Untitled - OUDL Home

(cf. p. 52, note). In Transcaucasia, for the upper fewit brought from the first excellent opportunities, readilytaken, of service, often high service, in the Russian armyand administration; for the, largely Armenian, middleclassminority it brought expansion of trade and industry;for the many, some relative security and less oppressivetaxation. Above all, the Russian domination set in motionthe slow, painful, but ultimately liberating transition toa modern life.The new contacts with Russian civilization and theWest bore varied and positive fruit. Caucasia herselfhas left a rich and many-coloured mark on three generationsof Russian literature, 1 has contributed distinctivelyto Russian music, and has attracted a continuing lineof Russian scholars in many fields. The economictransformation of Caucasia has been due to Russia,begun under tsarism with the aid of Western skill andmoney, grandiosely revolutionized under the Sovietregime, with more and more active participation of theCaucasian peoples themselves. The rebirth of theGeorgians and Armenians took place under Russia, andthough this owed nothing to the heavy hand of tsarismneither people could have developed as they did hadthey remained under the far more erratic and benumbingrule of Turkey or Persia.There was no comparison between the Transcaucasia(or the North Caucasus steppes) of 1900 and that of1800, except that Georgians, Tatars, and Armenians stillpredominated and still were fatally divided. Populationhad greatly increased. The influence of Western scienceand capitalism was changing the life of much of thecountry. Railways had come: Batum was linked withBaku in 1883; and in 1900 by pipe-line (now doubled).The modern development of Baku oil and Georgianmanganese was well under way, like that of irrigation andthe various specialized crops of Transcaucasia to beimmensely extended under the Soviet five-year plans.1Most notably for instance in Lermontov's work, e.g. A Hero of OurTimes and some of his best-known poems, The Novice, The Demon,The Dispute (1839-41) (various translations, including B. L. Tollemache,Russian Sketches (1913)).295