Until the arrival of the Russian Empire in the early nineteenth century, the South Caucasus was traditionally contested by two Muslim empires, the Ottomans and the Persians. Over the following two centuries, Orthodox Christian Russia – and later the officially atheist Soviet Union – expanded into the densely populated Muslim towns and villages and began a long process of resettlement, deportation, and interventionist population management in an attempt to incorporate the region into its own lands and culture. Exploring the policies and implementations of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, Resettling the Borderlands investigates the nexus between imperial practices, foreign policy, religion, and ethnic conflicts. Taking a comparative approach, Farid Shafiyev looks at the most active phases of resettlement, when the state imported and relocated waves of German, Russian sectarian, and Armenian settlers into the South Caucasus and deported thousands of others. He also offers insights on the complexities of empire-building and managing space and people in the Muslim borderlands to reveal the impact of demographic changes on the Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict. Combining in-depth and original analysis of archival material with a clear and accessible narrative, Resettling the Borderlands provides a new interpretation of the colonial policies, ideologies, and strategic visions in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.

Farid Shafiyev holds a PhD from Carleton University and an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He lives in Prague.

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"An intelligent, original, and well-researched account of population movements in the lands encompassed by Armenia and Azerbaijan in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Shafiyev combines dispassionate analysis with clarity of writing to make a rare and valuable contribution to scholarship." Michael Reynolds, Princeton University

"This well researched study has an extensive bibliography and will be an invaluable resource for students and researchers interested in the South Caucasus and in ethnic conflict. Highly recommended." CHOICE

"Shafiyev convincingly shows how historical mines that had been laid beneath the relations between ethnic groups in the Caucasus by the tsarist and Soviet resettling policymakers exploded during the collapse of the Soviet regime. Modern homogenization measures of the Armenian ethnocentric nationalists on the occupied territories of Azerbaijan after the war over Nagorny Karabach is a sort of extension of the settling policy of their imperial and Soviet predecessors. This book is a great contribution to the understanding of the dramatic history of the Caucasus peoples." University of Toronto Quarterly

"Resettling the Borderlands offers an important perspective on a fascinating and little-studied topic that is intrinsically connected to the ideologies, strategic visions, and economic, political, and religious policies in the Russian empire." Michael Kho