Societies in Transition

The Caucasus and the Balkans between Conflict and Reconciliation

Contributions by Despina Angelovska Contributions by Eva-Maria Auch Contributions by Fernando Avakian Contributions by Sanja Ćopić Contributions by Michael Humphrey Contributions by Mariat Imaeva Contributions by Ekaterina Klimenko Contributions by Sonja Arsham Kuftinec Contributions by Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović Contributions by Michelle Veljanovska Contributions by Jovana Janinovic Edited by Carolina Rehrmann Edited by Rafael Biermann Edited by Phillip Tolliday Series edited by Martin Leiner

Book cover: Societies in Transition

Extent: 351 pages

Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Subjects: Religious Studies, Social Sciences 

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(January 2020)

ISBN: 9783525522066

6.3 x 9.33 inches

Price: $188.00

In stock

As yet unprecedented studies of the Caucasus and the Balkans aimed at reconciliation


Since the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions have been faced with multiple upheavals of interethnic violence, bloody secessions and ethnic cleansing. Up to the present, both regions are confronted with unresolved border, minority and security issues, matters of recognition, protracted traumata and claims for justice. After the fall of the iron curtain, simmering ethnic tensions turned into hot wars that created new states, new power-political hierarchies and a heritage of violence. Reaching back to the early 1990s, several international and national transitional justice measures have been applied to face these heritages and lay the foundations for a common future. For the former Yugoslavia, they range from broad criminal trials to a series of restorative justice mechanisms; in the North and South Caucasus they encompass numerous mediation measures and primarily restorative justice efforts.The present volume is concerned with strategies of conflict resolution and prevention subsumed under the concept of reconciliation. It aims at understanding the socio-emotional root causes of political cleavages and daily realities of (post-) conflict societies, especially regarding the impact of competing narratives and unprocessed pasts on exclusive identities and strategic political choices. Applying reconciliation theory, insights from collective memory and transitional justice to a series of selected field studies, it sheds light on the origins of interethnic violence, aims at finding explanations for the fact that many of the above-mentioned conflicts have become intractable and discusses the chances and challenges for transforming interests, emotions, perspectives, roles and identities between and within the respective societies.

  • Contributions by Despina Angelovska
  • Contributions by Eva-Maria Auch
  • Contributions by Fernando Avakian
  • Contributions by Sanja Ćopić
  • Contributions by Michael Humphrey
  • Contributions by Mariat Imaeva
  • Contributions by Ekaterina Klimenko
  • Contributions by Sonja Arsham Kuftinec
  • Contributions by Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović
  • Contributions by Michelle Veljanovska
  • Contributions by Jovana Janinovic
  • Edited by Carolina Rehrmann
  • Edited by Rafael Biermann
  • Edited by Phillip Tolliday
  • Series edited by Martin Leiner