Today, the Caucasus region receives much less attention among scholars and decision-makers than a few years ago. Eurasian security studies are currently dominated by the coverage of the armed conflict in east Ukraine and the turbulence in the Middle East. The South Caucasus, however, remains rather unstable due to its geopolitical fragility. As Russia and the United States (US) find themselves in the midst of the most severe crisis in their relations since the end of the Cold War, their relationship in this sensitive part of Eurasia deserves every attention. While looking in this paper at the bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington in the Caucasus region, the authors seek to avoid framing the present state of the relationship as a second edition of the Cold War. Instead, the basic reasons for disagreements between Russia and the US in the Caucasus since the dissolution of the USSR are critically examined. The authors also aim to explain specific reasons driving Russia’s and the US’ respective engagements in regional security issues. They also focus on similarities and specifics of the US and Russian policies vis-à-vis regional ethno-political conflict resolution processes in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

De facto entities (most importantly for this discussion, those in Nagorny Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria and the alleged People’s Republics in south-eastern Ukraine), if viewed from a formal-legal point of view, do not exist for the international community. However, the “virtual” existence of those states does not prevent them from being real participants in the political and security processes in the post-Soviet space. Many momentous events in Eurasia are connected in some way with developments surrounding these statelets. This article reviews the establishment of de facto states in the context of the demise of the USSR, ethno-political self-determination during this process and the transformation of international law after the end of the Cold War. The article provides a definition and typology of unrecognized states, and explains their similarities and differences. It is argued that the phenomenon of de facto entities cannot be reduced exclusively to the consequences of “frozen conflict”: their domestic dynamics as well as processes of democratization and nation/state-building also need to be considered. Special attention is paid to the importance of Eurasian de facto states for international affairs.

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SUMMARY: In his guest editor’s introduction Sergei Markedonov presents an account of historiographic and historic discussion on the concept of Cossackdom. He criticizes the tendency of Russian historians to take this category for granted and thus reify the ontological reality of this socially and culturally heterogeneous group. Moreover, Markedonov suggests that the historiographic evolution of the concept of Cossackdom is part of the historic process of identity formation and reflects the vicissitudes of political and national contexts of construction of Cossack historical memory. Markedonov also suggests that further work is needed for arriving at a comprehensive typology of Cossack communities. However, the crucial aspect of this research is taking seriously the heterogeneity of the imperial space (and the space framed by interacting continental empires) that conditioned the variety of Cossacks’ identity, social and political organization.

SUMMARY: One of the key disputed issues in Cossack history revolves around the origins of the Cossacks. Historically, Cossack self-understanding has shifted as the Cossacks’ social, political, and cultural situation changed. Prior to their incorporation into the structures of the Russian Empire, the Don Cossacks credited their own founding to a territorial grant issued by Ivan the Terrible, the arrival of fugitives from Russia, and an influx of female prisoners from the Ottoman Empire. This founding story was utilized by the Cossacks to argue their right to freely associate with the Muscovite Tsars. It also contributed to the vision of the Cossack land as a place of freedom, a view shared by Russian peasants, revolutionaries, and White guards alike. Cossack views of their past changed as the Russian state turned the Cossacks into a closed military caste and an instrument of state policy. Beginning in the 18th century, the Don Cossacks extended their supposed origins back into history well beyond the 16th century, thus distancing themselves from the rest of Russia. Many Cossack authors invoked a Cossack “national feeling” during the turmoil of the revolution and the Civil War. The neo-Cossack movement in the Russian south that emerged in the late 1980s stresses the so-called “genocide” of the Cossacks, allegedly pursued by Jews and their representatives in the Bolshevik leadership. At the same time, neo-Cossack leaders often utilize the “ancient” version of Cossack origins not shared by Cossacks elsewhere in Russia. The author reviews the two versions (linked to migration and indigenous) of the Cossack origins in historiography, focusing on the issues pertaining to “the Russian reconquista” of the Don region, ancient ethnic components in the origins of the Cossacks, and émigré visions of a separate Cossack “people” as well as on Soviet interpretations of Cossack history.