Authors
Ivan Ulises Kentros Klyszcz1; 1 University of Tartu, Estonia Discussion
Whilst today a part of Russia, the North Caucasus has had a long trajectory of state- and region-building that reaches well before the Russian conquest. These processes have been driven by endogenous and exogenous factors, and their cumulative effects. This paper deploys North Caucasus and Russian history to aggregate and analyse the effects of region-consolidation of Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino Balkaria and North Ossetia-Alania in terms of the internal and external autonomy of these entities. Starting from the pre-conquest period (XVI-XVIII centuries), the paper offers a periodisation of region-formation in the North Caucasus, highlighting changes its main administrative features and borders. In other words, this paper sketches out a history of a selection of North Caucasus polities based on their administrative and not 'national' evolution. This approach offers a new perspective into state formation in contested mountainous regions, especially those at the peripheries of empires. It also offers an insight into the formation of territorial autonomies in (former) continental empires. 
