Abstract

Following recent efforts to view Soviet continuities with the imperial past, this article charts urban transformations in three cities of the Caucasus: Tbilisi, Baku and Yerevan. Through critiquing late Soviet architectural historiography in these geographies, as well as 19th-century imperial travel accounts, the article establishes the interpretative tropes that still affect the consideration of these cities by scholars of architecture and urbanism. It then puts forward its argument that a consistent imperial design- that is, consistencies in approach to architectural style as well as the use of architecture to establish imperial power, order, and difference, were implemented by Tsarist and Soviet regimes in these cities, despite assertions of difference in the historiography. This approach came from Tsarist modes of architectural education, urban regulation, and orientalism, but continued in Soviet nationalities policies that merged 'indigenous' styles with neoclassicism. The article upholds that further reconsideration of the urban histories of these cities within a comparative framework is essential to reexamining the significance of Soviet nationalities policies for local cultural production in the Caucasus.