Pan-Caucasianism is a political current supporting the cooperation and integration of some or all peoples of the Caucasus. Pan-Caucasianism has been hindered by the ethnic, religious and cultural diversity of the Caucasus, and frequent regional conflicts. Historically popular during the Russian Civil War, Pan-Caucasianism has formed a part of the foreign policy of Georgia and Chechen militants since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In the North Caucasus, the idea has largely manifested itself as a proposed North Caucasian confederalism based on Pan-Islamism since almost all groups in the North Caucasus follow Islamic faith. It has been argued by the political organisations such as the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, the Caucasus Emirate and others. In Georgia, however, competing and more all-encompassing concepts have existed. These differences have occasionally manifested themselves in violent clashes between the two, such as the participation of the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus in the 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia against Georgia. First Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia favored nativist conception of pan-Caucasianism, arguing in favor of cooperation among native peoples of Caucasus based on shared Ibero-Caucasian languages, excluding non-native peoples considered to be alien to the Caucasus. Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev also shared this conception of pan-Caucasianism. Others have argued in favor of cooperation among all peoples of the Caucasus based on perceived common geopolitical interests.
Historically, attempts to integrate various Caucasus states have proven to be short-lived. The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic collapsed after Georgia quit because of irreconcilable foreign policy differences with the other parties. Subsequent attempts to integrate Georgia into a similar regional entity led to a major political crisis in the Soviet leadership since Georgian Bolsheviks considered this to be an attempt to limit their independence. In the 1990s, Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia favored regional alliance between native peoples of the Caucasus; however, he was soon overthrown, so the "realisation of the idea of Caucasianness...has never gone beyond the declaratory level or imaginative projects..."
Historical examples
The medieval Kingdom of Georgia has sometimes been described as a pan-Caucasian empire. During Georgian–Seljuk wars, Kingdom of Georgia managed to liberate whole Caucasian territory from Seljuk Empire and unite the entire Caucasus under single political entity.
In the North Caucasus, Pan-Caucasianism has been linked by Abkhaz politician and historian Stanislav Lakoba to the Caucasian Imamate and the Caucasian War. The Caucasian Imamate, led by Imam Shamil, notably united the disparate ethnic groups of the Northern Caucasus into a singular political formation, which was used to wage a twenty-year guerrilla war against the Russian Empire.
20th century
Russian Civil War and USSR
Niko Nikoladze envisaged the creation of a free, decentralized, and self-governing federation of the Caucasian peoples based on the principle of ethnically proportional representation.
The idea of Caucasian federation within the reformed Russian state was voiced by the some ideologues of Georgian social democracy.
During the dissolution of the Russian Empire and the Russian Civil War, multiple pan-Caucasian states briefly came into existence, though such states did not coexist for any longer than a few years. The most notable pan-Caucasian projects during the Civil War were the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic and the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus.