ABSTRACT
The collapse of central power in the Russian Empire 1917 left the peoples of the Caucasus alone in the midst of the havoc of the Great War. While political elites were forced to detach the region from Soviet Russia, they simultaneously realized that Transcaucasia could survive only in unity, and thus formed first a Commissariat and then a Federation. Yet geopolitics, the shared imperial legacy, the economic prognoses, the complex ethnic demography, and the existing boundary disagreements ultimately made federation impossible. Nevertheless, the victorious Allies of the Great War saw their interests in the Caucasian “package”, advising that a Federation or a Confederation be created in the region. This article examines the geopolitical significance of the discourse surrounding this proposed Caucasian and Transcaucasian federation/confederation.
