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casian peoples and the creation of the common Caucasian narrative, which
would reflect the influence of the political conjuncture and aspiration towards
introducing some changes in the existing situation of the Caucasus is obvious.
Obviously the Caucasian peoples share too much, but these common charac-
teristics were shadowed in the post-soviet period and they were substituted
with conflicts and contradictions, part of it being the result of the soviet
legacy, the soviet national politics (mass deportations, exiles, artificial demar-
cations of boundaries between the union republics and autonomous struc-
tures, purposeful change of the demographic balance, etc.) while others have
got much more deeper roots.
Historical textbooks are another type of narratives which have a strong
influence on the formation of the collective memory. “Historical textbooks
are considered as one of the important sources of the formation of the na-
tional identity and historical consciousness. On their basis pupils get the im-
pression on their nation and on its place in history, as well as they are
provided with perception of their neighbors” (Stojanovic, 2001). In the soviet
era history teaching was conducted according to the Union program, by the
textbooks written in Moscow first and later translated into the titular lan-
guages of the soviet republics. The main subject was “History of the Soviet
Union”. It was the united soviet historical narrative on which the collective
memory based on the common past of the Soviet people should be formed. In
reality, “The History of the Soviet Union” was the history of Russia with minor
additions of the historical sketches from the history of the Soviet peoples. Its
starting point was not the victory of the Revolution and the establishment of
the Soviet rule, but it covered the period from the ancient times till the mod-
ern era. The Soviet textbooks were the testimony of the statement that the
selection of the information for the secondary schools and their systemati-
zation were an ideological process, being in service of the interests of the con-
crete class and social group (Podeh, 2001).
Several cases of the failure of the creation of the common Caucasian nar-
rative for the formation of the collective memory in the post-Soviet period
clearly point to the serious hindrances in this respect. For example, in 1997,
the project called as the “Tbilisi Initiative,” was financed by the Council of Eu-
rope aimed at the creation of the common history textbook of the Caucasus
with participation of historians from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and the
Russian Federation. The working process lasted for several years with no re-
sults: interpretation of histories were too diverse and different; the experi-
ence of the common past, preserved in the collective memory, did not manage
to overlap the historical grievances, territorial pretenses and mutual allega-
tions, accumulated in the memory. Forgetting the relativity of the historical
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verity each part stood as a guard of its own truth. Each of them created their
“own” histories of the Caucasus. It worth’s to mention that as more distant
past was the matter of discussion, the more severe debates followed and mu-
tual agreement was impossible.
As R. Karagiozov mentions, in this case the collective memory won over
the representation of the history in that form, which was envisaged under the
project. The same is much true for the case, when collective memory won on
the Soviet version of the history of the Soviet Peoples, looking for the estab-
lishment of the brotherhood and unity (Garagozov, 2005). The attempt of the
actualization of the common Caucasian narrative did not succeed.
The creation of the common Caucasian narrative is seriously hindered by
the tradition of ideologization and mythologization of the national histories.
Overcoming of this experience is met with the serious resistance of the col-
lective memory, i.e. stereotypes, beliefs, etc. (Исмаилов, 2005). Besides, until
nowadays the Marxist formational methodological frame maintains its dom-
inant positions, with an accent on the economic and political development. It
has not vacated the place for the methodological pluralism yet; although quite
often neglected verbally it often appears in the form of mixture alongside with
the other approaches (mostly with local-civilizational one). The strong polit-
ical determination of history is one of the main obstacles to the overcoming
of the collective memory and creation of the common narrative. And the third
obstacle serves to be the “schematic narrative templates” offered by J.Wertch,
called “matrix” by Mark Ferro. The Georgian, Azerbaijanian and Armenian
types of the templates were studied and analyzed by R.Karagiozov. Not sur-
prisingly, they are essentially different from one-another. Alongside with
other factors, the collective memories of these peoples were also reflected in
them, complicating the process of creation of the common schema during the
attempt of creation of the common narrative.
Thus, the creation of the common Caucasian narrative remains to be an
unfulfilled aim so far. As for the idea of the united Caucasus, is serves to be the
so called “useful myth”, historians serving as its guardians, as Karl Beker men-
tioned (Becker, 1932).
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