Verkehrswege in Kaukasien: Ein Integrationsproblem Des Zarenreiches 1780-1870 Hardcover - 2016

From the publisher

English summary: The conquest and integration of the Caucasus into the Russian Empire lasted an entire century. At the request of the Christian nations of Georgia and Armenia, leaguered hard by their Muslim neighbors to the South, the Ottoman Empire and Persia, Russia began expanding over the ridge of the Central Caucasus. In 1801 Russia incorporated the kingdom of Eastern Georgia, controlling only a single mountain route which led to her new territory. For many years the Georgian Military Highway remained the sole link between Russia and Georgia, constantly threatened by the elements and by mountain tribes which had not yet been subdued by Russia. The Empire continued to conquer ever more parts of the Caucasus, while, at the same time, waging wars against the Ottoman Empire and Persia. Civil engineers from Russia, among them numerous Western Europeans, fought for decades against both the nature and bandits on the highway. Initially, Russia was not able to profit from this expansion, but nevertheless continued her push to the south. She tried to subdue the unruly mountain peoples in the west and east of the Central Caucasus by pushing military lines towards them and resettling or expelling some of those tribes. During that earlier period of conquest and integration, the construction and maintenance of roads was paramount: not only for military campaigns against the mountain tribes, but also during the wars against external neighbors. Around the middle of the 19th century the situation changed. Russia began efficiently integrating most of her Caucasian possessions into the Empire and to pacify the remaining mountainous area. The first issue required further road construction and the extension of political, economic and social infrastructure. The second she achieved by changing military strategy, which also required military highways. For these ends Russia had to invest a great deal of men, money and time until she eventually could profit from the territory in a colonial sense. Thus she performed acts of a civilizing (Christian) mission, which had been the original motive for expansion and became a political and moral pretension for her. With the pacification and integration - and partly also the expulsion - of mountainous Muslim societies largely achieved in the second half of the 19th century, the search for additional passages over the Central Caucasus came to a gradual end while internal traffic was extended by stage-coaches and later by railroad construction. The unremitting necessity of roads for warfare in a fragmented territory lacking infrastructure made for lines of transit which were named military highways. Some of them served exclusively military ends. Although some have since lost their function, others, which were created, extended or improved by Russian engineers, kept their importance owing to their economic function. By the end of the 19th century the whole of the Caucasus acquired the traffic network as it exists still today in Transcaucasian space, which again is politically, socially and economically fragmented. This network stands as the great achievement of Russia's benevolent mission in the 19th century. With the few exceptions of ancient trade routes in the South Caucasus, i.e. parts of the Silk Road, at the start of the century there were hardly any modern. Lastly the modernization of the Caucasus under Russian rule became a European story, in which a great number of non-Russian experts in Russian service took part, as engineers, administrators, scientists and politicians. German description: Seit Russlands Ausgreifen uber den Grossen Kaukasus dauerte es ein Jahrhundert, bis das Zarenreich ganz Kaukasien unterworfen und integriert hatte. Anlass fur dieses Ausgreifen waren Hilferufe der christlichen Volker der Georgier und Armenier, die von ihren muslimischen Nachbarn im Suden, dem Osmanischen Reich und Persien bedrangt waren. 1801 verleibte sich Russland das ostgeorgische Konigreich ein, das nur durch eine Gebirgsstrasse mit der nordlichen Schutzmacht verbunden war. Fur lange Zeit, wahrend Russland weitere Teile Kaukasiens eroberte, blieb diese Georgische Heerstrasse die einzige Verbindung, die durch Natureinflusse und zunachst auch durch nicht unterworfene Bergbewohner standig gefahrdet war. Russische Verkehrsingenieure, darunter sehr viele Westeuropaer, kampften hier gleichzeitig mit der Natur und mit Raububerfallen. Zunachst vermochte Russland aus der Expansion keinen Nutzen zu ziehen. Wirtschaftliche und politische Experimente misslangen, aber auch kolonialistische Versuche, die sudliche Zone zu einem Rohstofflieferanten und Guterimporteur herabzudrucken. Erst als in der Jahrhundertmitte unter dem weitsichtigen Statthalter und geschickten Organisator Furst Voroncov die Entwicklungsmoglichkeiten erkannt wurden, traten die vormodernen Gesellschaften in die Neuzeit ein. Fur Russland bedeutete das vor allem einen weiteren Ausbau der Infrastruktur in die Flache: fur die Anbindung des Postverkehrs, zur Erschliessung der Rohstoffe und nicht zuletzt in Hinsicht auf neue Waffengange mit dem Osmanischen Reich. War noch zu Beginn des 19. Jh.s Kaukasien durch Gebirge kleinflachig strukturiert und von Mensch und Natur gefahrdet, so entwickelte es sich mit dem Ausbau des Verkehrsnetzes zu einem modernen Wirtschaftsraum, in dem die indigenen Volker ihr nationales Selbstbewusstsein entdeckten. Als um 1860 der letzte Widerstand unbotmassiger Bergvolker gebrochen war, begann mit der Industrialisierung und dem Bahnbau ein neues Zeitalter. Trotzdem kam es aber auch jetzt nicht zu einer weiteren Verbindung uber den Grossen Kaukasus, obwohl vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg die Planungen fur eine Eisenbahn im Gebirge reiften. Im Gegenteil, die Befriedung des Raumes, der Bahnbau und die Entwicklung der Seewege schrankten im spaten Zarenreich den weiteren Strassenbau uber das Gebirge ein. Nur in Notlagen hatte Russland in der kriegerischen ersten Halfte des Jahrhunderts Altern