Oleg BUBENOK

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Oleg Bubenok, D.Sc. (Hist.), chief researcher at the Department of Historiography and Source Studies of the A. Krymsky Institute of Oriental Studies, National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine (Kiev, Ukraine).

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THE OSSETS IN THE SOUTHERN CAUCASUS: NATIVES OR NEWCOMERS?

ABSTRACT

This article takes a look at the formation of the Ossetian ethnos in the Southern Caucasus. The author attempts to analyze the different approaches to this issue, particularly those relating to the ethnogenesis and identification of the Ossets, and to coordinate these processes with possible ways to settle the South Osset-Georgian ethnopolitical conflict.

Introduction

Since the end of the 1980s, the whole world has come to know South Ossetia as a place where the Ossets and Georgians are caught in an ethnic conflict. Today, not a single state (apart from the member states of CIS-2, which are unrecognized themselves) recognizes the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia (Respublikzh Khussar Iryston—Osset.). The “frozen conflict” situation that developed there after the “combat phase” became the topic of heated discussions at that time. This requires scientific research of the historic roots of the Ossets’ colonization of the Southern Caucasus in the context of their autochthony.

On the Concept “South Ossetia”

The population of South Ossetia consists of Ossets, Georgians, and other ethnic groups, whereby Ossetian and Georgian population settlements are situated side by side. The armed conflict at the……………

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