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.