Hello, again
My dear friend's, I've made this page because, I think as many people will now more about me and Georgia it will help them for understanding what is Georgia and what kind of people live there...
The Caucasus was known to the ancients in reference to various myths. It was there that Prometheus was chained to a rock. The Argonauts sailed to Colchis (western Georgia) in search of the Golden Fleece. The Caucasus was also known to the Arabs as "The Mountain of Languages". It is still inhabited by a variety of peoples, speaking dozens of languages. This diversity results from the geographical location of the region, at crossroads of various civilizations and of large migration movements, and from the terrain, which allowed people taking refuge there to live in isolation and to preserve their distinctive cultures.
Christianity was introduced to Georgia in the 4th century AD, supposedly by a woman named Nino, who lived in Eastern Georgia. A Georgian script was developed to help the diffusion of Georgian orthodoxy, which spread widely and was adopted in other Georgian kingdoms to the east. The most prosperous period of Georgia's history stretches from the 10th to the 13th century. Georgia became a strong Christian state in the region under David the Builder (1089-1125). He unified the Georgian kingdoms for the first time and expanded Georgia's territory. Under Queen Tamar, Georgia was much larger than today. In addition to the current Georgian territory it covered Armenia, Daghestan and the town of Trabzon in Turkey. Under her reign, the Georgian culture flourished.
Georgia's golden age ended abruptly with the invasion of the Mongols in the 13th century. Its territory was split in three kingdoms, Kartli, Kakheti and Imereti. After the fall of Byzantium in 1453 new principalities emerged in Samegrelo (Mingreli) and Abkhazia, while another strong principality, Samtskhe, got incorporated and Islamized by the Ottoman Empire. However, invasions were nothing new on the Georgian territory and the four centuries of stability were rather an exception for Georgia. Throughout its history, Georgia was sacked during conflicts between various peoples and empires. It was invaded successively by the Persians (BC), by the Romans (3rd century BC), by the Muslims (7th century AD), by the Mongols (13th century AD ) and Tamerlane (end of the 14th century AD). It then became the scene of Turko-Persian wars.
The king of Kartli-Kakheti, Irakli II, sought Russian protection against the Muslim threat in 1783. At that time, Russia had just started its conquest of the Muslim Northern Caucasus and was interested in getting a Christian stronghold in the region. But in 1795, when the Persians sacked Tiflis (Tbilisi), Russia failed to help its protégé. In spite of this treason, Irakli's successor, Giorgi, concluded a treaty with Tsar Pavel to obtain Russia's protection. According to this agreement, the Georgian kingdom was to remain autonomous, to preserve its autocephalous Church and to be ruled by local kings under Russian lordship. But in 1801, Tsar Alexander I, who had succeeded Pavel, violated the treaty and transformed the kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti into a Russian province.
The Tsarist period was a time of conquest and unification of the Georgian kingdoms and principalities. In 1801, the Russian Tsar annexed the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti. From 1804 to 1810, Russian soldiers conquered the kingdom of Imereti. However, the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus, among them the Abkhaz, rebelled between 1830 and 1864. Many of them left for the Ottoman empire to seek protection. The Russian troops acquired other territories by defeating the Turks: Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki in 1829, Kars, Ardahan and Batumi in 1877. But even after the pacification, a term used by Russians for subjugation, uprisings were quite common among Muslim as well as Christian peoples of the region.
Georgia's territorial administration was reorganized under the supervision of a viceroy. The Georgian society, almost entirely feudal, was radically transformed. The landed nobility lost its strength. Many princes entering the Russian military service, became Russianized. The Russian government tried to Russianize the region through colonization, but only few Russians settled in Georgia. Among them were religious dissidents, the Dukhobors and the Molokans, who still live in Southern and Eastern Georgia. If educated Georgians spoke Russian, the masses continued to use their original languages.
In resistance to Russian rule, two movements developed. Ilia Chavchavadze, considered the founder of Georgian nationalism, lead the movement fighting for the civil and cultural rights of the Georgians. With the beginning of industrialization in Georgia, socialist ideas also became influential. The socialist movement divided into a legalist and a radical wing, based on the question of the participation of socialists to bourgeois governments, subject of the Marxists' debate in Russia. The Georgian socialists lead by Noe Zhordania backed the Mensheviks' legalist view, while Joseph Stalin, another Georgian socialist, supported Lenin and the Bolsheviks' radical position.
Prolonged and bloody, WW1 was partly responsible for the ensuing Revolution in Russia in March 1917. A provisional government replaced the tsarist administration in Petrograd and soviets emerged all over the Russian empire. In Tbilisi, the Georgian Mensheviks, under the leadership of Zhordania, took control of the city Soviet. They supported the central Russian government and the prolongation of the war as long as the Turks threatened Georgia's southern border. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, demanded peace at any price on the external front, demobilization and the transformation of the imperialist war into a domestic war. In November 1917, the Bolsheviks took power in Petrograd. To prevent anarchy, until an all-Russian constituent assembly would meet to establish new legitimate institutions, the Georgian Mensheviks and their Armenian and Azeri neighbours created a Transcaucasian Commissariat.
The course of events pushed the Transcaucasian leaders to act independently from the central government. In reaction to the disintegration of the Russian Caucasian army and to the Turkish advance, they negotiated an armistice with the Turks. This relative stability soon broke down. With the signature of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Bolshevik Russia and Germany in March 1918, the Bolsheviks ceded the districts of Kars, Ardahan, Batumi, Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki to the Turks and the Caucasian army started to withdraw from the Turkish front. In spite of the Armenian resistance, it was clear that Transcaucasia had no means to repel the Turks. Under Turkish pressure, a Federative Republic of Transcaucasia was proclaimed independent in exchange for peace and for its recognition. However, the disagreements between the Azeri and the Georgians and Armenians put an end to the Federation only five weeks after its creation. Germany offered Georgia diplomatic recognition and its protection against Turkish invasion, in exchange for the exploitation of raw materials and railroads. Georgian representatives accepted and declared the Georgian Democratic Republic's independence on May 26, 1918.
In this period of independence, the Georgian Menshevik authorities started to implement land reform and to nationalize mines, railroads, etc. They were further challenged by the need to impose law and order. Some peasants were not satisfied with the land reform and several uprisings occurred in Mingreli, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Menshevik leadership in Tbilisi sent the People's Guard, the party's armed forces, to crush the revolts. The intervention was extremely violent and it has left a bitter memory of Georgia's first independence in these regions. In 1920, the Bolsheviks in North Ossetia organized an uprising in South Ossetia. The Georgian authorities were well aware of the Bolshevik implication, but Georgian newspapers also emphasized the insurgents' Ossetian origins. The People's Guard was sent to "punish the traitors", as stated by their commander.
In the first months of its independence, Georgia was under German protectorate, but still threatened by the Turks who were present in Batumi. The Ottoman empire recognized Georgia's independence after Tbilisi had accepted the loss of Akhalkalaki and Akhaltsikhe and permitted the Turks to use Georgian railroads. But a few months later, Germany and its allies, among them the Ottoman empire, lost the war. The Germans withdrew their troops from Georgia, leaving the young state uncertain of its future. Georgia turned to the Entente for preserving its independence, but the Entente's interests were limited to protect the Caspian oil and use the Caucasus as a bulwark against Bolshevik Russia. Therefore the British limited their presence to Batumi and its oil terminal. After the Turkish troops withdrew from the southern districts of Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki in November 1918, Georgians and Armenians started to fight for this territory, mainly populated with Armenian refugees from the Ottoman empire. Only a British intervention brought the fighting to an end.
In the Northern Caucasus, the 11th Red Army lead by Sergo Orjonikidze, a Georgian Bolshevik, defeated the White Army under the command of the tsarist general Denikine, then progressed southward. A Bolshevik government came to power in Baku and fighting broke out between the Red Amy and the Georgian People's Guard on the Georgian-Azeri border. While Russia had to fight on the western front against Poland, the invasion into Georgia was delayed and a peace treaty was signed in which the Russian government recognized Georgia's independence in May 1920. In return, Georgia accepted a secret agreement to allow the Bolsheviks to operate on its territory. The British removed their troops in July 1920, despite the threat of the approaching Bolsheviks. In February 1921, Stalin and Orjonikidze precipitated the 11th Red Army's invasion of Georgia, against Lenin's will. Georgia capitulated in March and the government went into exile. There was no reaction from the western powers. The brutal suppression of Georgia's independence has left a strong anti-Russian and anti-Soviet resentment in Georgian minds today.
On May 21, 1921, Georgia signed a treaty with the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and became a Soviet Socialist Republic. The Bolsheviks soon were alone in leading the country's administration. The regional organ of the Communist Party, the Kavburo, headed by Orjonokidze, tended to impose its centralizing policy on the Georgian authorities. The economic structures of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were integrated and in February 1922 the three republics merged into a Federal Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of Transcaucasia (FUSSRT). Georgia entered the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) through the FUSSRT in December. All the structures built during Georgian independence had disappeared.
Furthermore, three autonomous territorial entities were created in Georgia: Ajaria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. These autonomous territories had no right to secede from the Union Republic. The Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) of Ajaria, populated by a majority of Muslim Georgians, had been created in a Russo-Turkish agreement tracing the border between the two states in October 1921. The Turks accepted to leave Batumi, but in return, Ajaria was to receive autonomous status. The Turks also obtained the right to supervise over Ajaria, if and when they judged their national interest was menaced. The Abkhaz ASSR was named after the Abkhaz people, despite the fact that they were a minority in their territory. The status of Abkhazia was not very clear and it remains a point of quarrel between historians in Georgia. After the conquest of Georgia, the Bolsheviks created an Abkhaz Soviet Socialist Republic, recognized two months later by the new Georgian authorities. In December, Abkhaz and Georgian authorities signed a treaty of alliance giving Abkhazia a status of "treaty republic" associated with Georgia. It entered the FUSSRT in 1922 with the Georgian SSR, and when the Federation was dissolved in 1936, Abkhazia became an ASSR within the Georgian SSR instead of recovering its position as a Soviet Socialist Republic. South Ossetia was created as an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Region in 1922. Nevertheless, the majority of the Ossetian people lived in the RSFSR, where a North Ossetian ASSR was created.
Under Stalin, Georgia was steadily transformed. From a basically peasant country, it became an urban society, industry being an important sector in the Georgian economy. The ethnic Georgians dominated the administration, although the republic still possessed large non-Georgian minorities. In spite of a significant economic growth in the 1920s, Georgia, all of the USSR, suffered the terrible consequences of Stalin's policies in the 1930s. The forced collectivization of agriculture lead to famine. The great purges also cost a huge number of human lives. Orchestrated in Georgia by Lavrenti Beria, first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party from 1931 to 1938, the arrest and execution of the so-called people's enemies made consolidation of the local elite impossible for a long time. During WW2, the human losses were heavy, not only in the Red Army, but also as the result of deportations. In 1944, about 95,000 Meskhetians, a Turkish speaking Muslim people who lived on the border between Georgia and Turkey, were accused of being Turkish spies and deported to Central Asia.
After Stalin's death in 1953, one of the most striking changes was the decentralization of political and economic decision-making. The arrest of Beria, then head of the Soviet secret police, put an end to the supremacy of the police over the party. The members of the Georgian Central Committee, under Beria's absolute control, were dismissed. A new first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, Vasily Mzhavanadze, was elected and he dominated Georgia's politics for the next nineteen years. The decentralization and the long tenure of Mzhavanadze strengthened local political elites. Furthermore, the Georgian tradition to rely on close family and personal connections and the reluctance to betray one's relatives and friends favoured the development of a highly corrupt system. The networks tended to follow ethnic lines and reinforced the Georgian's power in Georgia. The minorities were especially concerned about the growing Georgian hegemony and they started to develop their own ethnic networks, in particular among the local elites in Ajaria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Soviet authorities did not tolerate expression of Georgian nationalism, despite the evidence that it was growing. In 1956, young Georgians demonstrated their national pride by celebrating Stalin's memory. They felt humiliated by Khruschev's revelations on Stalin's crimes and did not believe him guilty, rather ascribing these crimes to others. The Soviet troops bloody repression of the protests clearly indicated that the party was not ready to give up its monopoly of power.
In 1972, Moscow appointed Eduard Shevardnadze to the post of first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party. His task was to improve economic performance by reducing both corruption and nationalism in Georgia. Mzhavanadze's allies were purged from the Georgian Communist Party. The campaign against ethnic networks particularly threatened the local elites in Ajaria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Abkhaz tried to secure their privileges and asked Moscow to include their right to secede in the new Soviet constitution of 1977. They only obtained some concessions concerning their cultural autonomy. In the meantime, the elaboration of a new Georgian constitution in 1978 gave rise to large demonstrations of Georgians protesting against a clause providing for the removal of Georgian as the sole state language. This revealed that Georgian nationalism was potentially a force to contest the authorities' policies. But if this kind of protest was more or less tolerated, dissent was isolated and repressed. In 1977, nationalist dissidents, among them Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who complained about the treatment of various Georgian architectural monuments, the theft of religious treasures and the deportation of the Meskhetians, were sentenced to prison and exile.
When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, Shevardnadze was appointed Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union. The new Soviet leadership initiated a program geared to economic growth, breaking the international isolation of the Soviet Union and encouraging the development of a socialist democratic society. This last point favoured the open and critical expression of the relationship between the ruling class and the people, and dissent was no longer condemned. Nationalism proved to be the most powerful means of protest and it was transformed into a mass movement in early 1988. In Georgia, the numerous parties and associations who emerged in the late 1980s, as well as the Georgian Communist Party, lead by Jumber Patiashvili, were mainly preoccupied with the large number of minorities in the republic's periphery and the Georgianization of the institutions. The minorities anxiety was not taken into account and their fears of assimilation were even exacerbated by discriminating measures, like a law prohibiting the participation of regionally based parties in the first multipartite elections. In reaction, the National Forum of Abkhazia, demanded the secession of Abkhazia and the South Ossetian Popular Front asked the Soviet authorities to discuss the unification of North and South Ossetia within the RSFSR.
Georgia's drive for independence turned radical after 9 April 1989. On that day, demonstrations against Abkhaz claims to secede turned into a pro-Georgian independence meeting. Soviet troops intervened, killing some twenty people. A few months later, the Georgian Supreme Soviet declared Georgia's sovereignty and the first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party announced that the restoration of independence was a top priority. The first multipartite parliamentary elections held in October 1990 were won by a coalition of nationalists, Free Georgia - Round Table, lead by Gamsakhurdia. A non-communist government was formed, started to transform the institutions, removed the supremacy of the all-Union laws over the republics' laws, and changed the flag, the hymn and the republic's name. The radical anti-Soviet policy of the government isolated Georgia from its neighbours, which had disastrous consequences for its economy.
Gamsakhurdia's pro-Georgian and anti-Soviet policy alienated the minorities. Its government developed a theory of minority rights based on the assumption that those minorities with a relatively recent history of settlement in Georgia were not allowed to benefit from the same rights as the others. Especially concerned were the South Ossetians. Like the Abkhaz, South Ossetians sought protection of their rights in Moscow, asking for the upgrading of their territorial status and for secession from Georgia to unify with the Russian Federation. The Georgian government didn't take the fears of these minorities into account, as it considered that their claims were stirred up by Moscow to block Georgia's path to independence. When South Ossetia held its own parliamentary elections after having boycotted the all-Georgian parliamentary elections, the Georgian parliament cancelled these election results and removed South Ossetia's autonomous status. Violent fighting broke out in the region in December 1990.
In strict opposition to the Soviet central authorities, the Georgian government called for the population to boycott the referendum on the Treaty of Union, which proposed a new organisation of the USSR. However, in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, people did participate. They agreed with the preservation of the Union in its new form, considering that this was the best way to protect their rights from Georgian abuse. A referendum on Georgia's independence was held two weeks later. In conformity with the results, the Georgian parliament declared "the restoration of the independence of the state of Georgia" on April 9, 1991, the second anniversary of the violent repression of April 9, 1989. Gamsakhurdia was elected president of Georgia on May 26, another symbolic date, the declaration of Georgia's first independence in 1918. Nevertheless, Georgia had to wait until the break-up of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the creation of a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Gorbachev's subsequent resignation, to be internationally recognized as an independent state.
As his government proved incapable of managing the situation, Gamsakhurdia's dictatorial leadership was tolerated less and less by the opposition. On December 22, his opponents launched an attack on the parliament building. The president fled to Western Georgia after ten days of fighting in the centre of Tbilisi, and a Military Council was set up to replace the government. Gamsakhurdia's supporters, the "Zviadists", organized an armed resistance in Mingreli, Western Georgia, and a civil war was waged for almost two years. In need of legitimacy, the putschists invited the former Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze to return to Georgia. He was appointed chairman of a State Council in March 1992. His international eminence put an end to Georgia's international isolation and the country was soon admitted to the UN. Elected chairman of the parliament and head of state in october 1992, Shevardnadze had the difficult task of leading Georgia to political and economic stability.
The former party chief had to manage a situation of anarchy. The country's integrity was threatened by a civil war and a separatist conflict in South Ossetia. In June 1992, a cease-fire agreement was signed between the Georgian, Russian and Ossetian authorities. However, soon, a new separatist conflict broke out in Abkhazia. After one year of fighting, the Georgian forces were defeated by the Abkhaz units. The Zviadists took advantage of the situation to launch an attack. To prevent Georgia's dismemberment, Shevardnadze was forced to request Russian military assistance and agreed to have Georgia enter the CIS. The predominant role of the Russian Federation in the region was finally admitted. The relative normalization in Georgian-Russian relations was also essential for Georgia's economic stabilization. Shevardnadze was elected as president and a new constitution entered into force in late 1995. The crucial problem for the Shevardnadze government remains the settlement of the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the subsequent displacement of 280,000 people.