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Today, January 19,  is the first day of the Spring semester 2015. We are very happy to welcome all new students to our Caucasus Studies online courses:

• Caucasus Field and Case Studies;
• Post-Soviet Caucasus:Politics, Civil Society: Economy;
• Caucasus Studies I.

We look forward to working with you and wish you a successful and interesting semester!

Caucasus Studies staff at Malmö University

http://www.mah.se/caucasusstudies/courses

Lars Funch Hansen defended his PhD thesis The Circassian Revival: a quest for recognition on October 23 at the Department of Crosscultural communication and Regianal studies, Copenhagen University. The thesis focuses on the Circassians, a North Caucasian people that fiercely resisted the conquering of their lands by the Russian Empire in the 19^th century. Following their final defeat in 1864, most Circassians were forced into exile and today their descendants live in large diaspora groups in Turkey and neighbouring countries in the Middle East.

Having been the focus of the Russian and Western European romantic imagination in the 19^th century, in the 20^th century the Circassians fell into nearly complete oblivion. In Soviet times the remaining small Circassian communities in the North Caucasus were divided into Adygs, Cherkess and Kabardians. Having lived in authoritarian societies with restrictive minority policies over several generations, in recent decades Circassians
have been experiencing a revival which comprises the main focus of the thesis. Lars Funch Hansen sets out to explore the conditions of this revival and the ways in which Circassians both in the North Caucasus and in the diaspora are being mobilized to participate in it. In the author’s own words, the main aim of the thesis is “to unveil, present and discuss the rising transnational revival of the Circassians” (p.9) which emerged in the mid-1990s and continues today.

Photo: Supervisor Helen Krag giving a speech to Lars Funch Hansen at the reception after the defence

PhD Committee:
– Ildikó Bellér-Hann, Associate Professor, ToRS, University of Copenhagen (Head of PhD Committee)
– Wulf  Köpke, Professor, Direktor des Museums für Völkerkunde, Hamburg
– Karina Vamling, Professor of Caucasus Studies,  Malmö University

Photo to the left: Lars Funch Hansen and the 1810 map of the Caucasus, presented to him by Helen Krag 

The Circassian Revival: A Quest for Recognition. Mediated transnational mobilisation and memoralisation among a geographically dispersed people from the Caucasus is the title of the PhD thesis that will be defended by Lars Funch Hansen on October 23, 13.00 at the Faculty of Humanities, Copenhagen University.

Lars Funch is known to Caucasus Studies students from lecturing at the course module “The Caucasus region: Causes and consequences of migration”.

Caucasus Studies at Malmö University invites you to take part in two web seminars on May 30 and 31. You are welcome to participate in the seminar room on campus in Malmö or to sign up as an online participant and follow the seminar on live video and chat (details below).

1. What makes the Caucasus an area?
May 30, 13.30-15.30, room 107, Citadellsvägen 7, Malmö University

2. Why does the Caucasus host so many separatist conflicts?
May 31, 10.15-12.00, room 408, Citadellsvägen 7, Malmö University

In the first seminar we will discuss our understanding of the Caucasus as an area — as an object of area studies. The Caucasus has a long tradition of being described as a geographic region, but what other perspectives determine this area: culture? geopolitics? history?

Invited speakers in the panel — representing diverse disciplines such as Linguistics/Anthropology, Political Science and History – approach the question: Prof. Kevin Tuite (Friedrich-Schiller University, Jena/Montreal University), Frederik Coene (EEAS, Brussels) and Dr. Oliver Reisner (Delegation of the EU to Georgia). Introduction: Prof. Karina Vamling, Malmö University.

The second seminar focuses on the striking development in Post-Soviet Caucasus of the outbreak of a number of violent separatist conflicts.

The issue is discussed by Prof. Pål Kolstø, Institute of East European and Oriental Studies, University of Oslo, and Dr. Märta-Lisa Magnusson, Dept. of IMER, Malmö University. Introduction: Prof. Bo Petersson, Malmö University.