RELIGIOUS FACTOR IN THE FOREIGN POLICY OF GREAT STATES IN THE CAUCASUS

Abstract

In modern times, the Caucasian region is one of the hotspots in the world. Great states use various factors to maintain their geopolitical interests in the Caucasus today and along with politic, ethnic, military ones, religion factor is still one of the important factors in this struggle. Today, some conflicts existing in this region have political and some of them have also religious characteristics. The article has been dedicated to the geopolitical struggle for domination in the Caucasus among Russia, other regional states, Britain, and France late in the 18^th-first half of the 19^th century. Russia, which had been actively involved in the Caucasus since the early 18^th century, managed by the end of it to squeeze the Ottoman Empire out of the Northern Black Sea littoral and the Northern Caucasus. The British Empire, Russia’s uncompromising rival, sought ways and means to check Russia’s progress in the Caucasus. London pinned its hopes on Scottish missionaries prepared to move to the region from Edinburgh.