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SUMMARY: Focusing on the culmination of the Karabakh conflict in the so-called 44-day war of 2020 and the final liquidation of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh in September 2023, this article reconstructs the mechanisms of perpetual confrontation in 1988–1923. A product of the competing Armenian and Azerbaijani nationalisms during the late Soviet period, the territorial dispute over the predominantly Armenian-populated region of Azerbaijan formed a cultural mechanism that produced discourses of hatred and counterfactual historical claims. Both sides' fixation on the mythologized past made mutual understanding and compromise impossible, predetermining an equally antagonistic future. Cultural mythologies framed by tropes of Romantic nationalism became primary drivers of the territorial conflict in the late 1980s, when they proved their efficiency in nationalist mobilization. Today, political regimes in Armenia and Azerbaijan entirely rely on thus-produced national mobilization as the foundation of their legitimacy and authority, which makes the conflict insoluble. Today, it is not the contested territory that produces confrontation, but the need to sustain authority within the embraced format of national mobilization that necessitates constant disputes with the neighboring country.

SUMMARY:
The article by Sergei Rumiantsev explores the relationship between contemporary political conflicts and the production and reproduction of maps of the ideal national homeland in public discourse and history textbooks in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. He argues that the map of ideal national homeland is an important symbolic instrument for inculcating a sense of nationhood in the post-Soviet South Caucasus. The analyzed maps are invariably based on a primordial understanding of nationality that serves to collate relevant pieces of historical geography. These maps are used by politicians and official experts to legitimize present-day conflicts and contest present-day political boundaries. The author then traces the historical evolution of the territorial sense of nationhood from the moment of the rise of modern national movements in the South Caucasus, and demonstrates how the modern national imagination and imperial map- and boundary-making exercise laid the groundwork for contemporary iconic images of the territorial nationhood of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, and their respective ideal national homelands.

SUMMARY:
The article explores the revival of ancient epic poetry in post-Soviet nation-building. In particular, it focuses on the uses and abuses of the epic Kitabi Dede Korkud ("The Book of my Grandfather Korkud") by leading historians, especially the authors of history textbooks, in post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Applying mythological motives, the authors of history textbooks present the confrontation between Armenia and Azerbaijan as an eternal assault of the enemy-nation against the nation-sufferer. The epic Kitabi Dede Korkud emerged during the 10 th –11 th centuries as part of the verbal poetic tradition of the Oguz Turks in Central Asia, from where they resettled to Anadolu and the territory of present-day Azerbaijan. It describes the enemies of the Oguz at the time – the Kipchak tribes. In later versions, the collective image of Christians came to occupy the place of the Kipchaks. And with time the "Christians" evolved into Georgians. The article presents an overview of the scholarly study of the epic by such renowned figures as Bartold, Zhirmunskiy, and Badalov, who treated it as a piece of literature and a source on the nomadic Oguz lifestyle. The text of the epic is available in a 16 th -century version and is known in two manuscripts. The new Azerbaijan national history textbooks adapt the epic to the current political situation, giving preference to conflict with the Armenians. Legendary events are presented as real and are used to reconstruct the eternal "national" enemies (Armenians), friends (Turks), national values, ethnic genealogy, and territory (and to confirm the territorial pretensions of Azerbaijan). The author notes that it is difficult to say how successful the new textbooks are in circulating this ethno-centrist version of history. But one should not underestimate their impact on the formation of children's and teenagers' self-perceptions and group identity, in particular vis-à-vis neighboring regions.

Соглашения о реадмиссии, напрямую связанные с вопросами нерегулярной/ нелегальной1 Первый можно обозначить как межгосударственный. Речь идет о нынешнем положении дел на официальном (политическом) уровне, перспективах заключения межгосударственных соглашений о реадмиссии, а также о том, насколько актуальны эти вопросы в контексте политических процессов, происходящих в современном Азербайджане. и возвратной миграции, имеет смысл рассматривать из перспективы нескольких аналитических фокусов: Второй фокус – это проблема нерегулярной (нелегальной) миграции из Азербайджана и связанные с ней вопросы реадмиссии и возвратной миграции. Наконец, третий фокус - это проблемы нерегулярной/ нелегальной миграции в Азербайджан. ; Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM-East) is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union ; Russian version of CARIM-East 2013/06

Защита прав человека, особенно в контексте международных отношений, а также политика формирования гендерного равноправия (больше как внутренняя политика) - это два важнейших социально-политических контекста, в русле которых поднимаются вопросы и обсуждаются проблемы торговли людьми в Азербайджане. Следует подчеркнуть, что в качестве существенной проблемы, требующей серьезной реакции со стороны государственных институтов, проблема торговли людьми ("траффикинга") актуализируется с начала 2000-х годов. Связанно это со все более активным участием как государственных чиновников, так и представителей НПО в разного рода международных программах и соглашениях, а также принятием ряда обязательств на международном уровне, и т. д ; Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM-East) is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union ; Russian version of CARIM-East 2013/41

Sevil Huseinova and Sergey Rumiantsev suggest new ways to approach the political/nationalist conflicts that accompanied the dissolution of the USSR. In their research, they seek ways to overcome mythologizing, historicizing (rooting into the past), and essentializing narratives of the so-called ethnic conflicts, by changing the scale of their analysis from the macro level to a microanalysis. If the first approach presents political conflicts as a clash of homogeneous and coherent groups, the second approach is inspired by Rogers Brubaker's criticism of the "realism of the group." It privileges decentralized, nonstate and local mechanisms of everyday intra-ethnic cooperation along the lines conceptualized by James Fearon and David Laitin. This methodological approach is applied to the case study of a peaceful collective population exchange between two villages during the Armenian−Azerbaijani conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. The long-term research included participant observation and the collection of biographical interviews. As a result, the authors deconstruct the broad net of local interethnic cooperation that is usually invisible in a macro-level analysis. They trace the escalation of the conflict and its perception on a local level, the emergence of the idea of the population exchange and stages of its implementation, the changes in individual and collective understandings of belonging (to a territory, a region, a state, a nation), the transfer of collective traditional practices and rituals, and so on. Huseinova and Rumiantsev conclude that the Karabakh conflict, as many other similar cases that resulted from the dissolution of the USSR, should be analyzed as new and modern conflicts and contextualized at a micro level. Overall, their research undermines the validity of approaching the post-Soviet ethnic conflicts as having "resumed," as incidents of historical and lasting struggles and disagreements.

В контексте конфликтного дискурса фактор наличия в стране беженцев и вынужденных переселенцев становится важнейшим политическим ресурсом. Власть и оппозиция активно используют этот фактор в политической борьбе и для укрепления собственных позиций. При этом беженцев и вынужденных переселенцев как некой сколько-нибудь гомогенной группы вне политического дискурса не существует. За 20 лет беженская среда сильно дифференцировалась. Полноценное решение вопросов, связанных с данной категорией лиц, и их деполитизация возможны только в ситуации, когда Нагорно-Карабахский конфликт утратит свою актуальность. ; Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM-East) is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union ; Russian version of CARIM-East 2013/115

Что изменилось в постсоветский период в процессах образовательной эмиграции из Азербайджана? Безусловно, социально-политический и культурный контексты заметно отличаются от тех, которые существовали, например, в годы существования СССР. Между тем, нынешняя ситуация является прямым продолжением традиции отправки студентов за рубеж за «современным» знанием. Как и в предыдущие периоды, значительная (если не большая) часть интеллектуалов, получивших образование на «Западе», предпочитает эмиграцию возвращению в страну исхода. В этой связи надежды на успешный трансферт демократических ценностей в Азербайджан представляются сложно реализуемыми. Самым явным новшеством в постсоветский период становится активное вовлечение молодых людей, получающих/ получавших образование за рубежом, в политику диаспорастроительства. Последняя является частью политики азербайджанского политического режима по лоббированию своих интересов в странах ЕС, США и на постсоветском пространстве. ; Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM-East) is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union ; Russian version of CARIM-East 2013/87

Несмотря на столь масштабные миграционные процессы, официальная статистика фиксирует практически неизменный рост населения Азербайджана. Так, общая численность населения по переписи 1999 года составила 7 953. 4 млн. чел. По переписи 2009 года – 8 896. 9 млн. чел. Очевидно, что данная статистика строится без учета миграционных потоков. ; Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM-East) is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union ; Russian version of CARIM-East 2012/105

Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM-East) is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union

Reply to the CARIM-East AS2012/03, which comments on the CARIM-East RR2012/15 ; CARIM-East: Creating an Observatory of Migration East of Europe ; CARIM-East is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union.

CARIM-East: Creating an Observatory of Migration East of Europe ; This is the Russian version of CARIM-East RR 2012/43 in English. ; Проблемы иммигрантов в постсоветском Азербайджане в контексте процессов их интеграции в принимающее сообщество не были до сих пор в центре внимания исследователей. Предпринимая попытку анализа имеет смысл выделить три группы иммигрантов: 1) выходцы из Азербайджана (реэмигранты) и члены их семей; 2) этнические азербайджанцы из Грузии; 3) трудовые иммигранты из разных стран (ЕС, Турция, Индия, Пакистан и др.), прибывающие в страну с целью поиска работы или организации собственного дела. Условное выделение данных трех групп позволяет описать доминирующие тенденции в исследуемой области. Анализ, предлагаемый в статье, в основном основан на серии биографических интервью с иммигрантами из всех трех условно выделенных групп. Основной исследовательский вопрос следует, по мнению автора, формулировать следующим образом: каковы социальные ресурсы и практики, которые используют иммигранты в Азербайджане в целях интеграции в принимающее сообщество, в контексте отсутствия какой-либо целенаправленной государственной интеграционной политики. ; CARIM-East is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union.

Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM-East) is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union ; Russian version of CARIM-East 2012/35

Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM-East) is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union ; Russian version of CARIM-East 2012/106

SUMMARY:
The article reconstructs the dynamic appropriation of a historical personage as a national hero in a very distinct historical and territorial setting. The Persian-speaking head of an anti-Islam sect in Northern Iran in the ninth century and the leader of a powerful uprising against the Arab Caliphate, until the 1930s Babek had never been associated with the Turkic-speaking Muslim population of modern Azerbaijan. Yet, over the second half of the twentieth century, Babek became one of the key figures in the Azerbaijani national pantheon. In the late 1930s, Babek was praised by Soviet historians as a rebel of humble social origin. After the outbreak of the Second World War, he became even more important as a role model because of his leadership in the two decade-long fight with "Arab invaders." During the last decades of the Soviet regime, Babek appeared as an embodiment of the national Azerbaijani character in professional historiography, belles-lettres, and even in the movies and on stage. In independent Azerbaijan, where Islam and Turkic nationalism are serving as major components of national identity, the image of Babek has held onto its official status as a key historical figure, while its reception by different groups of the population is more nuanced. Some are skeptical about the cult of Babek because of his sectarian, anti-Islam ideology and non-Turkic origins. Still others embrace him as a great national hero despite these grave faults. Furthermore, a few ethnic minority groups in Azerbaijan put forward claims for Babek as belonging to their ethnicity and their ethnic territoriality. The figure of Babek has played a decisive role in the shaping of Azerbaijan as a homeland for the nation. However, Babek is losing his symbolic status for supporters of a different (pan-Turkic) principle of national mobilization, one that goes beyond the region of Azerbaijan and Northern Iran.