Ossetiya: Land of Uncertain Frontiers and Manipulative Elites
Author(s)
Birch, Julian
Abstract
One of the many ethnic groups in the Caucasus region, the Ossets coexisted with their neighbors, the Georgians and the Ingush, until the Russian Civil War. Under Soviet rule, borders between ethnic groups and perceived property lines became blurred. After the breakup of the Soviet Union relations between the Ossets and the Georgians deteriorated. In the late 1980’s the Georgians began practicing ethnic cleansing against the Ossets, followed by Ossetian reprisals. As a result, the various ethnic groups in the Caucasus began to concentrate their populations in particular areas, making the region less of a heterogeneous mix of peoples and more of a mosaic. However, the problem remains of how to ensure the rights of the minorities in this situation.
