new forms of celebration were also noteworthy during this period. As students, youngsters participate in the celebrations of their school as well as in the celebrations of public holidays, and at the same time are involved in maintaining their family traditions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 156-177
Author(s):  
Е.И. КОБАХИДЗЕ

В статье анализируется Конституция СОАССР 1937 г. как один из важнейших документов по Новейшей истории Северной Осетии, впервые определивший ее самостоятельный государственно-политический статус в качестве советской автономной республики в составе РСФСР. В поиске форм национального самоопределения Северная Осетия несколько раз меняла свой статус: будучи рядовой территориально-административной единицей в административной системе позднеимперской России, Осетия и после утверждения советской власти оказалась включена в окружную модель территориального устройства Горской АССР. Лишь после упразднения Горской республики Северной Осетии был придан статус автономной области в составе России с несколько расширенной административной самостоятельностью, хотя и довольно ограниченным объемом полномочий, распространявшихся преимущественно на хозяйственно-культурную сферу. Однако именно тогда Северная Осетия впервые сформировала собственные устойчивые и жизнеспособные органы власти и управления, деятельность которых регулировалась союзным и республиканским (РСФСР) законодательством. Новый этап развития североосетинской государственности пришелся на вторую половину 1930-х гг., когда новая Конституция СССР объявила ряд бывших национальных автономных областей, в том числе и Северо-Осетинскую АО, автономными республиками и предоставила им правовые основания для принятия собственных конституций, наделив их таким образом государственно-политическим статусом. Сравнительный анализ конституций СССР, РСФСР и СОАССР показывает, что организационно-правовые основы национальной государственности, закрепленные в конституции СОАССР, формулировались исходя из приоритета общесоюзной и российской конституций, хотя и с учетом местных особенностей. В то же время первая советская конституция Северной Осетии, принятая ее собственным законодательным органом и определяющая правовые основы политической автономии, ознаменовала завершение процесса становления национальной государственности Северной Осетии и открыла новую страницу ее социально-политической истории. The article analyzes the Constitution of the North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of 1937 as one of the most important documents on the recent history of North Ossetia, which firstly defined its independent state-political status as a Soviet autonomous republic within the RSFSR. In the search for forms of national self-determination, North Ossetia changed its status several times: being an ordinary territorial-administrative unit in the administrative system of late imperial Russia, Ossetia, even after the approval of Soviet power, was included in the district model of the territorial structure of the Mountain ASSR. Only after the abolition of the Mountain Republic, North Ossetia has got the status of an autonomous region within Russia with somewhat expanded administrative self-dependence, albeit with a rather limited scope of powers that extended mainly to the economic and cultural sphere. However, just then North Ossetia for the first time formed its stable and viable power and administrative institutions, the activities of which were regulated by union and republican (RSFSR) legislation. A new stage in the development of North Ossetian statehood fell on the second half of the 1930s, when the new Constitution of the USSR declared the granting of the status of autonomous republics to the former national autonomous regions, including the North Ossetian Autonomous Region, and provided them with legal grounds for adopting their own constitutions, and so endowed them of state and political status. A comparative analysis of the constitutions of the USSR, RSFSR and NOASSR shows that the organizational and legal foundations of national statehood, enshrined in the Constitution of the NOASSR, were formulated based on the priority of the all-Union and Russian constitutions, albeit taking into account local specifics. At the same time, the first Soviet constitution of North Ossetia, adopted by its legislative institution and defining the legal foundations of political autonomy, marked the end of the process of formation of the national statehood of North Ossetia and opened a new page in its socio-political history.


Author(s):  
Yeva HARUTYUNYAN

The purpose of this article is to show the economic policy of Japan towards Armenia after the establishment of Armenian-Japanese diplomatic relations. The article presents three phases of Japan's economic policy, taking into account the type of assistance provided by Japan to Armenia, which is correlated with Armenia's economic and GDP’s growth. The first phase covers 1992-99, during which bilateral economic relations were limited to grant assistance provided by Japan to Armenia, with the aim of supporting the economic recovery of the newly independent state and ensuring sustainable economic growth. The second phase (2000-04) marked the beginning of economic cooperation between the two countries. Due to its stable economic growth, Armenia received loans from Japan for developing economic infrastructures. During the third phase (2005- up to date) Japan has expanded its cooperation with the Republic of Armenia and begun to provide technical equipment for the development of targeted sectors. At this stage, Japan clearly defined the direction of its assistance and the sectors necessary for the stimulation of the Armenian economy, in particular, the energy sector, small and medium-sized businesses, as well as the development of villages. Japan also greatly supports Armenia by providing Japanese technologies for risk prevention in natural disaster zones and organizing training courses and discussion- meetings for Armenian specialists aimed to promote capacity building on the implementation of disaster risk reduction and emergency situations. Since 2018, Japan has begun to consider Armenia as a full-fledged economic entity, and review the possibility to build mutually beneficial economic relations. The main witnesses are the signed agreement on investment liberalization in 2018, the visit of Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono to Armenia for developing bilateral relations in the fields of banking, innovation, food security, information technology, artificial intelligence, cultural exchange, scientific and educational projects, as well as active contacts of Armenian President with Japanese organizations.


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