Socio-economic and military-political status of the Southwestern Caucasus on the eve of collapse of the Russian empire

The article considers the insufficiently studied factors of socio-economic and socio-political development of the Southwestern Caucasus during the revolutionary events of 1917 – early 1918, which served as prerequisites for the establishment of the democratic republics of the Caucasus. The indicators of socio-economic development of Kars Oblast on the eve of the Revolution were analyzed, which became a good foundation for its independence. The democratic ideals of the February Revolution contributed to raising certain hopes on part of the population of the areas in the Southwestern Caucasus to gain territorial and political autonomy. The revolutionary turmoil of 1917 caused the naturally expected growth of national movements in the Caucasus, and the Bolsheviks coming to power and then withdrawing from World War I created conditions to change the state-territorial status of the regions and provinces in the Caucasus. Under such circumstances, the creation of independent republics in the Caucasus was inevitable. The attitudes of the Provisional government, Soviet Russia, the Transcaucasian government and the Ottoman Empire to the territorial and political autonomy of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and Kars Oblast are shown in the article, as well as the struggle of various political and nationalist forces of the southwestern Caucasus for dominance in the region.

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