Transcaucasia

The article deals with a scaraboid-seal with the Hebrew inscription found in the Sarmatian burial of Chebotarev V burial ground in the Lower Don area, and published in this journal. Contrary to the opinion of the publishers, on the basis of a detailed analysis of the form, material and framing decoration of the seal, the author comes to the conclusion that the attribution of the seal as belonging to the governor of the Arad fortress is not proved, as well as the hypotheses about how, the seal, 600 years after it was cut out, appeared in a nomadic burial. A different approach to the solution of the problem of the appearance of a seal is suggested: the analysis of the ancient Near Eastern seals found in the burials of the Middle Sarmatian period (Kosika, Sokolova Mogila, Tbilisskaya; taking into account the find discussed the total of 6 specimens), which were antiquarian objects at the time of burials. There are reasons to assume that Near Eastern seals (cylinders, conoids, a scaraboid) could found their way into the burials of the nomadic elite as a result of robbery of the sanctuaries in the Transcaucasia, where they were kept as votives.

Цель работы – определить главные эстетические характеристики творчества Параджанова и понять их в культурном, гeoполитическом и духовном контексте жизни кинорежиссёра, а также по вертикали времени, в контексте истории земли
и народов, где жил и под влиянием которых он находился. Работа расшифровывает постмодернизм Параджанова и его тайное сопряжение с глубинными духовно-религиозными ценностями и особенно с христианством, опровергая теории о принципиальном религиозном индифферентизме постмодернизма и открывая способности Закавказской цивилизации отвечать вызовам постмодернистского мира.
The study presents the main concepts of Parajanov’s cinematic poetics,
which is deeply bound with the filmmaker’s Weltanschauung: a mixture of
ancient, medieval and modern civilizational models, of Oriental and Western, Christian, Islamic and pagan patterns of behaviour, of mythic-archaic, soviet and postmodern anthropological models, that melt together in harmony only in the unique topos of Transcaucasia.

Georgia, the oldest Christian-orthodox country in the world, gained
the infamous glory to give mankind one of its most ferocious tyrans: Iosif
Vissarionovici Stalin. But also Georgia was one of the first and most
combative outposts of the anticommunist struggle. Georgians' deep spirituality, their love for freedom and beauty and their stoutly patriotism reflected in cinema. After the Soviet Cultural Thaw, two great Caucasian filmmakers succeeded through their brave confession, to break ideological canons and to impose themselves beyond the borders of the Red Empire in the arena of world cinema.

For all its strategic importance, the South Caucasus remains relatively unknown in the "western" scholarship. By reconsidering the historical role of the first democratic republics of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan in 1918-1921, this project seeks to integrate the region into the mainstream of modern European history.

The article presents the establishment of Soviet-Turkish relations in the postwar period, when both – Soviet Russia and the Turkish National Movement were in isolation and facing same threats. Their common interests prepared the ground for negotiations and “bridging” cooperation through the geostrategic region of Transcaucasia, which at that period could be used as a “place d’armes” by the Great Powers against Soviet and Turkish governments. The article investigates the process of sovietisation of the Republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in order to cease the influence of Entente and build a stable “bridge” for transferring Soviet material support for Turkish National Movement.

During the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age the lands around the Lake Sevan basin witnessed the emergence of a distinctive local culture, marked by characteristic burial practices , abundant metalwork and varied pottery production generally called the " Lčašen Culture ". It was named after the numerous finds from the village of Lčašen, but its features are spread throughout the lake basin also seen in neighbouring regions. Its intriguing nature has attracted the attention of numerous scholars, and different interpretations, as well as definitions, have been proposed. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the main archaeological features of the Lčašen Culture, with particular reference to its landscape archaeology , burials and material culture.

The paper represents a compilation of selected US intelligence community materials related to the unrest in Soviet Transcaucasia from 1988 to 1991 which were declassified and released to the US National Archives and Records Administration for public use.

This paper represents a brief overview of the materials held at the US National Archives and Records Administration and the US National Security Archive pertinent to the nationalist manifestations in three Transcaucasian republics of the Soviet Union from the 1940s to the 1980s.

Based on the results of the last Soviet census of 1989 the numbers of the core and enlarged Jewish populations for the Soviet Union as a whole, as well as for the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus are presented. The mass emigration of the 1990s exacerbated the already existing severe aging and the sex imbalance, thereby aggravating the negative Jewish vital balance and intensifying mixed marriage. The analysis has revealed the important role of the negative vital balance in Jewish demographic decline in Russia and in the FSU as a whole. After 1989 many Jewish demographic indicators (including some of the most important ones) in the FSU countries worsened more significantly than in the entire previous thirty years. In the Russian Federation, the research showed great differences between Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Russian provinces in the rates of Jewish population decline since 1989, and shows that the most rapid demographic decline was among St. Petersburg’s Jews. The analysis also shows great differences between Jews of different Ukrainian regions in propensity to emigrate and in rates of Jewish population decline in the period 1989-1998. The numerical decrease of Jews in the Ukrainian capital Kiev was dramatic.