Karabakh and more broadly the Caucasus region were examined in several panels at the annual Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) convention held May 4-6 at Columbia University in New York.
Arsène Saparov of the University of Sharjah spoke on “Re-negotiating the Boundaries of Permissible: The National(ist) Revival in Soviet Armenia and Moscow’s Response.” Saparov is author of a key recent work on early Soviet Karabakh history “Why Autonomy? The Making of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region 1918-1925.”
Daniel Pommier of Sapienza University of Rome presented on “Wilsonian Azerbaijan: the Azerbaijani Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in the Topçubaşov Archives,” drawing on the archives of a key figure in the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic of 1918-1920.
Maxim Tabachnik of the University of California, Santa Cruz discussed “Nation-Building in the Face of Frozen Conflicts in the Caucasus: Politics of Territorial Citizenship in Azerbaijan and Georgia,” and Jane Kitaevich of the University of Michigan sought to answer the question “Do Frozen Conflicts Render States Less Accountable?: Re-Examining The Foundation of Social Contract through Public Goods Provision in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.” The latter research was supported by the USC Institute of Armenian Studies.
The Institute fellow Karena Avedissian served as discussant in a panel on minorities in the Caucasus and presented on “Learning from Failure: Social Movement Formation in Kabardino-Balkaria,” a republic in Russia’s Caucasus.
