Apparu entre le IIIe et le début du Ier siècle avant notre ère, un pouvoir royal établi à Armazi-Mc’xet’a exerça jusqu’au VIe siècle de notre ère un rôle pivot dans l’histoire de l’ancienne Caucasie, à la charnière de l’Empire romain, de l’Iran et des terres sarmates. Le pays où s’exerçait leur pouvoir, l’Ibérie, amalgamait divers peuples et communautés autour du cours moyen du fleuve Koura, au débouché de la passe du Darial. Composant avec les rivalités dynastiques, le morcellement ethnique, la pluralité des langues et la diversité des cultures, les rois d’Ibérie firent preuve d’une remarquable capacité d’adaptation pour assurer leur emprise territoriale, affirmer leur légitimité et trouver une place de choix dans les réseaux d’alliances transnationaux. Le système politique ibère établit une relation d’équilibre entre l’aristocratie et la cour à travers une diarchie associant le roi et son pitiaxe. Entrée dans l’orbite de Rome après l’invasion de Pompée en 65 avant notre ère, la royauté ibère construisit durant trois siècles un partenariat avec les dirigeants romains qui n’était cependant pas exempt d’ambivalence. Les années 260 de notre ère marquèrent un tournant capital dans l’évolution du pouvoir royal ibère, lorsque l’emprise grandissante des Sassanides instigua un changement dynastique au profit des Mihranides. Dans un contexte d’effervescence spirituelle mettant en concurrence divers courants religieux, les rois ibères décidèrent progressivement de confessionnaliser leur pouvoir. Au début du Ve siècle, l’invention d’une première forme officielle d’écriture géorgienne illustra ce nouveau consensus politique et religieux voulu par une royauté devenue chrétienne. / Since its appearance between the third and the beginning of the first century BCE, a royal power established in Armazi-Mc‘xet‘a exercised until the sixth century CE a pivotal role in the history of Ancient Caucasia, at the hinge of Roman Empire, Iran and Sarmatian lands. The country where their rule was exercised, Iberia, amalgamated various peoples and communities around the middle course of Kura River, near the Darial pass. Composing with ethnic division, linguistic plurality and cultural diversity, the kings of Iberia developed a remarkable capacity of adaptation to ensure their domination, assert their legitimacy and find their place in the transnational networks of alliances. The Iberian political system established a balanced relationship between aristocracy and the royal court through a diarchy associating the king and his pitiaxēs. Entering the orbit of Rome after the invasion of Pompey in 65 BC, Iberian kings shaped during three centuries a partnership with Roman leaders, however not without ambivalence. The decade 260s CE constituted a major turning point in the evolution of royal power in Caucasian Iberia, insofar as the growing grip of Sasanians instigated a dynastic change in favour of the House of Mihranids. In a context of spiritual effervescence putting in competition several religious currents, the Iberian kings gradually opted for a confessionalization of their rule. At the beginning of the fifth century, the invention of a first official form of Georgian writing illustrated this new political and religious consensus established by a kingship converted to Christianism.

This study attempts to analyze the evolution of the ENP in Southern Caucasus during post- Vilnius era. With contributions of the recent history, it aims to find out how these evolving policies affected the region from the competing theories perspective. It's seeking an answer to whether or not "initially neoliberal" strategy of ENP is designed to transform the region into a space with stability. While doing this, effectiveness of the ENP and multidirectional contributions it brought to the region is discussed. Neorealist and neoliberalist assumptions made for assessing the ENP's practices in the region. The thesis is methodologically supported with Congruence Analysis, which qualitatively enables us to observe theoretical developments based on multiple cases. Drawing on the main challenges to ENP's initial strategy, main hypotesis argue that neorealist assumptions are prevailing over neoliberalist assumptions, which can be shown as an outcome of the ENP's evolving policies in post- Vilnius era.

This master thesis deals with the mapping and analysis of Russian-Georgian relations in the period between 2004-2011. It focuses primarily on the development of relations after the onset of the new Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and after his transformation of Georgian Policy. The work is divided into chronological historical axis of events, from the history of Georgia and Georgian people, the author gets to the problems of August war in 2008. The main objective of this work is to find the causes of the war between Russia and Georgia, to map out its long-standing hostile relations and try to find its solutions. Starting point of this work is the assumption that Georgia and Russia have always been nations culturally very similar and therefore its friendly relations are essential for the regulation of conflicts on Georgia's borders. Russia as a powerful neighbor, has always had a superiority over Georgia. Therefore, in subsequent chapters is enhanced the need for intervention by international organizations such as NATO, OSCE, EU, etc. issues in Russian-Georgian conflict, in order to offset the forces of power on both sides. In the last chapters the thesis deals with the intervention of the international community, whether their pressure on Russia will be still intense and if in the future...

After the fall of the Soviet Union a number of violent ethnic disputes were concluded through the establishment of ceasefires but have yet to be finalized through peace accords. This development resulted in the creation of de facto states in a setting known as ‘frozen conflicts’. These de facto states have managed to endure decades of unrecognition, stuck in a situation of “no war, no peace” and constitutes today “effective” political entities. The post-war development in these frozen conflicts has continuously surprised academia, defying pessimistic prediction of their sustainability. Following the positive, hybridized peace etymology laid out by Oliver Richmond, this thesis aims at exploring the peace- and state processes that has occurred during the Nagorno Karabakh peace process in order to explain the ambiguous developments that have been going on despite the limbo-like state of unrecognition. The relation between external and internal processes is interrogated through a periodization of key events, and thereafter a comprehensive analysis of how the processes relate to each other over time. The thesis concludes that the strong presence of identity politics regarding the historical Nagorno Karabakh favors the often violent and protective state formation process but is at least partially controlled by the international attempts at peace building. Local formations of peace do not allow for a reintegration of Nagorno Karabakh into Azerbaijan, at least not without explicit and extensive security and autonomy guarantees. Likewise, the external processes of peace and state building does not allow for local agency from Nagorno Karabakh, as it is viewed through a negative ontology of peace. The processes does provide some rather successful developments, as the almost finalized Land swap deal and the Madrid principles, but lacks the momentum of conquering the dominance of perceived or actualized violent state formation processes.

The aim of the present paper is to answer the question on how do regional powers shape the security environment within their regional subcomplex? The research interest is conditioned by the rise of powers that represent strong actors, especially in regional affairs, and which certainly influence dynamics within their region. It has been assumed that the manifestation of power at the regional level can also be transferred, to the global level leading to an elevated position of these actors in global affairs, allowing equally for the existing Western-led order to be challenged. These assumptions have been applied and tested on the example of the regional powers Russia, Turkey and Iran and their respective influence on the security dynamics in the South Caucasus as their historically common shared neighbourhood. In order to disentangle the complicated web of relationships and influential factors, the descriptive framework of the Theory of Regional Security Complexes as suggested by Barry Buzan has been outlined and applied. Based on these theoretical observations the attention has been further turned towards the empirical testing of the hypothesis which states that Russia, Turkey and Iran have exercised influence during the second Nagorno-Karabakh War 2020 that occurred between Armenia and Azerbaijan...

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Long-term human-environmental interactions in naturally fragile drylands are a focus of geomorphological and geoarchaeological research. Furthermore, many dryland societies were also affected by seismic activity. The semi-arid Shiraki Plain in the tectonically active southeastern Caucasus is currently covered by steppe and largely devoid of settlements. However, numerous Late Bronze to Early Iron Age city-type settlements suggest early state formation between ca. 3.2-2.5 ka that abruptly ended after that time. A paleolake was postulated for the lowest plain, and nearby pollen records suggest forest clearcutting of the upper altitudes under a more humid climate during the Late Bronze/Early Iron Ages. Furthermore, also an impact of earthquakes on regional Early Iron Age settlements was suggested. However, regional paleoenvironmental changes and paleoseismicity were not systematically studied so far. We combined geomorphological, sedimentological, chronological and paleoecological data with hydrological modelling to reconstruct regional Holocene paleoenvironmental changes, to identify natural and human causes and to study possible seismic events during the Late Bronze/Early Iron Ages. Our results show a balanced to negative Early to Mid-Holocene water balance probably caused by forested upper slopes. Hence, no lake but a pellic Vertisol developed in the lowest plain. Following, Late Bronze/Early Iron Age forest clear-cutting caused lake formation and the deposition of lacustrine sediments derived from soil erosion. Subsequently, regional aridification caused slow lake desiccation. Remains of freshwater fishes indicate that the lake potentially offered valuable ecosystem services for regional prehistoric societies even during the desiccation period. Finally, colluvial coverage of the lake sediments during the last centuries could have been linked with hydrological extremes during the Little Ice Age. Our study demonstrates that the Holocene hydrological balance of the Shiraki Plain was and is situated near a major hydrological threshold, making the landscape very sensitive to small-scale human or natural influences with severe consequences for local societies. Furthermore, seismites in the studied sediments do not indicate an influence of earthquakes on the main and late phases of Late Bronze/Early Iron Age settlement. Altogether, our study underlines the high value of multi-disciplinary approaches to investigate human-environmental interactions and paleoseismicity in drylands on millennial to centennial time scales.

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The present thesis examines probably the ultimate focal point in the history of the Christian South Caucasian Cultures – the Caucasian Schism that occurred in the early seventh century – a major scandal that ended the ecclesiastical communion between the Georgian and Armenian Churches and gave impetus to the rise of the so-called national Churches. The schism became the central point of reference in both medieval and modern Caucasian historiographies. Modern scholarship has advanced different claims concerning the nature, reasons and results of the Schism, in many cases arguing that almost all aspects of the respective cultures have been affected by the Schism. As for medieval Armenian historical narratives, they made a good conceptual use of the schism, presenting the schism as a major interpretive schema for the explanation of all aspects of their relations with their northern neighbours. Contrary to such view, I argue that our knowledge of the reasons behind the schism and theological controversies that preceded, accompanied or followed the Schism in the sixth century is in most cases determined by the conceptual framework created in the Middle Ages together with the changes in political state of affairs in the Caucasus. In the period between the tenth to thirteenth centuries, when all major South Caucasian powers were struggling for the unification of the Caucasus under their aegis, the remembrance of the schism became particularly important. The remembrance and indeed forgetting of the Caucasian unity and separation became a rhetorical tool in medieval Armeno-Georgian debates. Therefore instead of taking the Schism at face value, I propose to abandon the traditional liminalist perception of the history of unity and separation in the Caucasus, and adopt a more rewarding approach, that is to say to try to understand when, why and by whom were the crucial events of the Late Antique Caucasian history conceptualized and adapted for contemporary ideological needs.