CENTREPEACE public lecture: “No War, No Peace? Rethinking Power, Violence, and the Prospects for Peace in the South Caucasus”
In mid-August, Zinaida Bechná will be lecturing at the University of Helsinki on the situation in the South Caucasus. One of her lectures, titled "No War, No Peace? Rethinking Power, Violence, and the Prospects for Peace in the South Caucasus," will also be streamed online.
The lecture is scheduled for August 12th (the semester in Finland starts about a month earlier than in the Czech Republic) at 3:00 PM Helsinki time (2:00 PM CET). It will be broadcast via Zoom. A link to the lecture will be available after registering on the University of Helsinki website [HERE].
The lecture is part of the CENTREPEACE project, which Dr. Bechná coordinates. In addition to the International Institute of Political Science at FSS MU and the Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki, the Peace Research Institute Oslo also collaborates on this project.
The South Caucasus is one of Eurasia's most strategically contested and fragile regions. Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine has further unsettled this volatile landscape and challenged long-held geopolitical assumptions. Dr. Bechná's lecture will explore whether the war in Ukraine could signify a shift toward sustainable peace or if it merely constitutes a transitional phase that will worsen the situation. The lecture will contribute to the discussion on how the current situation is reshaping the security architecture of the South Caucasus, leading to the escalation or de-escalation of "frozen" conflicts, as well as new, more widespread threats to stability. It will also contribute to the debate on how the changing balance of power is transforming the position of regional actors. Furthermore, it will address the strategic role of the European Union within an increasingly fluid and fragmented geopolitical order.
