Τρίτη 3 Σεπτεμβρίου 2019

EVGENY ANTONYUK: HOW 200 YEARS AGO THE RUSSIAN TSAR SAVED GEORGIA FROM COMPLETE EXTERMINATION



Source: https://life.ru/1224956, June 26, 15:10


 
In the XV century, the Georgian kingdom fell into several states - Imereti, Kartli and Kakheti. Formally, they were all independent, but each of them paid tribute and was in the sphere of influence of the Ottoman Empire and Persia. In 1586, after endless bloody raids, outright genocide and massacre, which was organized by the Turks and Persians, there were no more than 40 thousand Georgians left.

a petition on his knees," the fat Soviet years under the auspices of Stalin, the aggression of the "roses" and the murder of Russian peacekeepers. 
What else did the inhabitants of the once richest Soviet republic forget?

The history of "eternal citizenship" of the Georgian people
After the death of Byzantium, Georgia was cut off from the entire Christian world. XVI-XVIII centuries, Georgian territory became the arena of the struggle of Muslim Persia and the Ottoman Empire for domination in the Caucasus. At the same time, Persia and Turkey, which can be said to hate each other, were at the same time in relation to Georgia - they did not carry it to the spirit and did not consider it subjects to people.
Under such conditions, churches and shrines were destroyed and desecrated, the lands were ravaged, the male half of the population was almost destroyed. And in the early 1780s, the Persian (Iranian) Shah Ali Murad began to threaten the ruler of the united Kartli-Kakheti kingdom with an invasion.
On July 24, 1783, in the city of Georgievsk, in the south of modern Stavropol, a document was signed that went down in history as the St. George Treatise. According to him, the Kartli-Kakheti kingdom voluntarily came under the protection of Russia. And a few months later two Russian battalions appeared in Tiflis with a battery of field guns. After the arrival of the Russian Tsar, Persia for some time renounced aggression. However, after the Russian troops again retreated beyond the Caucasian border line, Persia again launched a bloody massacre.

Russian military historian Major General Rostislav Fadeev, in his book 60 Years of the Caucasian War, wrote that Muslims (about the Persians. - * Ed. ), Inspired by the new teachings of Shiite, "systematically slaughtered the population of entire regions."
The historian leads the denouement of one of the battles of 1795, when the Persians, having overcome the Kura River, surpassing the Georgian troops, defeated them in the Battle of Krzanis, then captured and destroyed Tbilisi: “On the Kursk bridge in Tiflis, the Persians forced the Orthodox to spit in the miraculous image of the Virgin and overthrew the rebellious ( and everyone was rebellious) from the bridge to Kura, soon laden with bodies; or as two thousand worshipers of the Davido-Gareja desert were taken in turn under the ax during the morning service on Bright Sunday. "
After all these difficult events, on November 17, 1800, Georgian Tsar George XII addressed the Emperor Paul I with a “petition on his knees” in which he begged to accept his people into “eternal citizenship”.

Already the new emperor Alexander I, despite the numerous requests of the Georgian aristocracy, doubted the need for Georgia to join the empire. In order to make a final decision, he sent General Karl Knorring there.
After the trip, the general reported to the emperor that Kartli-Kakheti was doomed if it remained independent. If Russia abandons Georgia, it will face an unenviable fate. The Persians and Ottomans will try to do everything to take it in their hands, and the Georgians will either be forced to Islamize, or even exterminated.
Knorring also claimed that the population was guessing their fate and was literally begging him to promote his acceptance into Russian citizenship. After Knorring’s report, Emperor Alexander in 1801 decided to confirm Paul I’s decree and “take on the burden of governing the kingdom of Georgia.”
Georgian princes
After only a few dozen years, in the 30s of the XIX century, a conspiracy of Georgian aristocrats from St. Petersburg and Moscow was revealed, who wanted to restore the Georgian monarchy and secede from Russia. Despite the gravity of the accusations, the emperor showed demonstrative humanity and limited himself to only expelling the participants to the province for several years.

In order to finally calm the region, it was decided to equalize the Georgian nobility with the Russian nobility on favorable terms. But in percentage terms, the number of nobles in Georgia was much higher than the number of nobles in Russia. There were more than a hundred princely families in little Georgia, which was even more than in vast Russia (not counting the Polish princes).
Such generosity led the Georgian aristocracy to cease to show discontent. But at the same time there was a skew in proportions. By the beginning of the twentieth century, 83.9 million Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians accounted for about 600 thousand nobles, while 823 thousand Georgians had about 60 thousand.
After the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Mensheviks came to power in Georgia. The democratic republic lasted three years and was remembered by the endless massacre and war with its neighbors.
"After death, Russians dream of going to Georgia instead of paradise"
All this ended in 1921 with the Sovietization of Georgia. It is worth noting that Lenin was not enthusiastic about this idea, its main initiator and lobbyist was Sergo Ordzhonikidze. Subsequently, Stalin did a lot for the republic, but even more - his subordinates, who sought to please the leader.
A high standard of living was provided by increased purchase prices for agricultural products. While most of the Russian and Ukrainian collective farms produced grain, the prices of which were underestimated to get cheap bread, Georgian collective farms mainly produced scarce tea, citrus fruits and grapes, which were purchased at a much higher price. Collective farms in the RSFSR received an average of 29 to 48 kopecks per yard for one workday, while Transcaucasian collective farmers earned over 4.6 rubles.

On the 50th anniversary of Joseph Stalin, December 21, 1929. G.K. Ordzhonikidze - third from the left.
It is not surprising that Soviet citizens considered the republic a real promised land, where there are no sorrows and worries. This was noted by the American writer John Steinbeck, who traveled to the USSR in 1947:
Wherever we are - in Russia, in Moscow, in Ukraine, in Stalingrad - the magic word "Georgia" appeared constantly. And they talked about this place in the Caucasus by the Black Sea simply as a second paradise. We began to believe that most Russians hope that if they live their whole lives in honesty and virtue, then when they die, they will not go to heaven, but to Georgia.
In addition to a high standard of living, the republic also had political privileges. So, Georgia was the only republic in which the Russian language did not have an official status. Brezhnev’s attempt to give the language the status of a state ran into resistance to the nomenclature and led to mass protests of the local intelligentsia. After noisy rallies, Brezhnev abandoned his initiative.
Independence
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the first head of independent Georgia was Zviad Gamsakhurdia. His father, Konstantin, the famous "Georgian Gorky", was a staunch anti-Soviet, defiantly refused to speak Russian and struggled with the "Russian occupation", receiving the Order of Lenin and sitting at the Georgian Academy of Sciences thanks to the patronage of Beria and local nomenclature.


After he came to power, a civil war broke out between supporters and opponents of the president, as well as conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, when armed groups from Georgia broke into houses and massacred former Soviet fellow citizens. Then he was overthrown, and he died under still unclear circumstances.
Gamsakhurdia was replaced by former USSR Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, who held power for more than 10 years, maneuvering between Russia and Western countries.
In 2003, he was overthrown by the patterns of the Western color revolutions by his former Minister Mikheil Saakashvili. This coup was called the "rose revolution." A fierce reformer Saakashvili shouted at every turn about the Georgian economic miracle, but the share of industry and labor productivity continued to decline steadily. The new president stepped on an old rake and again tried to achieve submission to Abkhazia and South Ossetia with the help of military force. This time, the Georgian army was much better armed and trained by American instructors.
In 2008, a camp of Russian peacekeepers was located in Tskhinval. Georgia attacked the sleeping city with volleys from Grad installations. After such blatant aggression against the Russian servicemen who were there absolutely legally, Russia simply could not help but intervene in the conflict. Moreover, many residents of South Ossetia already had Russian citizenship.


The armed conflict lasted five days and ended with the unconditional defeat of the Georgian army, which actually took to flight. As a result of this conflict, Russia officially recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Poverty and shame of the richest republic of the USSR
The exit from the USSR and political instability dealt a crushing blow to the economy. For several years of independence, the country's GDP fell by 70% (more than in any of the former Soviet republics). Georgia, which was one of the richest republics of the USSR, turned into one of the poorest countries in the post-Soviet space.
The economic growth that occurred in the zeros and tenths (largely due to the generous financial support of Western countries) partially mitigated the consequences of the 90s, but was clearly insufficient for the country to return to its previous level.
Georgia spent almost 200 years as part of Russia and the USSR. During this time, she received quite a lot. The hands of the empire completed the gathering of Georgian lands, which one of the Georgian kings could hardly have carried out alone, being in a hostile environment. Numerous Georgian nobility received a sharp increase in status to the level of princes, due to which it began to dominate the ranks of the titled aristocracy. In the USSR, the republic had many privileges, and the standard of living there was slightly inferior only to the Baltic, which was the European showcase of the Union.
For all these eras, it is impossible to recall a single case of discrimination at the state level. Georgian language was never subjected to restrictions; Georgian literature was promoted in the USSR along with classical Russian. Georgians have never been persecuted or defeated in their rights. In the empire, they made up a significant part of the titled aristocratic stratum, and in the USSR there was a real cult of everything Georgian.
Even the conflict with the Abkhaz, in which Georgia traditionally blames Russia, originated long before 1991 without any insidious machinations of Moscow. But, despite all this, in the late 80s, Georgia was one of the first to declare a centuries-old and brutal Russian occupation. And since gaining independence, the republic remains one of the most anti-Russian countries of the post-Soviet space.