The Southern Caucusus

6^th July 2023 THE SOUTHERN CAUCASUS - Denis Bacon

The countries of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia make up the countries of the southern Caucasus and lie between the northern and southern Caucasus mountains.   Based on an article on the 1915 Armenian genocide Denis decided to visit the country to see how it had developed. 

Many Armenians lived in nearby Turkey (then the Ottoman Empire) and by the mid 1900’s were leaders in many activities (banking, commerce, architecture, art, industry, sport) and were despised by the local population who treated the Armenians much as the Germans were to treat Jews prior and during WW2.

Turkey entered WW1 on the side of Germany and Armenia joined Russia and the allies. The fear in Turkey was that should the allies win the war Armenia might seize Turkey and would enforce Christianity upon the Muslim state.   The group called the ‘Young Turks’ decided to remove all Armenians from their country, resulting in 1.5 million Armenians being killed, many forced to walk into the Syrian desert to die.

The Caucasus is made up of a myriad of ancient tribes which has caused many issues in areas such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia (areas of Georgia) and Nagorno Karabakh (an area within Azerbaijan but 98% Armenian) who have sought independence.   Russia is the controlling influence in the area and when they are side-tracked by internal issues (fall of the Romanovs in 1917, breakup of USSR in 1988, COVID and Ukraine war which has caused large peacekeeping forces to be removed to the frontline) these breakaway areas see an opportunity to promote their position. Several wars have resulted at these times with the loss of many tens of thousands of lives being lost and little progress in resolving the underlying problems.

This was followed by a review of the countries flags and alphabets, views of the old and new elements of the capital cities, Baku (Azerbaijan), Tbilisi (Georgia) and Yerevan (Armenia), a comparison of Zoroastrians pagan ideals with those of Rotary today, the strong desire in Armenia and Georgia to restore and maintain their churches and monasteries, often deep in the countryside where they were unlikely to be found and destroyed by raiding armies over the centuries.  Finally covered the story of St Hripsime and St Greogory the Illuminator whose interlocking stories were strangely fundamental in Georgia becoming the 1^st Christian state in 301/12 AD.   Georgia followed in 323 AD.

I am told, from a reliable source, that this talk took the vote over a ‘social evening’!  What a blessing and what a cracking talk, very sorry I missed it! Mike W gave the Vote of thanks congratulating Denis on a well prepared item of history/ geography that Mike knew nothing about and the members joined him in an enthusiastic round of applause.                                             DB/AR