Independent Scholar
Degree: PhD
zareliz777@gmail.com
This paper will outline the growth and characteristics of the new technology and infrastructure that appeared in the North Caucasus while it was under the control of the Russian Empire. It will look primarily at means of transportation (roads, railroads, steamships) and communication (print culture, mail delivery, telegraph lines) and pockets of industrialization to sketch the emergence of new forms of economic, intellectual and political life in the region during this era of rapid industrial and technological advancements. As far as the limited available sources will allow, the paper will evaluate 1) the ways these new phenomena tied the North Caucasus to the Caucasus region and to other parts of the Russian Empire; 2) the degree to which different demographic groups (native inhabitants, settlers and external actors) reacted to and benefitted from the introduction of the new technology and infrastructure to the region; and 3) what sort of impressions these developments made on the indigenous inhabitants of the region, specifically with regard to multiple overlapping and, at times, disharmonious or antagonistic, identities. It explores how these changes contributed to the harmonies and tensions that arose within and between individuals and groups identifying with various categories of shared belonging: ethnic or national, all-Russian, religious, local, class, regional, etc. translate this into georgian