This dissertation tells the story of how Russian strategies of imperial rule changed as a result of tsarist officials' efforts to expand their empire over the Caucasus in the long nineteenth century (1762-1918). Central to this work is the assertion the Caucasus represented a frontier zone where multiple empires competed. From this insight, it examines how Russia contributed to the expansion of extraterritorial privilege for itself as well as its rivals in the Ottoman and Persian Empires, and how this extraterritorial authority furthered Russia's imperial reach toward the Caucasus. Rather than closing the Caucasus off from outside intervention, it argues that Russian officials opened it further to foreign missionaries in an attempt to realign the Caucasus' spheres of influence. Officials continually reshaped the Caucasus political economy with similar goals in mind. Although they did not succeed in remaking the Caucasus at the center of the global economy, as some officials intended, they brought it more firmly into the Russia's own political, economic and cultural orbit.;By expanding Russia's reach into the Caucasus, tsarist officials opened Russia up to the world in new and unintended ways. Caucasus inhabitants had adapted to living on the frontier zone, where multiple empires competed, by using the variety of ecological, imperial and legal spaces to their advantage. While tsarist officials did modify those long-standing patterns of transregional negotiation, they could not eliminate them. Instead they pursued alternate strategies of rule that should challenge our most fervently-held assumptions about the nature of the Caucasus, Russia and empire-building.
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