Temizkan: Russia historically viewed Caucasus as military base

Temizkan: Russia historically viewed Caucasus as military base

Russia has historically viewed the Caucasus primarily as a military base, seeking to consolidate its presence, suppress local peoples, and subjugate them.

Professor Abdullah Temizkan, head of the Department of Turkic World History at the Institute of Turkic World Studies at Aegean University in Türkiye, made the statement at the conference "Cultural and Ethnic Diversity: Lessons of History, Contemporary Challenges."

According to him, to achieve these goals, a policy was pursued aimed at dividing the peoples of the region, pitting them against one another, and isolating them.

"The main advantage the peoples of the Caucasus had over the Russian army was their excellent knowledge of local geography. However, their main disadvantage was the lack of a unified, centralized political organization. The Russian administration systematically exploited this weakness," he said.

Temizkan noted that the peoples of the Caucasus resisted one of the worldchr("39")s largest empires for nearly a century.

"The foundation of this resistance was a way of life adapted to local geography, strong social solidarity, and a desire for independence. (...) Therefore, to understand the Caucasus, it is necessary to consider not only the geopolitics of states, but also local societies, their culture, their relationships with the environment, and to consider all these factors together," he added.