PEDAGOGIES OF SPACE: (Re)Mapping National Territories, Borders, and Identities in Post-Soviet Textbooks

Abstract

Nagorno-Karabakh is caught in a terse tug-of-war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. South Ossetia, also in the south Caucasus, is a fuse for conflict between Georgia and Russia. Transdniester, on the eastern border of Moldova, likewise remains an unrecognized breakaway state. Clearly, battles over borders and disputes about space-who it belongs to and who belongs to it-continue to rage in the vast territory of the former Soviet Union. Since the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1991 a host of new states have asserted manifold, sometimes explosive, claims to their territory, their home. Such claims have been central to geopolitical disputes and scholarly research.