The Eurasian Triangle. Russia, the Caucasus and Japan, 1904-1945

The Caucasus on the Eve of World War I Ë 71

Fig. 3.3.Members of the Georgian Student Association in Switzerland “Iveria” in commemoration

of the 350th anniversary of the University of Geneva: Seated in the center is its chairman, Leo Kere-

selidze; on his right, Giorgi Kereselidze; far left, Nestor Magalashvili with a banner in hand. Geneva,

1909.

tellectuals founded a secret political party Musavat (meaning “equality”), oriented to-

ward pan-Islamism and restoration of the “lost independence of Muslim countries.”⁷⁸

The Armenians went much further: they became a “mobilized nationality.”

Viceroy Vorontsov-Dashkov himself was pro-Armenian, especially in view of his us-

ing ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire against the sultan.⁷⁹His policies did not

always help, however, because they raised the suspicions of other Caucasian groups.

The conict with Muslim Azeris and the resentment of Georgians against the “material

and political power of the Armenians in Tiis and other Georgian cities” contributed

to making the Armenians a “mobilized nationality.”⁸⁰As a result, the Dashnaktsu-

78 See Ronald Grigor Suny,The Baku Commune 1917–1918: Class and Nationality in the Russian Revolu-
tion(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972), 18–19. See also Aidyn Balaev,Azerbaidzhanskoe
natsional’noe dvizhenie; ot “Musavata” do Narodnogo Fronta(Baku: Elm, 1992), 4–5.
79 Note his famous letter to the Tsar: “Pis’ma I.I. Vorontsova-Dashkova Nikolaiu Romanovu (1905–
1915 gg.).”Krasnyi arkhivno. 26 (1928), 118–120 (10 October 1912).
80 Ronald Grigor Suny,Armenia in the Twentieth Century(Chico, CA: Scholarly Press, 1983), 15.