In August 2008, Georgia attempted to embark on a path toward the European Union. Although deeply conservative, Georgians began to move closer to the two Western blocs, the EU and NATO. Then, Russia’s military invasion of South Ossetia put an end to the former Soviet republic’s ambitions. Europe and NATO did nothing. Six years later, the same thing happened in the much larger and closer Ukraine: the country was on its way to joining the European Union when a failed pro-Russian coup attempt, followed by a Russian invasion of the Crimea and Donbas regions, halted its westward course. In a sense, Georgia serves as a rehearsal for Ukraine. The story of 2022 and the start of a full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war continues to unfold before our eyes. But let’s return to Georgia and its analogous fate.

Georgia is interesting for several historical and cultural reasons: first, the country is probably the true homeland of wine, just as Bulgaria is the true homeland of gold processing. Ancient cultures on both sides of the Black Sea have been in trade exchange since very early historical times. Second, Georgia has been an Orthodox country for centuries, neither Greek-speaking nor Slavic-speaking. Unlike its neighbor Armenia, Georgia follows the Chalcedonian version of the Eastern Orthodox faith, and like Armenia, Georgia has its own national alphabet, originally intended for recording Christian texts. Unlike the case of Georgia and Armenia, the Bulgarian national Christian script – the Cyrillic alphabet – has become international and is used even far beyond our borders. Third, Georgia is in the unique position of being part of the Byzantine sphere of cultural influence, but at the same time being the homeland of phenomena that are usually considered purely Western – namely chivalry and court culture. Finally, one of the ancient names of Georgia is “Iberia” – a word that strangely reminds us of the Iberian Peninsula in the westernmost part of Europe. Another similar name, connecting the extreme East and West of the Old Continent, is “Albania” – again one of the names of part of Georgia, of the Balkan country we know, as well as of Great Britain. As you can see, Georgia, Sakartvelo or the land of Saint George is an infinitely interesting topic, indirectly related to the history of many surrounding cultures.

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The Caucasus is located between two continents at the crossroads of several ancient and historical trade routes, which give it significant strategic and economic importance. The Caucasus is also located between two seas, the Black Sea (including the Sea of Azov) and the Caspian Sea. These seas receive the waters of some of the most powerful rivers in Europe – the Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, Don and Volga. From the east and north, through Kazakhstan, the Ural River flows into the Caspian Sea.

From the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov in the west, the imposing mountains of the Caucasus Range extend some 1,100 kilometers east to the Caspian Sea, broken along their length only by narrow passes and gorges that are dominated by high peaks.

On the east-west axis, the Caucasus acts as a springboard between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, providing links to Europe and Asia. On the other side of the Black Sea, the Caucasus is connected to the climatic warmth of the Mediterranean world. The Caspian Sea coast provides numerous points of departure for Central Asia with trade routes to Turkestan, India and China. Accordingly, on the north-south axis, it forms a land passage between the Russian and Ukrainian lands and the Muslim countries of Iran and Turkey.

Both climatically and geographically, the Caucasus is a land of stark and dramatic contrasts. To the west, snow-capped mountains and alpine pastures face the Black Sea with its subtropical and lush coastline. In the Rioni Delta region of western Georgia, swamps must be drained, while in eastern Georgia, dry steppe areas must be irrigated to support crop production.

The Republic of Georgia is the central part of the Caucasus region. Georgia must therefore be viewed against the backdrop of – and particularly in the context of – the broader and extremely complex ethnic and linguistic makeup of the region as a whole.

The multifaceted ethnological face of the Caucasus with its numerous nationalities and races was formed over a long period of centuries. The Caucasus, with its high mountain stability, provided a natural refuge for peoples moving south from the Eurasian Plain or north from Asia Minor. Remnants of these nations lived undisturbed in the security offered by the mountains for centuries. The immigrant tribes interbred and mixed with the original inhabitants, so that their racial origins became completely unclear. The Caucasus was located at the center of the cultures of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Great ancient empires, such as the Sumerians, Hittites, Babylonians and Assyrians, penetrated the Caucasus. The kingdom of Urartu included many Transcaucasian peoples within its borders. The civilizations of Troy and the Aegean, Greece and Rome influenced from the west. The Persians and Parthians also dominated the Caucasus. Thus, even before the arrival of the Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Byzantines and Mongol Tatars, the Caucasus became a living museum of ancient races and a living repository of languages, religions and cultures. The Arabic language, with its own picturesque way of describing nouns, for example, “shark” (Thieb al Bakhr) literally meaning “Wolf of the Sea” or helicopter as (Abou Jerard) “Father of the Locusts”, calls the Caucasus by the nominative “Mountain of Tongues”.

The preservation of ethnicities remains a strength among the peoples of the Caucasus. In addition, strong individualism, a spirit of independence, and a deep hostility to all forms of regulation are other clearly expressed traits of these peoples. In the past, however, this individualistic spirit has proven to be a major obstacle to the formation of any unified form of pan-Caucasian federation.

1. Classical and Late Antiquity

The ancient Greeks knew of a pre-Georgian kingdom, Colchis, in the Caucasus, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, and it was included in the Greek legend of Jason and the Argonauts who traveled there in search of the Golden Fleece. Beginning around 2000 BC, northwestern Colchis was inhabited by the Svan and Zan peoples of the Kartvelian tribes. Another important ethnic element of ancient Colchis was the Greeks, who between 1000 and 550 BC established many trading colonies in the coastal area, including Nessus, Pythias, Dioscurias (modern Sukhumi), Guenos, Phasis (modern Poti), Apsaros, and Rizos (modern Rize in Turkey). In eastern Georgia, there was a struggle for leadership between various Georgian confederations in the 6th–4th centuries BC. BC, which was eventually conquered by the Kartli tribes of the Mtskheta region. According to Georgian tradition, the Kingdom of Kartli (known as Iberia in Greco-Roman literature) was founded around 300 BC by Parnavaz I, the first ruler of the Parnavazid dynasty.

Between 653 and 333 BC, both Colchis and Iberia experienced successive invasions by the Irano-Median Empire. The case was different for the Achaemenid Persians, however. According to Herodotus, Achaemenid rule extended to the Caucasus Mountains, but Colchis is not included in his list of twenty Persian satrapies. Nor is it mentioned in the lists of Achaemenid lands (dahyāva) given in the Old Persian inscriptions of Darius and his successors. In Xenophon’s Anabasis, the tribes of Colchis and Eastern Pontus are mentioned as independent. On the other hand, Herodotus mentions both the Colchis and various Pontic tribes in his catalogue of approximately fifty-seven peoples who participated in Xerxes’ expedition against Greece in 481–80 BC. As stated in the Encyclopaedia Iranica, it is likely that the Achaemenids were never able to establish effective rule over Colchis, although the local tribal leaders seem to have recognized some form of Persian suzerainty. The Encyclopædia Iranica further states that while the neighboring Pontic tribes of the nineteenth satrapy and the Armenians of the thirteenth are mentioned as paying tribute to Persia, the Colchis and their Caucasian neighbors are not; they did, however, undertake to send gifts (100 boys and 100 girls) every five years.

In the late 4th century BC, southern Iberia witnessed the invasion of the armies of Alexander the Great, who created a vast Greco-Macedonian empire south of the Caucasus. Neither Iberia nor Colchis was included in Alexander’s empire or any of the successor states of the Hellenistic Near East. However, the culture of ancient Greece still had a significant influence on the region, and the Greek language was widely spoken in the cities of Colchis. In Iberia, Greek influence was less noticeable, and Aramaic was widespread.

Between the early and late 2nd century AD, both Colchis and Iberia, along with neighboring countries, became the scene of long and devastating conflicts between major and local powers such as Rome, Armenia, and the short-lived Kingdom of Pontus. Pompey’s campaign in 66–65 BC annexed Armenia, and he then headed north along the Kura River and then west along the Rioni River to the Black Sea. In 189 BC, the rapidly expanding Kingdom of Armenia took over more than half of Iberia, conquering the southern and southeastern provinces of Gogarene, Taokia, and Heniochia, as well as some other territories. Between 120 and 63 BC, Armenia’s ally Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus conquered all of Colchis and included it in his kingdom, covering almost all of Asia Minor, as well as the eastern and northern coastal regions of the Black Sea.

This close connection with Armenia led to an invasion of the country (65 BC) by the Roman general Pompey, who was then at war with Mithridates VI of Pontus and Armenia. However, Rome failed to establish permanent rule over Iberia. Twenty-nine years later (36 BC) the Romans again advanced on Iberia, forcing King Pharnavaz II to join their campaign against Caucasian Albania.

The former kingdom of Colchis became the Roman province of Lasikum, governed by Roman legates. Struggles between Rome and neighboring Persia marked the next 600 years of Georgian history. While the Georgian kingdom of Colchis was governed as a Roman province, Caucasian Iberia freely accepted the protection of the Roman Empire. A stone inscription found in Mtskheta speaks of the 1st-century ruler Mihdrat I (58–106 AD) as “friend of the Caesars” and king “of the Roman-loving Iberians”. Emperor Vespasian fortified the ancient Mtskheta site of Armazi for the Iberian kings in 75 AD.

In the 2nd century AD, Iberia strengthened its position in the region, especially during the reign of King Pharsman II, who achieved full independence from Rome and reconquered some of the lost territories from declining Armenia. In the early 3rd century, Rome had to cede Albania and most of Armenia to Sassanid Persia. The province of Lazicum was given a degree of autonomy, which by the end of the century developed into full independence with the formation of a new kingdom of Lazica-Egrisi on the territories of the smaller principalities of Zani, Svani, Apsili and Sanigi. This new western Georgian state survived for more than 250 years until 562, when it was absorbed by the Byzantine Empire.

In the 3rd century AD, the Lazi tribe dominated most of Colchis, creating the Kingdom of Lazica, known locally as Egrisi. Colchis was the scene of a long rivalry between the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Empire, culminating in the Lazic War of 542 to 562.

1. Christianity

Before Christianization, the cult of Mithras and Zoroastrianism were commonly practiced in Iberia from the 1st century. The cult of Mithras, distinguished by its syncretic character and thus complementing local cults, especially the cult of the Sun, gradually merged with ancient Georgian beliefs. The East Georgian Kingdom of Iberia became one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity in 327, when the Iberian king Mirian III established it as the official state religion. However, the date varies based on numerous accounts and historical documents, which indicate that Iberia adopted Christianity as the state religion in 317, 319, 324, 330, etc. Constantine the Great. By the mid-4th century, however, both Lazica (formerly the Kingdom of Colchis) and Iberia adopted Christianity as their official religion. This adoption of Christianity tied the kingdom to the Byzantine Empire, which exerted a strong cultural influence on it.

However, after Emperor Julian was assassinated during his unsuccessful campaign in Persia in 363, Rome ceded control of Iberia to Persia and King Varaz-Bakur I (Asfagur) (363–365) became a Persian vassal, a result confirmed by the Peace of Acilissene in 387. However, a later ruler of Kartli, Pharsman IV (406–409), retained his country’s autonomy and ceased paying tribute to Persia. Persia prevailed, and the Sasanian kings began to appoint a viceroy (pitiaxae/bidaxae) to oversee their vassal. Eventually, they made the position hereditary in the ruling house of Lower Kartli, thus founding the pitiaxae of Kartli, who brought a vast territory under his control.[citation needed] Although it remained part of the Kingdom of Kartli, its viceroys made their domain a center of Persian influence. The Sassanid rulers severely tested the Christian faith of the Georgians. They promoted the teachings of Zoroaster, and by the mid-5th century, Zoroastrianism had become the second official religion in eastern Georgia, alongside Christianity.

During the 4th and most of the 5th centuries, Iberia (also known as the Kingdom of Kartli) was under Persian control. In the late 5th century, however, Prince Vakhtang I Gorgasali organized an anti-Persian uprising and restored Iberian statehood, proclaiming himself king. Vakhtang’s armies then undertook several campaigns against both Persia and the Byzantine Empire, but his struggle for independence and unity of the Georgian state was not of lasting success. After Vakhtang’s death in 502 and the brief reign of his son Dachi (502–514), Iberia was re-incorporated into Persia and ruled by a marzpan (governor), who in Georgian was called eristavari. The Iberian nobility was given the privilege of electing the governors. The Georgian nobles appealed to the Byzantine Emperor Maurice to revive the Kingdom of Iberia in 582, but in 591 Byzantium and Persia resolutely agreed to divide Iberia between them, with Tbilisi in Persian hands and Mtskheta under Byzantine control.

Georgia was effectively divided into Byzantine and Sasanian spheres of influence. With wars raging between the two Eastern superpowers, local dynasties followed the fate of victory and swore allegiance to the emperors of Constantinople or the Shahanshah of Ctesiphon, respectively.

1. The Middle Ages and the Golden Age of Georgia

But in 636 a new power emerged in the east: the Arabs.

By the end of the 7th century, Byzantine-Persian rivalry had given way to Arab conquest of the region. Georgia came under Arab influence when Persia collapsed and the Byzantines retreated westward.

In the struggle against the Arab occupation, the Bagrationi dynasty ruled Tao-Klarjeti and established the Kuropalate of Iberia as a nominal dependency of the Byzantine Empire. The restoration of the Georgian kingdom began in 888 AD, when Adarnas IV assumed the title “King of the Iberians”. However, the Bagrationi dynasty failed to preserve the integrity of its kingdom, which was effectively divided between the three branches of the family, with the main branch retaining Tao and another controlling Klarjeti. In the late 10th century, the Kuropalate David of Tao invaded the County of Iberia (Kartli) and gave it to his adopted son Bagrat III and appointed Gurgen as his regent, who was later crowned “King of the Iberian Kings” after the death of Bagrat Prostia (994). Through his fortunate bloodlines, Bagrat was destined to sit on two thrones. Furthermore, through his mother Gurandukht, sister of the childless Abkhazian king Theodosius III, Bagrat was a potential heir to the kingdom of Abkhazia. Three years later, after the death of Theodosius III, Bagrat III inherited the Abkhazian throne. In 1008, Gurgen died and Bagrat succeeded him as “King of the Iberians”, thus becoming the first king of a united kingdom of Abkhazia and Iberia. Having secured his inheritance, Bagrat continued to lay claim to the easternmost Georgian kingdom of Kakheti-Hereti, annexing it in or around 1010, after two years of fighting and aggressive diplomacy. Bagrat’s reign, a period of exceptional importance in Georgian history, brought the final victory of the Georgian Bagratids in the centuries-old power struggles. Anxious to create a more stable and centralized monarchy, Bagrat eliminated or at least reduced the autonomy of the dynastic princes. In his eyes, the most likely internal danger came from the Klarjeti line of the Bagrationi. Although they seemed to have acknowledged Bagrat’s authority, they continued to be called Klarjeti kings and sovereigns. To secure the succession of his son George I, Bagrat lured his cousins, under the pretext of a conciliatory meeting, to the castle of Panaskerti and threw them into prison in 1010. Bagrat’s foreign policy was generally peaceful, and the king successfully maneuvered to avoid conflict with both Byzantine and Muslim neighbors, although David of Dao’s dominions in Byzantium and Tbilisi remained in Arab hands.

The main political and military event during the reign of George I, the war against the Byzantine Empire, had its roots back in the 90s, when the Georgian Kuropalate prince David of Tao, after his unsuccessful rebellion against Emperor Basil II, had to agree to cede his extensive possessions in Tao and the neighboring lands to the emperor after his death. All efforts by David’s stepson and George’s father, Bagrat III, to prevent these territories from being annexed to the empire were in vain. Young and ambitious, George began a campaign to restore the Kuropalate inheritance in Georgia and occupied Tao in 1015–1016. At that time, the Byzantines were engaged in a merciless war with the Bulgarian kingdom, which limited their actions in the west. But once Bulgaria was conquered, Basil II led his army against Georgia (1021). A grueling war lasted two years and ended in a decisive Byzantine victory, forcing George to agree to a peace treaty in which he had to not only renounce his claims to Tao, but also surrender several of his southwestern possessions to Basil and give his three-year-old son, Bagrat IV, as a hostage.

The infant Bagrat IV spent the next three years in the imperial capital of Constantinople and was released in 1025. After the death of George I in 1027, Bagrat, aged eight, succeeded to the throne. By the time Bagrat IV became king, the Bagratid drive to complete the unification of all Georgian lands had gained irreversible momentum. The kings of Georgia were seated in Kutaisi in western Georgia, from where they ruled all of what had been the Kingdom of Abkhazia and most of Iberia; Tao had been lost to the Byzantines, while a Muslim emir remained in Tbilisi, and the kings of Kakheti-Hereti stubbornly defended their autonomy in the easternmost part of Georgia. Furthermore, the loyalty of the great nobles to the Georgian crown was far from stable. During Bagrat’s minority, the regency elevated the positions of the higher nobility, whose influence it subsequently sought to limit when it assumed full sovereign powers. At the same time, the Georgian crown faced two formidable external enemies: the Byzantine Empire and the resurgent Seljuk Turks.

The Seljuk threat prompted the Georgian and Byzantine governments to seek closer cooperation. To secure the alliance, Bagrat’s daughter Martha (Maria) married the Byzantine co-emperor Michael VII Doukas sometime between 1066 and 1071.

1. Great Seljuk invasion

The second half of the 11th century was marked by the strategically significant invasion of the Seljuk Turks, who by the late 1040s had managed to build a vast empire encompassing most of Central Asia and Persia. The Seljuks first appeared in Georgia in the 1060s, when Sultan Alp Arslan ravaged the southwestern provinces of the Georgian kingdom and reduced Kakheti. These invaders were part of the same wave of Turkish movement that inflicted a crushing defeat on the Byzantine army at Manzikert in 1071. Although the Georgians were able to recover from Alp Arslan’s invasion by securing Tao (Theme of Iberia), a border region that had been a bone of contention between Georgia and the Byzantine Empire, the Byzantine retreat from Anatolia brought them into more direct contact with the Seljuks. After the devastation of Kartli in 1073 by the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan, George II successfully repelled an invasion. In 1076, the Seljuk Sultan Malik Shah I invaded Georgia and reduced many settlements to ruins. Harassed by a massive Turkic influx, known in Georgian history as the Great Turkish Invasion, from 1079/80 onwards, George was forced to submit to Malik Shah in order to secure a valuable measure of peace at the cost of an annual tribute.

1. King David IV the Builder and the Georgian Reconquista

The fight against the Seljuk invaders in Georgia was led by the young King David IV of the Bagrationi royal family, who succeeded to the throne in 1089 at the age of 16 after the abdication of his father George II Bagrationi. Soon after coming to power, David created a regular army and a peasant militia to resist the Seljuk colonization of his country. The First Crusade (1096–1099) and the Crusader offensive against the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia and Syria favored David’s successful campaigns in Georgia. By the end of 1099, David had stopped paying tribute to the Seljuks and liberated most of the Georgian lands, with the exception of Tbilisi and Ereti. In 1103, he reorganized the Georgian Orthodox Church and closely linked it to the state, appointing the royal chancellor (Mtsikhnobart Ukhutsesi) of Georgia as Catholicos (Archbishop). In 1103–1105, the Georgian army captured Ereti and made successful raids into the still Seljuk-controlled Shirvan. Between 1110 and 1118, David captured Lori, Samshvilde, Rustavi, and other fortresses in lower Kartli and Tashiri, thus turning Tbilisi into an isolated Seljuk enclave.

In 1118–1119, with significant amounts of free, uninhabited land as a result of the retreat of Turkish nomads and in desperate need of skilled labor for his army, King David invited about 40,000 Kipchak warriors from the North Caucasus to settle in Georgia with their families. In 1120, the ruler of Alania recognized himself as King David’s vassal and then sent thousands of Alans across the main Caucasian range into Georgia, where they settled in Kartli. The Georgian royal army also welcomed mercenaries from Germany, Italy, and Scandinavia (all of these Westerners were designated in Georgia as “Franks”), as well as from Kievan Rus’.

In 1121, the Seljuk Sultan Mahmud declared jihad on Georgia and sent a strong army under the command of one of his famous generals, Ilgazi, to fight the Georgians. Although greatly outnumbered by the Turks, the Georgians managed to defeat the invaders at the Battle of Didgori and in 1122 captured Tbilisi, making it the capital of Georgia. Three years later, the Georgians captured Shirvan. As a result, the predominantly Christian region of Gishi-Kabala in western Shirvan (a relic of the once prosperous Albanian kingdom) was annexed by Georgia, while the rest of the now Islamized Shirvan became a client state of Georgia. In the same year, much of Armenia was liberated from David’s troops and also fell into Georgian hands. Thus, in 1124, David also became king of the Armenians, incorporating Northern Armenia into the lands of the Georgian crown. In 1125 King David died, leaving Georgia with the status of a strong regional power. In Georgia, King David was called Agmashenebeli (English: the builder).

The successors of David Agmashenebeli (kings Demeter I, David V and George III) continued Georgia’s policy of expansion, subjugating most of the mountain clans and tribes of the North Caucasus and further securing Georgian positions in Shirvan. But the most glorious sovereign of Georgia of this period was Queen Tamar (David’s great-granddaughter).

The kingdom continued to flourish under Demetrius I, David’s son. As soon as he ascended the throne, neighboring Muslim rulers began to attack Georgia from all sides. The Seljuk sultans fought to restore the rule of the Shirvanshahs. The large Muslim population of Shirvan rose up against Georgia. This probably happened in 1129 or 1130, when Demetrius restored the Shirvanshahs to power in Shirvan, placing Manuchihr II, the husband of his daughter Rusudan, on the throne. The Shirvanshahs were required to provide troops to the Georgian king when the latter requested them. In 1130, Georgia was invaded by the Sultan of Akhlat, Shah-Armen Sokmen II (c. 1128–1183). This war began with the fall of Ani to the Georgians; Demetrius I had to compromise and surrender Ani to the Shaddadid emir Fadl ibn Mahmud on terms of vassalage and the inviolability of the Christian churches. In 1139, Demetrius attacked the city of Ganja in Aran. He carried the iron gate of the defeated city to Georgia and donated it to the Gelati Monastery in Kutaisi. Despite this brilliant victory, Demetrius managed to hold Ganja for only a few years. In response, the Eldiguzid sultan attacked Ganja several times, and in 1143 the city fell back into the hands of the sultan. According to Mkhitar Ghosh, Demetrius eventually acquired Ganja, but when he gave his daughter in marriage to the sultan, he gave the latter the city as a dowry, and the sultan appointed his own emir to govern it. Thus, Ganja fell back into the hands of the Eldiguzids.

In 1130, Demetrius uncovered a conspiracy of nobles, possibly involving King Vakhtang’s half-brother. The king arrested the conspirators and executed one of their leaders, John Abuletisdze, in 1138 (or 1145).

Fadl’s successor, Fakhr al-Din Shaddad, the Shaddadid emir of Ani, asked for the hand of Saltuk’s daughter, but Saltuk refused. This aroused Shaddad’s deep hatred for Saltuk. In 1154, he plotted a conspiracy and entered into a secret alliance with Demetrius I. While a Georgian army was waiting in ambush, he offered tribute to Saltukids, ruler of Erzurum, and asked the latter to accept him as a vassal. In 1153–1154, the emir Saltuk II marched on Ani, but Shaddad informed his overlord, the king of Georgia, of this. Demetrius marched on Ani, defeated, and captured the emir. At the request of neighboring Muslim rulers, he was released for a ransom of 100,000 dinars, paid by Saltuk’s sons-in-law and Saltuk swore not to fight the Georgians, and returned home.

Although his reign saw a destructive family conflict over royal succession, Georgia remained a centralized power with a strong army. A talented poet, Demetrius also continued his father’s contributions to Georgian religious polyphony. The most famous of his hymns is Thou Art a Vineyard.

Demetrius was succeeded by his son George III in 1156, beginning a phase of more aggressive foreign policy. In the same year of his accession, George launched a successful campaign against the Armenian Shahs, invading their lands and returning with captives and booty. In 1161, George III took Ani and appointed his general Ivane Orbeli as its ruler. A coalition consisting of the ruler of Ahlat, Shah-Armen Sökmen II, the ruler of Diyarbakir, Kotb ad-Din il-Ghazi, Al-Malik of Erzurum, and others, was formed immediately after the Georgians captured the city, but the latter defeated the allies. 1162 In the summer, the Georgian army, numbering up to 30,000, captured Dvin. In response, Eldiguz Soon proceeded north to retake the city of Dvin. A coalition of Muslim rulers – Shah-Armen Seyfettin Beitemur, Ahmadili Arslan-Aba, Arzen Emir Fakhr ul-Din and Saltuk II, led by Eldiguz, captured the fortress of Gagi, ravaged as far as the region of Gagi and Gegharkunik, seized prisoners and booty, and then moved to Ani, capturing it and handing it over to the Shaddadid emir Shahanshah ibn Mahmud. The Muslim rulers rejoiced and prepared for a new campaign. This time, however, they were outdone by George III, who advanced into Aran in early 1166, occupied an area extending to Ganja, ravaged the land, and returned with prisoners and booty. The Shaddadids ruled Ani for about 10 years as vassals of Eldiguz, but in 1174 George III took the Shahanshah captive and reoccupied Ani, appointing Ivane Orbeli as governor. Eldiguz then invaded Georgia twice with other Muslim rulers, the first invasion being successfully repelled by the Georgians, but during the second invasion the Georgians lost Ani and in 1175 it was recaptured by the Shaddadids.

1. Queen Tamar the Great and the Golden Age (1184–1213)

Queen Tamar and her father King George III, fresco from Vardzia.

The reign of Queen Tamar represented the height of Georgian power throughout the nation’s history. In 1194–1204, Tamar’s armies crushed new Turkish invasions from the southeast and south and launched several successful campaigns into Turkish-controlled Southern Armenia. As a result, most of Southern Armenia, including the cities of Karin, Erzincan, Helat, Mush, and Van, came under Georgian control. Although not incorporated into the lands of the Georgian crown and left under the nominal rule of local Turkish emirs and sultans, Southern Armenia became a protectorate of the Kingdom of Georgia.

The temporary fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1204 to the Crusaders left Georgia and the Bulgarian Kingdom as the strongest Christian states in the entire eastern Mediterranean. That same year, Queen Tamar sent her troops to capture the former Byzantine Lazona and Pariadria with the cities of Athens, Riza, Trebizond, Kerasunth, Amisos, Cotiora, Heraclea and Sinope. In 1205, the occupied territory was transformed into the Empire of Trebizond, which was dependent on Georgia. Tamar’s relative Prince Alexios Komnenos was crowned its emperor. Immediately afterwards, Georgian armies invaded northern Persia (present-day Iranian Azerbaijan) and captured the cities of Marand, Tabriz (1208), Ardabil (1208), Zanjan, Khoy (1210), and Qazvin (1210), placing part of the conquered territory under Georgian protectorate. This was the maximum territorial extent of Georgia in its entire history. Queen Tamar was called “Queen of the Abkhazians, Kartvelians, Ranites, Kakhs, and Armenians, Shirvan-Shahin and Shah-in-Shahin, the sovereign of the East and the West”. Georgian historians often refer to her as “Queen Tamar the Great”.

The period between the early 12th and early 13th centuries, and especially the era of Tamar the Great, can truly be considered the Golden Age of Georgia. In addition to political and military achievements, it was marked by the development of Georgian culture, including architecture, literature, philosophy, and science.

Jacques de Vitry, the patriarch of Jerusalem at the time, wrote:

In the East there is another Christian people, who are very warlike and brave in battle, strong in body and powerful in their countless warriors… Being completely surrounded by infidel nations… these men are called Georgians, because they especially honor and worship Saint George… Whenever they come on pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulcher, they march into the Holy City… without paying homage to anyone, because the Saracens dare not harass them in any way…

1. Mongol invasion and decline of the Georgian Kingdom

In 1225, Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu, the ruler of the Khwarezmian Empire, attacked Georgia, defeating its forces at the Battle of Garni, and captured Tbilisi, after which it is said that one hundred thousand citizens were killed for not renouncing Christianity.

In the 1220s, the South Caucasus and Asia Minor faced Mongol invasion. Despite fierce resistance from Georgian-Armenian forces and their allies, the entire region, including most of Georgia, all of the Armenian lands, and central Anatolia, eventually fell to the Mongols in 1236.

In 1243, the Georgian queen Rusudan signed a peace treaty with the Mongols, according to which Georgia lost its client states, ceded western Shirvan, Nakhichevan and some other territories, and agreed to pay tribute to the Mongols, as well as to allow them to occupy and de facto rule more than half of the remaining territory. Although Mongol-occupied Tbilisi remained the official capital of the kingdom, the queen refused to return there and remained in Kutaisi until her death in 1245. In addition to all the above difficulties, even the Kingdom of Western Georgia, the part of the kingdom that remained free from the Mongols, began to disintegrate: the Crown began to lose control over the warlords of Samtskhe (the southern provinces of Georgia), who established their own relations with the Mongols and by 1266 practically separated from Georgia.

The period between 1259 and 1330 was marked by the struggle of the Georgians against the Mongol Ilkhanate for complete independence. The first anti-Mongol uprising began in 1259 under the leadership of King David Naryn, who actually waged his war for almost thirty years. The anti-Mongol struggles continued under Kings Demeter II (1270–1289) and David VIII (1293–1311). Finally, King George the Brilliant (1314–1346) managed to play on the decline of the Ilkhanate, stopped paying tribute to the Mongols, restored the state borders of Georgia from before 1220, and returned the Empire of Trebizond to the sphere of influence of Georgia.

Between 1386 and 1403, the Kingdom of Georgia faced eight Turko-Mongol invasions led by Tamerlane. With the exception of Abkhazia and Svaneti, the invasions devastated Georgia’s economy, population, and urban centers.

1. EARLY TIME

The first states to emerge in the Caucasus were the Kingdom of Urartu, followed by the Kingdom of Colchis (6th century BC), the Kingdom of Airat (4th century BC), and the Kingdom of Iberia (4th and 3rd centuries BC). In the 2nd century BC, two important states were formed: Caucasian Albania and Greater Armenia. In the first millennium AD, the Caucasus became the center of the struggle between Byzantium and Sassanid Persia. The feudal system was fully established during this time, with Christianity becoming widespread throughout the Caucasus. In the 7th and 8th centuries, the Arabs conquered Transcaucasia. Later conquests by the Seljuk Turks and the Byzantines followed; this situation was to lead to the creation of large states in Armenia by the Bagratids and in Georgia, centered around the Tao-Klarjeti principality. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Georgia began to gain power. But in the second half of the 13th century, the Caucasus was subjected to an invasion by the Mongol Tatars. In the 15th century, Turkic states were established in Azerbaijan. The North Caucasus was to remain under the rule of the Mongol Tatars for a considerable period of time, which was to lead to a significant degree of backwardness in the region and the maintenance of the patriarchal feudal system until the 19th century. In the 16th century, Georgia and Armenia became the subject of a fierce struggle between Persia and Turkey. While the Persians established power over Eastern Georgia, the Turks dominated Imereti, Mingrelia, Guria and Adjara in Western Georgia. Without annexing these areas, the Turks retained suzerainty over them.

The Advent

It was not until the 16th century that Russian settlements began to appear in the North Caucasus. After the fall of the Astrakhan Khanate in 1556, Russia advanced its southern border to the Terek River.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Russian tsarism, seeking to strengthen its strategic position on the southern borders and occupy trade routes to Central Asia and the Middle East, pursued a colonial policy in the Caucasus. As a result of the Persian campaign of 1722-23, Russian troops occupied the entire western coast of the Caspian Sea, as well as Derbent and Baku. However, due to problems in Russian-Turkish relations, the Russians concluded an alliance with the Persians through the treaties of Resht (1732) and Ganja (1735) and restored the Caspian coastal provinces to Persia. As a result, the southern borders of Russia returned back to the Terek River, where the fortresses of Kizlyar and Mozdok were built, marking the beginning of the Caucasian fortified lines.

Between 1768 and 1780, the Azov-Kozdok defensive line was created, passing through Stavropol. As a result of the Treaty of Georgievsk in 1783 between Russia and the Kartli-Kakheti Kingdom of Eastern Georgia, a Russian protectorate was established to counter the Turkish threat. In 1783, construction of the Georgian Military Road and the Vladikavkaz fortress began (1784).

During this period, Georgia suffered from raids by marauding Muslim tribes, such as the Lezgins of Dagestan. Through various local wars and the actions of Muslim tribes, it is estimated that the Georgian population was reduced by half. By 1800, the combined population of East and West Georgia had fallen to less than 500,000. This state of affairs also had a paralyzing effect on the country’s economic and industrial development. The venture to open an iron foundry in Borchalin had to be abandoned due to the continuous raids of the Lezgins. Trade caravans were often subject to robbery by Muslim tribes. The deteriorating economic situation was further adversely affected by the hostility between the Armenian wealthy class and the impoverished Georgian aristocracy. It should also be noted that the only line of direct communication between Russia and Georgia was the precarious military route across the Greater Caucasus range via the Darial Pass; a route infested with hostile tribes. In addition, the Turks and their allies, the Muslim tribes of Circassia and Dagestan, are still entrenched in a large number of areas in the North Caucasus.

The effect of the advance of the Caucasian fortified line to the south was to strain relations with the peoples of the Kuban, Kabarda, and Chechnya. In 1778, the Nogai and Kabardian uprisings were suppressed. In 1785, the tsarist expansion provoked a movement of the Chechen mountain people under the leadership of a Muslim priest, Sheikh Mansur, against Russia. The Russians defeated the Turks who had entered Kabarda under the command of Batal Pasha and the Circassian forces of Sheikh Mansur. With the Peace of Yassy in 1791, Turkey recognized the independence of Georgia and the tribes beyond the Kuban River. Between 1792 and 1798, the Black Sea and Kuban cordon lines were established along the Kuban River. The tsarist colonial policy was to lead to new bloodshed in the 19th century with the Caucasian War of 1817–1864.

The invasion of Georgia in 1795 by the Persian forces of Agha Muhammad Khan and the destruction of Tbilisi was the catalyst for Russia to undertake the Persian Campaign of 1796. Russian troops entered Georgia and occupied Derbent, Kuba, and Baku in the south. However, after the accession of Paul I to the throne, all Russian forces were withdrawn, except for two battalions, which remained in Tbilisi.

The attempt of Eastern Georgia to find a protector in Russia against Turkish and Persian aggression led to the “voluntary” accession or annexation of this region to Russia in 1801. This included the northern regions of Eastern Armenia, the Pambak, Shamshadil, Borchalin and Kazakh “distances” (temporary military districts), and the Lori region. Thus, the Georgian province was to become the first Russian administrative territory in Transcaucasia.

During the first two years of Russian rule, the internal situation in eastern Georgia was far from satisfactory. Russian power was limited to the area around Tiflis (Tbilisi). This limited area was surrounded by Persian khans, Turkish pashas, and wild Muslim mountain men, who were mainly hostile to the Russians. The static Russian garrison troops were no match for the highly mobile Lezgin marauders. The only supply train from Russia through the Darial Pass was subjected to equally severe plundering and disruption by the Ossetians. The Russian supply train was completely cut off by a mass uprising of Ossetian mountain men, Khevsurs, Mtuli, and other mountain peoples along the entire stretch of the Georgian Military Road in the Greater Caucasus as a result of Russian brutality and the use of slave labor along the road in the autumn of 1804.

However, in early 1804, Ganja was liberated by the Russians from the Persian Kban Javat. The city was renamed Elizavetpol (Kirovabad). Meanwhile, the Russians continued to press the Turks in western Georgia. By 1811, the Russians had captured Poti, Sukhumi in Abkhazia, and Akhalkalaki from the Turks, in addition to crushing the Imereti rebellion. Abkhazia and Guria were taken under Russian protection. Kutaisi was subject to Russian martial law. Only after Western Georgia was outwardly pacified did trouble erupt in eastern Georgia with uprisings in Kartli and Kakheti, initiated by Persian successes against the Russians in the Karabakh region.

The exhaustion of the three main players, Russia, Persia and Turkey, was finally to lead to peace, albeit a short-lived one. The peace already agreed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of Bucharest in 1812 resulted in the return of Poti and Akhalkalaki to the Turks. Under the terms of the Treaty of Gulistan, concluded between Russia and Persia, Russia was granted the right to rule over Eastern and Western Georgia, Dagestan and the Kuslim Khanates of Karabakh, Ganja, Sheki, Shirvan, Derbent, Baku and Kuba.

However, the tsarist colonial policy was to lead to the Caucasian War from 1817 to 1864. As a result of the annexation of Eastern Georgia (1801) and the conquest of Western Georgia and Azerbaijan (1803–1813), the Russian troops now stationed there were cut off from Russia by the lands of the Chechens and those of the wild tribes in Upper Dagestan and the Circassians in the northwestern Caucasus.

1. THE CAUCASIAN WAR of 1817 – 1864

5.3.1 The beginning of the war

The military operations of the Caucasian War of 1817–1864 included the annexation of Chechnya by Tsarist Russia, Upper Dagestan (although legally Dagestan had been annexed in 1813), and the northwestern Caucasus, home to the Circassians. These lands were inhabited by warlike mountain peoples who constantly attacked the Caucasian fortified line.

After the Napoleonic Wars, Russia was able to move from simple punitive expeditions to regular offensives into the heart of Chechnya and Dagestan, surrounding the mountainous region with a solid ring of fortresses. Other methods included cutting paths through the mountain forests, building roads, and razing rebellious auls (mountain villages) to the ground. This in turn forced the population either to settle on the plains under the supervision of Russian garrisons or to retreat deep into the mountains.

In 1817-18, the left flank of the Caucasian line was transferred from the Terek to the Sunzha River with the establishment of the fortress of Pregradni Stan in the middle reaches of the Sunzha. This marked the first step in the regular advance into the territory of the mountain peoples and effectively marked the beginning of the Caucasian War.

5.3.2 Initial stages of the Caucasian War

In 1818, the fortress of Grozny was founded on the lower reaches of the Sunzha River. The fortresses of Vnezapnaya (1819) and Burnaya (1821) further extended the Sunzha line. In 1818, several Dagestani tribes united and launched a campaign against the Sunzha line, but were repulsed. Between 1822 and 1826, several punitive expeditions were launched against the Circassians in the region beyond the Kuban. Both the Persians and the Turks took advantage of the anti-colonial movement in the Caucasus. However, after the Russo-Persian War of 1825–28, Russia annexed the Nakhichevan and Yerevan Khanates. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29, the entire Black Sea coast from the mouth of the Kuban River to the northern border of Adjara, including the fortresses of Akhalsikhe and Akhalkalaki, came under Russian control. These actions led to the Russian subjugation of almost all of Dagestan, Chechnya, and the area beyond the Kuban to the northwest.

In March 1827, Russian military policy underwent a reversal, with a shift from regular offensives and consolidation of all occupied territories to individual punitive raids and expeditions. However, the Lezgin Line was completed in 1830, and the construction of the Sukhumi Military Road had previously led to the annexation of the Karachay region in 1828.

The growing scale of colonization in the North Caucasus and the cruel methods of conquest applied by Russian tsarism were bound to provoke large-scale spontaneous uprisings of the independent mountain peoples.

5.3.3 Mountain people uprisings

The first of these uprisings took place in Chechnya in July 1825, when mountain people led by Bey-Bulat captured the outpost of Andrajurt. Their attempts to capture Gerzel and Grozny failed, and the uprising was suppressed in 1826.

This was followed in 1828, when a movement of mountain peoples arose in Chechnya and Dagestan under the religious banner of Muridism, which included among its dogmas “gazava” or holy war against infidels (Russians). This movement of mountain peoples combined the liberation struggle against tsarist colonial expansion with the struggle against feudal chieftains. The movement of mountain peoples under the banner of Muridism expanded the scale of the conflict in the Caucasian War, although several peoples of the North Caucasus and Dagestan, such as the Kumyks, Ossetians, Ingush and Kabardins, remained aloof from it. There were several reasons for this. First, Muridism did not appeal to some peoples, either because they had become and remained Christians, like some of the Ossetians, or because Islam did not have deep roots among them, like the Kabardians. Secondly, the tsarism followed the course of the policy of “carrot and stick” or “divide and rule”, which was supposed to win over some influential tribal leaders, for example, the position of the Avar Khan, who refused to rise against the Russians and respond to the call of Gaza Muhammad in 1830 for the unification of Chechnya and Dagestan.

The gradual Russian conquest of the North Caucasus slowly but surely began to take effect with the establishment of fortresses in the northwest and the creation of the Laba Line in 1839. However, some of the fortresses were to be captured the following year by the Circassians in 1840. Perhaps the most turbulent areas for the Russian colonizers were Chechnya and Dagestan, which were constantly leading a rebellion under the third Iman, Shamil. However, by the spring of 1853 the Russians managed to push him out of Chechnya into Upper Dagestan and secondly into the northwestern Caucasus after the establishment of the Urup Line defeated Shamil’s regent, who was leading the Circassian uprising.

5.3.4 Final stages of the Caucasian War

In 1853, on the eve of the Crimean War (1854–1856), Shamil, relying on British and Turkish aid, intensified his operations against the Lezgin line at Zakatali. However, the Turkish troops were defeated at Bashkadikar in November 1853, and Circassian attempts to seize the Black Sea and Laba lines were repulsed. The defeat of the Turkish army in 1854–55 finally dashed Shamil’s hopes for external aid. In 1858, an uprising broke out against his rule by his own supporters in Chechnya in the Vedenno region.

The operations of the tsarist command were greatly facilitated in the northwestern Caucasus by the disunity between the Abkhazian and Circassian tribes. In 1859, the land of the Circassians was cut off from the line of the Belaya River with the creation of the Maykop fortress. The Abkhazians and Circassians, forced to reach the sea or pushed into the mountains, were forced to settle in the plains or, under the influence of the Muslim clergy, emigrate to Turkey. In 1864, a Russian administration was established in Abkhazia. On May 21, 1864, Russian troops captured the last center of Circassian resistance.

1. DOMINATED BUT UNRELITED WITH RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT

5.4.1 Significant gains from the Congress of Berlin of 1878

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 saw Russia make significant territorial gains by recovering former Georgian lands from the Ottoman Turks. In previous wars with both Persia and Turkey, Russia had always been forced, through the policy of the great powers, to return land conquered by its troops in subsequent peace agreements. The Congress of Berlin confirmed that Russia possessed extensive lands from the Turks, namely: Adjara with the port of Batumi, Shavsheti, Klarjeti, Kola-Ardahan and the northern part of Tao, together with the acquisition of Kars and Ardahan, controlling the approaches to Turkish Anatolia.

5.4.2 Lack of reconciliation with Russian rule

Although Russian rule brought many changes to Transcaucasia, a large part of the population never reconciled itself to Russian rule. Even after “pacification,” a Russian euphemism for “subjugation,” uprisings were to continue not only among Muslim communities but also among Georgian Christians. Traditions of long-standing independence, together with ancient ties to the East, religious and cultural differences conspired to make Transcaucasia an alien and foreign land within the Russian Empire.

5.5.1 Georgian society

There was no political or nationalist party in Georgia that could compare in cohesion and size with the Dashnaks in Armenia. For example, over 20% of Armenians were urban dwellers; less than 10% of Georgians lived in cities. The Armenians had a thriving bourgeoisie that was twice the size of the Georgian one. As for the nobility, the Armenian nobility consisted of only 1%; in Georgia, the nobles were over 5%. Armenian society was predominantly peasant and merchant; Georgian society was almost entirely feudal.

It is of great interest to note that after the annexation to Russia, a large part of the Georgian nobility steadily lost their lands and wealth, becoming Russified and losing their Georgian national character; others remained on their estates and sullen. Within the latter group, Georgian nationalism was preserved and cultivated; but it is sad to say that the nobility had little influence on the peasant masses. The less wealthy members of the nobility entered the professions where Georgians had such a large percentage as doctors, lawyers, school teachers and clerks as in Armenia; they were attracted not by nationalism but by socialism, where they formed the nucleus of the Transcaucasian contingent of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.

5.5.2 Origins of Georgian socialism

In the 1860s, Russia began building the Transcaucasian Railway, with service between Poti and Tbilisi opening in 1872, and the Batumi-Tbilisi-Baku mainline completed in 1883. The Transcaucasian railway network was completed in 1890. The economic development of the entire region and the demand for the nascent oil fields in Baku were the catalysts for this. It was in the railway stations of Tiflis (Tbilisi) and the oil fields of Baku that the Transcaucasian proletariat was born.

It can be assumed that Georgia experienced several revolutions simultaneously. First and foremost was the struggle to preserve Georgia as an independent state. The latter stages of the 19th century saw this as a war that was alive, yet confined, in the Georgian heart, as opposed to that of a physical rebellion with arms. The second factor was the liberal dream of freedom of speech and the press, dignity and rights of the individual as a counterweight to tsarist oppression. The third factor was the socialist revolution of the concentrated proletariat in the railway workshops and several other industries. Georgian socialism, reflecting these three tendencies, tacitly assumed that a socialist revolution in Russia would solve the national question through Georgia’s right to autonomous national development. But for Georgian socialists the essence of the matter was that socialism and the path proposed by socialism were the guarantor of the realization of their national aspirations. This was the second factor in Georgian socialism, the liberal dream of freedoms, which made Georgian socialism more Menshevik than Bolshevik.

5.5.3 The Russian bourgeois-democratic revolutions 1900-1917

Under the leadership of the revolutionary Social Democrats, the Georgian proletariat began a mass political struggle. In 1900-1902 there were major strikes in various industrial enterprises in Tbilisi, Batumi and the Chiatura mines. This movement gained momentum in Georgia during the Russian Revolution of 1905-1907, starting with a strike of railway workers, which escalated into a general strike. By the end of 1905, almost all of Western Georgia and a large part of Eastern Georgia were in the hands of the rebels. Needless to say, these uprisings were suppressed with great ruthlessness. From 1912 onwards until the First World War, the strike was followed by the strike. During the February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917 in Russia, in early March, Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies were established in Tbilisi and other Georgian cities, but these positions were occupied mainly by the Mensheviks. The Special Transcaucasian Committee was established in Tbilisi on March 9, 1917.

1. REVOLUTION, WORLD WAR, CIVIL WAR AND ARMED INTERVENTION

During World War I, the Caucasus was to become a theater of military operations. Against the German-Turkish alliance, the Caucasus Front was created in 1914. The troops of the Caucasus Front repelled the Turkish offensive and inflicted a series of major defeats on them in 1915 and 1916. Against the backdrop of World War I, Russia’s internal problems were finally to surface, erupting into civil war, Mensheviks against Bolsheviks, the Red Army against the White Russian armies (“White Bandits”, “White Bandits”). As a final last layer of conflict intervention was also to come from outside, with German, British and French troops getting involved.

However, the tensions of the war hastened the collapse of the tsarist government in March 1917. The March Revolution was to bring to the fore in Georgia all the old social and economic problems that tsarism had failed to solve, namely the problems of the availability of agricultural land and the position of the Georgian Orthodox Church. The fall of tsarism led to the collapse of the old tsarist police and gendarmerie, as a result of which many regions of Georgia became hotbeds of anarchy and disorder, especially after the final throes of the October Revolution. In addition to the general unrest, Georgia and Transcaucasia were to suffer from acute food shortages due to the state of anarchy prevailing in Russia.

At this time, the Young Turk government of Enver Pasha was well aware of the excellent opportunity presented by the Russian disorder to recover the lands lost by Turkey in the previous century, and subsequently in February 1918 Turkish forces advanced on Erzurum and Trebizond. There was a prospect that the vast numbers of Turks and Tatars living in the Caucasus would rise up and support their victorious Muslim brethren. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) agreed, among other matters, that Russian territory would no longer include the regions of Batumi, Ardahan and Kars. Within two months, the Turks had captured the great fortress of Kars and occupied Batumi, aided by Muslim Georgians, Laz and Adjarians. Food shortages led to famine in many regions of Transcaucasia. The oil port of Baku was a Bolshevik stronghold in an otherwise Menshevik Transcaucasia. Having obtained the desired territories, the Turks renewed their peace overtures. At Batumi in May 1918, the Turks demanded, under threat of invasion, the cession of the Georgian regions of Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki and the Armenian lands around Alexandropol. After Turkish ultimatums, German aid was requested, and on 4 June 1918 the Turkish territorial demands were met without invasion. However, about ten days earlier, Georgia had declared itself a sovereign state on 26 May 1918, independent of the Transcaucasian Republic.

1. Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918–1921)

The Russian Revolution of October 1917 plunged Russia into a bloody civil war, during which several outlying Russian territories declared independence. Georgia was one of them, proclaiming the creation of the independent Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG) on 26 May 1918. The new country was ruled by the Menshevik faction of the Social Democratic Party, which established a multi-party system in sharp contrast to the “dictatorship of the proletariat” established by the Bolsheviks in Russia. It was recognized by Soviet Russia (Treaty of Moscow (1920)) and the major Western powers in 1921.

Georgian-Armenian War (1918)

During the final stages of World War I, Armenians and Georgians defended themselves against the Ottoman Empire’s advance. In June 1918, to prevent an Ottoman advance on Tiflis, Georgian troops took control of the predominantly Armenian province of Lori. After the Armistice of Mudros and the Ottoman withdrawal, Georgian forces remained. Georgian Menshevik parliamentarian Irakli Tsereteli said that Armenians would be safer than Turks as Georgian citizens. The Georgians proposed a quadrilateral conference involving Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Mountainous Republic of the North Caucasus to resolve the issue, which the Armenians rejected. In December 1918, Georgians faced a rebellion, mainly in the village of Uzunlar in the Lori region. Within days, hostilities broke out between the two republics.

The Georgian–Armenian War was a border war fought in 1918 between the Democratic Republic of Georgia and the Democratic Republic of Armenia for parts of the then disputed provinces of Lori and Javakheti, but largely populated by Armenians.

In February 1921, the Red Army invaded Georgia and after a short war occupied the country. The Georgian government was forced to flee. Partisan resistance in 1921–1924 was followed by a large-scale patriotic uprising in August 1924. Colonel Kakutsa Cholokashvili was one of the most prominent partisan leaders of this phase.

1. Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (1921–1990)

Georgian SSR in 1957–1991, including the Abkhazian Autonomous SSR, the Adjarian ASSR, and the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast.

During the Georgian Affair of 1922, Georgia was forcibly incorporated into the Transcaucasian SFSR, which included Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (including Abkhazia and South Ossetia). The Soviet government forced Georgia to cede several areas to Turkey (Tao-Klarjeti Province and part of Batumi Province), Azerbaijan (Hereti/Saingilo Province), Armenia (Lore Region), and Russia (the northeastern corner of Khevi, eastern Georgia).

Georgia was spared the worst excesses of collectivization, which began in 1930. The rate of collectivization was also slow, reaching 75% only in 1937.

Soviet rule was harsh: some 40,000 people perished in collectivization and purges under Stalin and his secret police chief, Georgian Lavrenty Beria. In 1936, the TFSSR was dissolved and Georgia became the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Access to the oil fields of the Caucasus was one of the main objectives of Adolf Hitler’s invasion of the USSR in June 1941, but the Axis armies did not reach Georgia. The country provided almost 550,000 fighters (of whom 300,000 were killed) to the Red Army and was a vital source of textiles and ammunition. However, a number of Georgians fought on the side of the German armed forces, forming the Georgian Legion.

During this period, Stalin ordered the deportation of the Chechen, Ingush, Karachay, and Balkar peoples from the North Caucasus; they were transported to Siberia and Central Asia for alleged collaboration with the Nazis. He abolished their respective autonomous republics. The Georgian SSR briefly received part of their territory until 1957.

Stalin’s successful appeal for patriotic unity overshadowed Georgian nationalism during the war and dispersed it in the following years. On March 9, 1956, about a hundred Georgians were killed when they demonstrated against Nikita Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization policies.

The decentralization program introduced by Khrushchev in the mid-1950s was soon used by officials of the Georgian Communist Party to build their own regional power base. A thriving pseudo-capitalist shadow economy emerged alongside the official state economy. Although Georgia’s official economic growth rate was among the lowest in the USSR, such indicators as savings rates, car ownership rates, and housing prices were among the highest in the Union, making Georgia one of the most economically successful Soviet republics. Corruption was high. Of all the union republics, Georgia had the highest number of residents with higher or specialized secondary education.

Although corruption was hardly unknown in the Soviet Union, it became so widespread and blatant in Georgia that it became an embarrassment to the authorities in Moscow. Eduard Shevardnadze, the country’s interior minister from 1964 to 1972, earned a reputation as a fighter against corruption and orchestrated the removal of Vasil Mzhavanadze, the corrupt first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party. Shevardnadze rose to the position of first secretary with Moscow’s blessing. He was an effective and capable ruler of Georgia from 1972 to 1985, improving the official economy and firing hundreds of corrupt officials.

Soviet power and Georgian nationalism clashed in 1978, when Moscow ordered a review of the constitutional status of the Georgian language as the official state language of Georgia. Bowing to pressure from mass street demonstrations on April 14, 1978, Moscow approved the restoration of the constitutional guarantee by Shevardnadze that same year. April 14 was declared Georgian Language Day.

Perestroika and glasnost and priority over the laws of the Soviet Union

Main articles: History of the Soviet Union (1982–1991), Perestroika, Glasnost, Parade of Sovereignties, and War of the Laws

Shevardnadze’s appointment as Soviet Foreign Minister in 1985 led to his replacement in Georgia by Dzhuber Patiashvili, a conservative and generally ineffective communist who had poorly handled the challenges of perestroika. By the late 1980s, increasingly violent clashes had broken out between the communist authorities, the resurgent Georgian nationalist movement, and nationalist movements in Georgia’s minority regions (especially South Ossetia). On 9 April 1989, Soviet troops were used to disperse a peaceful demonstration outside the government building in Tbilisi. Twenty Georgians were killed and hundreds were injured and poisoned. The event radicalized Georgian politics, leading many—even some Georgian communists—to conclude that independence was preferable to continued Soviet rule.

1. Independent Georgia

The legacy of the Soviet Union

Main articles: Disintegration of the Soviet Union; Continuity, succession, and legacy of the Soviet Union; Bialowieza Pacts; Alma-Ata Protocol; Common Economic Space of the Commonwealth of Independent States; Arrangements on Mobility Rights of the Commonwealth of Independent States; and the military of the Commonwealth of Independent States

The post-Soviet countries signed a series of treaties and agreements to settle the legacy of the former Soviet Union multilaterally and bilaterally in the absence of Georgian representatives. However, in 1993, Georgia joined the Commonwealth of Independent States, signing the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the CIS Charter, and other agreements. Georgia withdrew from the CIS in 2009.

Gamsakhurdia’s presidency (1991–1992)

Opposition pressure on the communist government was expressed in popular demonstrations and strikes, which eventually led to open, multi-party, and democratic parliamentary elections on 28 October 1990, in which the Round Table–Free Georgia bloc won 54 percent of the proportional vote to win 155 of the 250 seats up for election, while the Communists won 64 seats and 30 percent of the proportional vote. These elections were the first open multi-party elections in the Soviet Union. Leading dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia headed the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia. On 31 March 1991, Gamsakhurdia wasted no time in organizing a referendum on independence, which was approved by 98.9% of the vote. Formal independence from the Soviet Union was declared on 9 April 1991, although it took some time before it was widely recognized by external powers such as the United States and European countries. Gamsakhurdia’s government strongly opposed any vestiges of Russian domination, such as the remaining Soviet military bases in the republic, and (after the collapse of the Soviet Union) his government refused to join the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Gamsakhurdia was elected president on 26 May 1991 with 86% of the vote. He was subsequently accused by his opponents of an “unstable and authoritarian style of government”, with nationalists and reformists joining forces in an uneasy coalition against Gamsakhurdia. The tense situation was exacerbated by the large amount of former Soviet weapons available to the warring parties and the growing power of paramilitary groups. The situation reached its peak on 22 December 1991, when armed opposition groups launched a violent military coup, besieging Gamsakhurdia and his supporters in government buildings in central Tbilisi. Gamsakhurdia managed to evade his enemies and fled to the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya in January 1992.

Shevardnadze presidency (1992–2003)

See also: 1991–92 Georgian coup d’état and Georgian Civil War

Eduard Shevardnadze, Second President of Georgia (1995–2003)

The new government invited Eduard Shevardnadze to become head of the State Council – effectively president – in March 1992, after the overthrow of Gamsakhurdia. In August 1992, the separatist dispute in the Georgian autonomous republic of Abkhazia escalated when government forces and paramilitaries were sent to the region to suppress separatist activities. The Abkhazians fought back with the help of paramilitaries from the Russian regions of the North Caucasus and alleged covert support from the Russian army stationed at a base in Gudauta, Abkhazia, and in September 1993, government forces suffered a catastrophic defeat that resulted in their expulsion and the expulsion of the entire Georgian population from the region. An estimated 14,000 people died and another 300,000 were forced to flee.

Ethnic violence also flared in South Ossetia, but was eventually suppressed, albeit at the cost of several hundred deaths and 100,000 refugees fleeing to Russian-held North Ossetia. In southwestern Georgia, the autonomous republic of Adjara came under the control of Aslan Abashidze, who managed to rule his republic from 1991 to 2004 as a personal fiefdom in which the Tbilisi government had little influence.

On 24 September 1993, following the Abkhazian catastrophe, Zviad Gamsakhurdia returned from exile to organize an uprising against the government. His supporters were able to take advantage of the chaos in government forces and quickly overran much of western Georgia. This alarmed Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and parts of the Russian army were sent to Georgia to assist the government. Gamsakhurdia’s rebellion quickly collapsed, and he died on 31 December 1993, apparently after being cornered by his enemies. In a highly controversial agreement, Shevardnadze’s government agreed to join the CIS as part of the price for military and political support.

Shevardnadze narrowly escaped a bomb attack in August 1995, which he blamed on his former paramilitary allies. He seized the opportunity to imprison paramilitary leader Jaba Ioseliani and ban his Mkhedrioni militia in what was billed as a crackdown on “mafia forces.” However, his government—and his own family—became increasingly implicated in widespread corruption that hampered Georgia’s economic growth. He won presidential elections in November 1995 and April 2000 by large majorities, but there were persistent allegations of vote-rigging.

The war in Chechnya caused significant friction with Russia, which accused Georgia of harboring Chechen partisans. Adding to the tension was Shevardnadze’s close relationship with the United States, which saw him as a counterweight to Russian influence in the strategic Transcaucasus region. Georgia became a major recipient of U.S. foreign and military aid, signed a strategic partnership with NATO, and declared its ambition to join both NATO and the EU. In 2002, the United States sent hundreds of special operations forces to train Georgia’s armed forces, a program known as the Georgia Train and Equip Program. Perhaps most importantly, the country secured a $3 billion Caspian-Mediterranean pipeline project (the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline).

A powerful coalition of reformists, led by Mikheil Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania, united to oppose Shevardnadze’s government in the parliamentary elections of 2 November 2003. The elections were considered clearly fraudulent, including by OSCE observers; in response, the opposition organized mass demonstrations in the streets of Tbilisi. After two tense weeks, Shevardnadze resigned on 23 November 2003 and was replaced as interim president by Burjanadze.

These results were annulled by the Supreme Court of Georgia following the Rose Revolution of 25 November 2003, following allegations of widespread electoral fraud and major public protests that led to Shevardnadze’s resignation.