Introduction

Located between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, the Caucasus is home to many nationalities and dozens of separate languages and dialects from three entirely distinct language families. Confronted with this bewildering linguistic abundance, medieval Arab geographers referred to the region as jabal alsina (the mountain of tongues). Both Shiʿi and Sunni populations live here.

Music, dance, and poetry are so deeply …