SUMMARY:

The article by Sergei Rumiantsev explores the relationship between contemporary political conflicts and the production and reproduction of maps of the ideal national homeland in public discourse and history textbooks in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. He argues that the map of ideal national homeland is an important symbolic instrument for inculcating a sense of nationhood in the post-Soviet South Caucasus. The analyzed maps are invariably based on a primordial understanding of nationality that serves to collate relevant pieces of historical geography. These maps are used by politicians and official experts to legitimize present-day conflicts and contest present-day political boundaries. The author then traces the historical evolution of the territorial sense of nationhood from the moment of the rise of modern national movements in the South Caucasus, and demonstrates how the modern national imagination and imperial map- and boundary-making exercise laid the groundwork for contemporary iconic images of the territorial nationhood of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, and their respective ideal national homelands.