Young People, Politics and Society in the South Caucasus

This article explores socio-political landscapes in the South Caucasus through lyrical sociology with an emphasis on memory, political positions and intergenerational relations. Focusing on young people, we leverage original quantitative and qualitative data. Armenian youth demonstrate the strongest generational continuity, the most positive view of the Soviet past and the imprint of a left-wing monolithic nation-building process. In Azerbaijan, memories of Soviet times are ambiguous, the generational rupture is mild and the national self-understanding reflects patterns of ‘civic dominion’. In Georgia, memories of the Soviet Union are mostly negative, the generational rupture is noticeable and the nation-building project is informed by multiple conflicting perspectives.