Georgia

History
Archaeological ndings make it possible to trace the origins of human society on the territory of modern Georgia back to the
early Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. A number of Neolithic sites have been excavated in the Kolkhida Lowland, in the Khrami
River valley in central Georgia, and in South Ossetia; they were occupied by settled tribes engaged in cattle raising and
agriculture. The cultivation of grain in Georgia during the Neolithic Period is attested by nds of saddle querns and int sickles;
the earth was tilled with stone mattocks. The Caucasus was regarded in ancient times as the primeval home of metallurgy. The
start of the 3rd millennium BC witnessed the beginning of Georgias Bronze Age. Remarkable nds in Trialeti show that central
Georgia was inhabited during the 2nd millennium BC by cattle-raising tribes whose chieftains were men of wealth and power.
Their burial mounds have yielded nely wrought vessels in gold and silver; a few are engraved with ritual scenes suggesting
Asiatic cult inuence.

Origins of the Georgian nation

Early in the 1st millennium BC, the ancestors of the Georgian nation emerge in the annals of Assyria and, later, of Urartu. Among
these were the Diauhi (Diaeni) nation, ancestors of the Taokhoi, who later domiciled in the southwestern Georgian province of
Tao, and the Kulkha, forerunners of the Colchians, who held sway over large territories at the eastern end of the Black Sea. The
fabled wealth of Colchis became known quite early to the Greeks and found symbolic expression in the legend of Medea and the
Golden Fleece.
Following the inux of tribes driven from the direction of Anatolia by the Cimmerian invasion of the 7th century BC and their
fusion with the aboriginal population of the Kura River valley, the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era witnessed
the growth of the important kingdom of Iberia, the region that now comprises modern Kartli and Kakheti, along with Samtskhe
and adjoining regions of southwestern Georgia. Colchis was colonized by Greek settlers from Miletus and subsequently fell
under the sway of Mithradates VI Eupator, king of Pontus. The campaigns of the Roman general Pompey the Great led in 66 BC to
the establishment of Roman hegemony over Iberia and to direct Roman rule over Colchis and the rest of Georgias Black Sea
littoral.

Medieval Georgia
Georgia embraced Christianity about the year 330; its conversion is attributed to a holy captive woman, St. Nino. During the next
three centuries, Georgia was involved in the conict between Romeand its successor state, the Byzantine Empireand the
Persian Ssnian dynasty. Lazica on the Black Sea (incorporating the ancient Colchis) became closely bound to Byzantium. Iberia
passed under Persian control, though toward the end of the 5th century a hero arose in the person of King Vakhtang Gorgaslani
(Gorgasal), a ruler of legendary valour who for a time reasserted Georgias national sovereignty. The Ssnian monarch Khosrow
I (reigned 531579) abolished the Iberian monarchy, however. For the next three centuries, local authority was exercised by the
magnates of each province, vassals successively of Persia (Iran), of Byzantium, and, after AD 654, of the Arab caliphs, who
established an emirate in Tbilisi. (See Iran, ancient.)
Toward the end of the 9th century, Ashot I (the Great), of the Bagratid dynasty, settled at Artanuji in Tao (southwestern Georgia),
receiving from the Byzantine emperor the title of kuropalates (guardian of the palace). In due course, Ashot proted from the
weakness of the Byzantine emperors and the Arab caliphs and set himself up as hereditary prince in Iberia. King Bagrat III
(reigned 9751014) later united all the principalities of eastern and western Georgia into one state. Tbilisi, however, was not
recovered from the Muslims until 1122, when it fell to King David IV (Aghmashenebeli, the Builder; reigned 10891125).
The zenith of Georgias power and prestige was reached during the reign (11841213) of Queen Tamar, whose realm stretched
from Azerbaijan to the borders of Cherkessia (now in southern Russia) and from Erzurum (in modern Turkey) to Ganja (modern
Gnc, Azerbaijan), forming a pan-Caucasian empire, with Shirvan and Trabzon as vassals and allies.
The invasions of Transcaucasia by the Mongols from 1220 onward, however, brought Georgias golden age to an end. Eastern
Georgia was reduced to vassalage under the Mongol Il-Khanid dynasty of the line of Hleg, while Imereti, as the land to the
west of the Suram range was called, remained independent under a separate line of Bagratid rulers. There was a partial
resurgence during the reign (131446) of King Giorgi V of Georgia, known as the Brilliant, but the onslaughts of the Turkic
conqueror Timur between 1386 and 1403 dealt blows to Georgias economic and cultural life from which the kingdom never
recovered. The last king of united Georgia was Alexander I (141243), under whose sons the realm was divided into squabbling
princedoms.

Turkish and Persian domination

The fall of Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey) to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 isolated Georgia from western Christendom.
In 1510 the Ottomans invaded Imereti and sacked the capital, Kutaisi. Soon afterward, Shah Isml I of Iran (Persia) invaded
Kartli. Ivan IV (the Terrible) and other Muscovite tsars showed interest in the little Christian kingdoms of Georgia, but the

Kartli. Ivan IV (the Terrible) and other Muscovite tsars showed interest in the little Christian kingdoms of Georgia, but the
Russians were powerless to stop the Muslim powersavad Iran and the Ottoman Empire, both near their zenithfrom
partitioning the country and oppressing its inhabitants. In 1578 the Ottomans overran the whole of Transcaucasia and seized
Tbilisi, but they were subsequently driven out by Irans Shah Abbs I (reigned 15871629), who deported many thousands of the
Christian population to distant regions of Iran. There was a period of respite under the viceroys of the house of Mukhran, who
governed at Tbilisi under the aegis of the shahs from 1658 until 1723. The most notable Mukhranian ruler was Vakhtang VI,
regent of Kartli from 1703 to 1711 and then king, with intervals, until 1723. Vakhtang was an eminent lawgiver and introduced
the printing press to Georgia; he had the Georgian annals edited by a commission of scholars. The collapse of the afavid
dynasty in 1722, however, led to a fresh Ottoman invasion of Georgia. The Ottomans were expelled by the Persian conqueror
Ndir Shah, who gave Kartli to Teimuraz II (174462), one of the Kakhian line of the Bagratids. When Teimuraz died, his son
Erekle II reunited the kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti and made a brave attempt at erecting a Caucasian multinational state based
on Georgia. Imereti under King Solomon I (175284) succeeded in nally throwing o the domination of the declining Ottoman
Empire.
Raids by Lezgian mountaineers from Dagestan, economic stringency, and other diculties impelled Erekle to adopt a proRussian orientation. On July 24, 1783, he concluded with Catherine II (the Great) the Treaty of Georgievsk, whereby Russia
guaranteed Georgias independence and territorial integrity in return for Erekles acceptance of Russian suzerainty. Yet Georgia
alone faced the Persian gh Moammad Khan, rst of the Qjr dynasty. Tbilisi was sacked in 1795, and Erekle died in 1798. His
invalid son Giorgi XII sought to hand over the kingdom unconditionally into the care of the Russian emperor Paul, but both rulers
died before this could be implemented. In 1801 Alexander I rearmed Pauls decision to incorporate Kartli and Kakheti into the
Russian Empire. Despite the treaty of 1783, the Bagratid line was deposed and replaced by Russian military governors who
deported the surviving members of the royal house and provoked several popular uprisings. Imereti was annexed in 1810,
followed by Guria, Mingrelia, Svaneti, and Abkhazia in 1829, 1857, 1858, and 1864, respectively. The Black Sea ports of Poti and
Batumi and areas of southwestern Georgia under Ottoman rule were taken by Russia in successive wars by 187778.

National revival
By waging war on the Lezgian clansmen of Dagestan and on Iran and the Ottomans, the Russians ensured the corporate survival
of the Georgian nation. Under Prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov, who served with distinction as viceroy (184554),
commerce and trade ourished. Following the liberation of the Russian serfs in 1861, the Georgian peasants also received
freedom from 1864 onward, though on terms regarded as burdensome. The decay of patriarchy was accelerated by the spread
of education and European inuences. A railway linked Tbilisi with Poti from 1872, and mines, factories, and plantations were
developed by Russian, Armenian, and Western entrepreneurs. Peasant discontent, the growth of an urban working class, and the
deliberate policy of Russication and forced assimilation of minorities practiced by Emperor Alexander III (188194) fostered
radical agitation among the workers and nationalism among the intelligentsia. The tsarist system permitted no organized
political activity, but social issues were debated in journals, works of ction, and local assemblies.
The leader of the national revival in Georgia was Prince Ilia Chavchavadze, leader of a literary and social movement dubbed the
Pirveli Dasi, or First Group. The Meore Dasi, or Second Group, led by Giorgi Tsereteli, was more liberal in its convictions, but it
paled before the Mesame Dasi, or Third Group, an illegal Social Democratic party founded in 1893. The Third Group professed
Marxist doctrines, and from 1898 it included among its members Joseph Dzhugashvili, who later took the byname Joseph Stalin.
When the Mensheviksa branch of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Partygained control of the group, Stalin left
Georgia.
The 1905 Revolution in Russia led to widespread disturbances and guerrilla ghting in Georgia, later suppressed by Russian
government Cossack troops with indiscriminate brutality. After the Russian Revolution of February 1917 the Transcaucasian
regionGeorgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijanwas ruled from Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and known as the Ozakom. The
Bolshevik coup later that year forced the predominantly Menshevik politicians of Transcaucasia to reluctantly secede from Russia
and form the Transcaucasian Commissariat. The local nationalisms, combined with the pressure brought on by an Ottoman
advance from the west during World War I (191418), brought about the breakdown of the Transcaucasian federation. On May
26, 1918, Georgia set up an independent state and placed itself under the protection of Germany, the senior partner of the
Central Powers, but the victory of the Allies at the end of 1918 led to occupation of Georgia by the British. The Georgians viewed
Anton Ivanovich Denikins counterrevolutionary White Russians, who enjoyed British support, as more dangerous than the
Bolsheviks. They refused to cooperate in the eort to restore the tsarist imperial order, and British forces evacuated Batumi in
July 1920.
Georgias independence was recognized de facto by the Allies in January 1920, and the Russo-Georgian treaty of May 1920 briey
resulted in Soviet-Georgian cooperation.

Incorporation into the U.S.S.R.

Refused entry into the League of Nations, Georgia gained de jure recognition from the Allies in January 1921. Within a month the
Red Armywithout Lenins approval but under the orders of two Georgian Bolsheviks, Stalin and Grigory Konstantinovich
Ordzhonikidzeentered Georgia and installed a Soviet regime.
After Georgia was established as a Soviet republic, Stalin and Ordzhonikidze incorporated it into the Transcaucasian Soviet
Federated Socialist Republic. The still-popular Georgian Social Democrats organized a rebellion in 1924, but it was brutally
suppressed by Stalin.

suppressed by Stalin.
During Stalins despotic rule (192853), Georgia suered from repression of all expressions of nationalism, the forced
collectivization of peasant agriculture, and the purging of those communists who had led the Soviet republic in its rst decade.
Stalin installed his Georgian comrade Lavrenty Beria as party chief, rst in Georgia and later over all of Transcaucasia. Even after
Beria was transferred to Moscow to head the secret police, the republic was tightly controlled from the Kremlin. In the Soviet
period, Georgia changed from an overwhelmingly agrarian country to a largely industrial, urban society. Meanwhile, Georgian
language and literature were promoted, and a national intelligentsia grew in number and inuence. After Stalins death, a
freewheeling second economy developed, which supplied goods and services not otherwise available.
Under the reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s, Georgia moved swiftly toward independence. The former
dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia led a coalition called the Round Table to victory in parliamentary elections in October 1990. After
Georgia declared independence on April 9, 1991, Gamsakhurdia was elected president. But Gamsakhurdias policies soon drove
many of his supporters into opposition, and in late 1991 civil war broke out. In January 1992 Gamsakhurdia was deposed and
replaced by the Military Council, which subsequently gave power to the State Council headed by Eduard Shevardnadze, former
Soviet foreign minister and one-time rst secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia. In October, 95 percent of voters elected
Shevardnadze to serve as chair of the Supreme Council, Georgias legislature, a position then tantamount to the countrys
president.
David Marshall Lang
Ronald Grigor Suny
The Editors of Encyclopdia Britannica

Independence
At the same time, secessionist movements
particularly in South Ossetia and Abkhaziaerupted in
various parts of the country. In 1992 Abkhazia
reinstated its 1925 constitution and declared
independence, which the international community
refused to recognize. In late 1993 Georgia joined the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose
confederation of former Soviet republics; following a
cease-re reached with Abkhazia in 1994, CIS
peacekeepers were deployed to the region, although
violence was ongoing. Georgia later signed an
association agreement with the European Union,
joined the Council of Europe and the World Trade
Organization, and became a partner in the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization.
In 1995 a new constitution, which created a strong
president, was enacted, and in November
Shevardnadze was elected to that oce with 75
percent of the vote, and his party, the Citizens Union
of Georgia (CUG), won 107 of the parliaments 231
seats. In legislative elections four years later, the CUG
won an absolute majority, and in 2000 Shevardnadze
Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc.
was reelected president with nearly 80 percent of the
vote. Accusations that he condoned widespread
corruption and that his party engaged in rampant election fraud haunted Shevardnadzes administration. In 2003 former justice
minister Mikheil Saakashvili, the head of the United National Movement (UNM), lead a peaceable uprisingtermed the Rose
Revolutionthat drove Shevardnadze from power. Saakashvili was elected president the following year and immediately
opened a campaign against corruption, sought to stabilize the economy, and attempted to secure the country against ethnic
strife.
Because of a pattern of human rights abuses and a growing sense of authoritarianism, the administration of President
Saakashvili was shortly confronted by growingif loosely knitopposition. Journalists and international observers noted that
the countrys freedom of speech practices, though protected by law, were susceptible to inuence by indirect pressure tactics,
and Saakashvilis campaign against graft was criticized for its focus on the presidents opposition while corrupt practices were
allowed to persist among administration associates. Highly critical of the fraud and corruption he had noted among defense
ocials was Irakli Okruashvili, an opponent of the administration and its onetime defense minister. During his tenure
Okruashvili had made public his observation of graft so widespread among armed forces ocials that the army itself had fallen
into a poor state of order. In 2007 he established an opposition party, Movement for United Georgia, and appeared on Imedi TV,
an independent television station, to issue a number of direct accusations against President Saakashvili.

an independent television station, to issue a number of direct accusations against President Saakashvili.
Though the statements served as a rallying point for a largely disorganized opposition, they resulted in Okruashvilis arrest on
extortion charges of his own. His televised appearance a number of days later, in which he pled guilty to the charges against him
and retracted his earlier accusations, was largely held by others among Saakashvilis opposition to be the result of duress; the
circumstances under which he left the country following his release on bail were unclear.
These events contributed to the culmination of a number of points of criticism against Saakashvili and his once-popular
government, providing opposition activists with the opportunity to arrange for massive demonstrationsthought perhaps to be
as large as those that had previously brought Saakashvili to powerin Tbilisi in early November 2007. Though Saakashvili initially
met the protests with several days silence, forcible measures were soon employed in breaking up the demonstrations, and it
was announced that a potential coup had been thwarted. Saakashvilis declaration of a 15-day state of emergency criticized
both locally and abroadwas quickly followed by his call for early elections in January. Though emergency rule was formally
lifted a week after it had begun, Imedi TV remained o the air; ongoing demonstrations called for its return to broadcast, which
nally took place approximately one month later. In late November 2007, Saakashvili resigned as president as required by law in
preparation for the early elections.
In January 2008 Saakashvili was reelected, narrowly attaining the majority needed to forego a second round of voting. Although
opposition groups criticized the process as awed, the election was largely deemed free and fair by international monitors, who
noted only isolated procedural violations and instances of fraud.

Meanwhile, the simmering conict between Georgia

and its breakaway regions had returned to the fore
following the 2004 election of Saakashvili, who
prioritized Georgian territorial unity and the reduction
of ethnic strife. Although in mid-2004 Saakashvili
successfully forced the leader of the autonomous
republic of Ajaria from power and returned that
republic to central government control, hostilities
continued in the territories of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia. Oers by Saakashvili in 2005 to discuss
autonomy for South Ossetia within the Georgian state
were rejected, and in late 2006 the region reiterated
its desire for independence through an unocial
referendum. The ongoing conict also exacerbated
Georgias tense relationship with neighbouring Russia,
which Georgia accused of providing support for the
separatists.
In August 2008 the conict with South Ossetia swelled
sharply as Georgia engaged with local separatist
ghters as well as with Russian forces that had
crossed the border with the stated intent to defend
Russian citizens and peacekeeping troops already in
Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc.
the region. In the days that followed the initial
outbreak, Georgia declared a state of war as Russian
forces swiftly took control of Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital; violence continued to spread elsewhere in the country as
Russian forces also moved through the breakaway region of Abkhazia in northwestern Georgia. Georgia and Russia signed a
French-brokered cease-re that called for the

French-brokered cease-re that called for the

withdrawal of Russian forces, but tensions continued.
Russias subsequent recognition of the independence
of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was condemned by
Georgia and met with criticism from other members of
the international community. In the midst of its
hostilities with Russia, Georgia announced its intention
to withdraw from the CIS and called upon other
member states to do likewise; the following year
Georgia formally withdrew from the association.
Saakashvili continued to face domestic challenges as
political tensions mounted in 2009. Opposition parties
called on Saakashvili to resign, and in April a series of
daily demonstrations was launched. Saakashvili
pledged increased reforms and called for early
elections to be held in May 2010, but he refused to
step down. Although the daily protests of the spring
dwindled, new demonstrations were launched toward
the end of 2009, and calls for Saakashvilis resignation
persisted as political tension continued to simmer.
Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc.

A Georgian opposition protestor standing in a makeshift jail cell erected outside the
presidential
Vano ShlamovAFP/Getty Images

The Editors of Encyclopdia Britannica

"Georgia".Encyclopdia Britannica. Encyclopdia Britannica Online.

Encyclopdia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 19 Apr. 2016
<http://www.britannica.com/place/Georgia>.

In 2012 Saakashvilis UNM faced a challenge from the

newly formed opposition coalition, Georgian Dream,
led by Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili. Although
polls showed the UNM with a strong lead several
weeks before the October parliamentary election, the
partys position was damaged in late September when
the release of videos showing Georgian prison guards
beating and sexually abusing prisoners provoked
widespread public anger. When preliminary election
results indicated a resounding victory for the Georgian
Dream coalition, Saakashvili, set to remain in oce as
president until the end of his term in 2013, conceded
his partys defeat and acknowledged Ivanishvilis right
to become prime minister.