TRANSCAUCASIA, 19th century

The Caucasus region consists of three nations - Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan which have played crucial role in world history. But before the settlement of the three nations, there were numerous empires and nations crisscrossing these mountainous territories.

Starting with the Kingdom of Colchis in 1190 BC, the earliest Caucasian kingdom, it occupied the western borders on the Black Sea. In the 8th century BC, the Kingdom of Van or Urartu expanded from Turkey into today's Armenia. This was followed by the Scythian advancement in 7th century BC. In the 5th century BC, the Persian empire of the Achaemenids or Xšāça covered the western coast that was surprisingly untouched by Alexander the Great even after he defeated the Persians. 3rd century BC saw a couple of independent kingdoms such as Colchis, Iberia (not to be confused with the Iberian Peninsula) and Armenia. Interestingly, the Armenia of this era was quite away from modern day Armenia, and was mostly in eastern part of Turkey. Also by 89 BC, one of the states of Greater Armenia was also known as Albania. So this could be said that by this time, Iberia, Albania and Armenia existed but not at their today's locations.

With the arrival of Romans, Greater Armenia was now a part of the Roman Empire while the Caucasus was broken into smaller kingdoms such as Lazica, Iberia, Albania, Legae, Siraces, Vtii etc. For several centuries these territories would act as either independent kingdoms or vassal states to the Romans until the establishment of the two Islamic dominions - Khazar Khaganate and Umayyad Caliphate. From 7th century AD to 9th century, these two factions dominated the Caucasus. By 9th century several more smaller kingdoms sprung up such as Abkhazia, Svaneti, Hereti, Shirvan, Kakheti, Artsakh, Syunik etc.

It was the 11th century when Kingdom of Georgia was established. Even by this time, Armenia was still displaced between Iran and Turkey while small kingdoms occupied the Azerbaijan area. Soon the Seljuks would occupy the region which would be succeeded by Georgian expansion which lasted till the 15th century (with an intermediary phase of Mongol expansion). The post-Mongol era was the creation of Golden Horde that touched Caucasus borders below which the Timurids had now covered the entire region. Soon the Georgian Empire would shrink and again the Caucasus would be fragmented into various territories.

16th century saw expansion of the Russians while the Ottomans and Persians had already established below the Caucasus. By the 19th century the entire Caucasus would be now under the Russians and eventually, the USSR. But the disintegration of the Caucasus (administrated under Trans-Caucasus) was quite complicated with several disputed areas.

Artsakh and Nakhchivan are both de facto independent states but claimed by Azerbaijan. South Ossetia and Abkhazia are de facto independent states but claimed by Georgia. The troubled areas of Russia near the Caucasus - Dagestan and Chechnya, were once part of the greater Trans-Caucasus under the Russian Empire. Below here is a map of the Caucasus in the 19th century when the entire region was clubbed under Trans-Caucasus or Transcaucasia, which was also a short-lived independent state (known as Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic) in 1918 and a Soviet state between 1922 to 1936 (as Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic).