Russian-Turkish Rivalry in the South Caucasus: the Historical Evolution of Political and Economic Interests (late 19th century - 2024)

The article explores the Russian-Turkish rivalry in the South Caucasus in 1877–2024, offering a six—stage periodization – from the "railway wars" to the sanctions "renaissance of corridors". The combination of neoclassical realism with the concept of energy regionalization is complemented by correlation, network, and text-mining analysis of 620 press releases, BP statistics, and archived telegrams. The author identifies a cyclical matrix of "military leverage infrastructure project cultural legitimation" and a semantic shift from "energy security" to "transport sustainability" after 2016. The risk asymmetry has been proven: Russia incurs political costs, Turkey accumulates market benefits. Scenario modeling until 2030 highlights the criticality of the Zangezur corridor and the possible effect of Iran's withdrawal from sanctions. Practical value — recommendations on the corridor parity fund, unification of e-CMR and ESG projects of universities. Novelty: combines the neoclassical realism of R. Rose with the "energy regionalization" of M. Kayords, interpreting pipelines as an institutionally filtered tool for redrawing borders. Empiricism: correlation of Brent price and Russian–Turkish visits; The growing centrality of Kars; a discourse analysis of 4,300 releases records the replacement of "energy security" with "transport stability" after 2016. The scientific novelty of the work consists in integrating multi—format data – pre—revolutionary archives, Soviet protocols, modern energy statistics and an array of digital press releases – into a single analytical array, which made it possible to quantify the evolution of Russian-Turkish cooperation. It is shown for the first time that the frequency of the term "transport stability" after 2016 exceeded "energy security" by 2.3 times; The centrality of the Kars node in the corridor network increased from 0.32 to 0.68. The findings confirm the cyclical matrix of "power impulse – infrastructure – culture" and the risk asymmetry between the supplier and the transit country. The methodological combination of correlation, network, and agent-based modeling expands the research tools of energy geopolitics. The forecast developed by cross-impact shows that without the Zangezur corridor, the payback of TANAP-2 is not guaranteed, and Iran's potential reintegration is capable of redistributing gas flows and transit rents.