ossetia geopolitical wtf continued

[maria_sputnik]

PART TWO -- THE SADNESS OF BEING AN INFINITESIMALLY SMALL BREAKAWAY REPUBLIC

As mentioned in part one, the topography of the Caucasus mountains naturally breeds microcultures, one of which is OSSETIAN! The Ossetians are an Iranic mountain people* who are predominantly Orthodox Christians. They like dancing, cheese pies, and -- like the Georgians

Comments

[maria_sputnik]

Well, there are other "separatist" entities in the Caucasus -- fr'instance Nagorno Karabakh which is in Azerbaijan but is mostly populated by Armenians, AWFUL WAR CITY. Then there's Chechnya. And there have been tensions between the Ossetians and the Ingush (some people think that the Beslan school massacre, which happened in North Ossetia, was designed to spark a kind of ethnic war between Ossetians and their Muslim neighbors). And that's just all I know about off the top of my head -- I suspect there's more.

Also, I think that the Ossetians have tried to rejoin each other a couple of times (in 1918 when Georgia seceded from Russia, and in 1989-92 when Georgia was, well, seceding from Russia) BUT there have also been times which were pretty kicked-back and there have been times of high intermarriage between the two groups.

My impression is that following Georgia's departure from the USSR, there was a constitution which the Ossetians and Abkhazians felt OK about, but then Georgia's leader was assassinated and replaced by Shevardnadze, and they got a new constitution which was perceived to be bad for minority rights (low autonomy of regions, lack of representation, low protection for minority languages and religions). ... I mean, it's kind of the same story as with Kosovo -- the Kosovars weren't always hell-bent on independence, I don't think -- it's that they didn't feel they were going to get their cultural rights respected under the Serb/Yugo govt. I BELIEVE the Abkhazian separatism comes from a fear of cultural assimiliation/lack of rights and that the Ossetian separatism comes more from desire for autonomy/unification but uh...I could be totally wrong here.

And the Ugyhers...man!