Understanding Georgia’s bumpy democratization drive and its inter-ethnic dynamics seems impossible without sufficient knowledge of the Abkhazian conflict.
As it has been repeatedly said, it was in the context of the Abkhazian-Georgian conflict and the rise of Georgian nationalism led by Zvad Gamsakhurdia in the late 80’s that Andrei Sakharov (civil right activist and 1975 Nobel Peace Prize laureate) who supported all the independence movements within the USSR, qualified Georgia’s movement differently. He said that the Soviet empire was being replaced by a “Georgian empire.”
In the Abkhazian-Georgian conflict the Georgian side – the ‘mini-empire’ – has not however been the only protagonist with undemocratic ends and deeds. All the actors in this conflict have, in fact, been and acted as such. The Abkhazian-Georgian conflict has evolved through the complex interactions between ethnic minority nationalism, Georgian nationalism, and Russia’s empirial tendencies in much of the past two centuries.
The Abkhazian-Georgian conflict has also marked and shaped the Georgian mindset as well as those of the other ethnic minorities who live in Georgia as regards to the questions of minority rights and status.
The Georgian political elites – whether Soviet or post Soviet (Shevardnadze and company), nationalist (Gamsakhurdia and company) or pro-west (Saakashvili and company) – as well as the groups that in the Soviet and the post-Soviet times are usually called ‘intelligentsia’– have been unable to think of and propose a democratic solution to the country’s ethnic problems. A truly democratic solution would require acknowledging that Georgia is a multi-ethnic country and as such, if it wants to build a democratic state, must move towards a decentralized system – a loose federation or confederation.
The Georgian-Abkhazian conflict has been heavily centered on the question of cultural identity rather than political and administrative rights. In the struggle for affirmation of Abkhaz identity and resistance to Georgia’s cultural hegemony, several themes have been regularily emphaisized:
> The question of language of instruction at schools
> The question of script
> The question of university
These themes have been replicated by the other ethnic minorities composing Georgia. As such, the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict can also help understand current and future tensions in other provinces.
For instance, both Armenian-dominated Samtskhe-Javakheti and Azeri-populated Kvemo-Kartli have demanded the use of native language at schools. Javakheti population has also been very susceptible on the issue of establishing a regional Armenian university. The Georgian authorities’ reaction, as in the past, has been ignorance, manipulation and repression.
A summarized history of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict that I have compiled from different sources is as follows:
1810
Tsarist Russia takes Abkhazia from the Persian Empire. The territory is administered as province until 1864.
1864
End of Russo-Circassian War. Russia crushes North Caucasian resistance. Many Caucasian ethnic groups including the majority of the Abkhazians, Circassians, and all the Ubykhs go into exile in the Ottoman Empire. Deportations continue until World War I. Depopulated lands are resettled by Russians and Georgians.
1921
Sovietization of the South Caucasus begins. Ambiguous relations between Abkhazia and Georgia; one of the 3 constituents of the Transcaucasian SFSR.
1931
Abkhazia’s status is clarified. As an ASSR (A for autonomous) it is incorporated into Georgia SSR. Some sources emphasize Joseph Stalin’s – an ethnic Georgian – role in the decision.
1937
Political and cultural repressions begin in Abkhazia:
> The majority of the Abkhaz elite is eliminated in a series of Stalinian purges and deportations.
> The Abkhazian language is phased out of secondary school.
> The Abkhaz Latin-based script is changed to a Georgian-based one.
> All leading local state and party posts are held by Georgians.
> Migration of Georgians, especially neighboring Mingrelians, into the province. Some sources interpret this as an attempt by the authorities to modify the ethnic mix of the province. The role of Lavrenti Beria, USSR chief of secret police and a Mingrelian-Georgian, is emphasized.
1953-54
Deaths of Stalin and Beria: Abkhazia experiences a period of recovery and tolerance.
> Abkhaz schools reopen.
> Abkhazians appointed to local administration positions.
> The Abkhazian language is recognized as a distinct language.
> The Georgian script is dropped in favor of a new Cyrillic-based one.
1978
A group of 130 Abkhaz intellectuals write to Leonid Brezhnev and request permission for Abkhazia to secede from Georgia SSR and join Russia SFSR. The request is turned down.
Moscow sends a Communist Party commission headed by I. V. Kapitonov to “defuse the tension”. The Kapitonov Commission advises a range of conciliatory measures in the areas of education and investment allocations. The main compensationary proposal is the establishment of the Abkhaz State University.
1979
The 130 signatories of the petition loose their jobs but the Abkhazian State University opens. The new institution in fact integrates Maxim Gorky Sukhumi Pedagogical Institute. Its first President/Rector is Zurab Anchabadze. The University consists of the following departments: Physics, Mathematics, Biology, Geography, History, Philology, Economics, Law, Pedagogy, and Agro-engineering. The University has 3 sections: Georgian, Russian and Abkhazian.
1989
Following repetitive complaints by Georgian students at the Abkhazian State University alleging discrimination at the hands of their Abkhaz and Russian professors and administrators, attempts are made to open a branch campus of Tbilisi State University in Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia ASSR.
In April, Georgian students launch a hunger strike demanding that the Georgian-language section of the Abkhazian State University be spun off. The students' demand is part of a larger Georgian campaign aimed at reviving or establishing separate Georgian cultural institutions in Abkhazia. Georgian nationalists such as Zvad Gamsakhurdia are thought to be behind this initiative.
The Georgian student movement acquires a widespread support among the Georgian population of Abkhazia. Georgian university professors, schoolteachers, and the Sukhumi Subtropics Institute researchers join in the strike.
In May, the Georgian SSR government gives in to public pressure and orders the opening of the new Sukhumi branch of Tbilisi State University, leaving the Abkhaz and Russian sections under the administration of the Abkhazian State University.
In early July, a special commission of the USSR Supreme Soviet launches an investigation into the university dispute and concludes that the Georgian government had “no legal right” to authorize the new branch campus. This prompts an acute reaction in Georgia. Despite the commission’s conclusion, the local Georgian authorities go ahead with organizing the entrance exams to the new branch university, scheduled for 15 July.
Protests against the opening of the branch university turn into riots. The riots conclude with looting of the school that was expected to house the new institution. The ensuing violence quickly degenerates into a large-scale interethnic confrontation. By the time when the Soviet army brings the situation under control, at least 18 are dead and hundreds, mainly ethnic Georgians, injured.
1991
The Soviet Union collapses. Mr. Zviad Gamsakhurdia is elected President of independent Georgia but is deposed in a coup at the end of the year. Georgia enters into a period of civil strife. Under Gamsakhurdia, the “Georgia for the Georgians” campaign strives to curtail the rights and autonomies enjoyed by ethnic minorities.
1992
All Soviet legislation affecting Georgia is abolished.
> Georgia reinstates its 1921 pre-Bolshevik Constitution.
> Abkhazia reinstates its 1925 Constitution.
Eduard Shevardnadze, former Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, becomes Georgia’s Head of the State Council. The military campaign against forces loyal to Gamsakhurdia spreads into Abkhazia. Some see this as pretext to regain control of Abkhazia while negotiations between the 2 parties on the nature of the future federation are still in progress.
1993
30 September, Abkhaz separatists and their allies, with Russia’s military and logistical assistance, defeat Georgian forces and gain control of Abkhazia. During the war, both sides commit gross human rights violations. Most Georgian residents of Abkhazia are forced into exile.
1994
4 April, under the auspices of President of Russia Boris Yeltsin a ceasefire agreement is signed between Georgia and Abkhazia in Moscow. The agreement embodies a large number of Georgian concessions.
2008
To favor Georgian-Abkhazian reconciliation, the Saakshvili government presents a plan that predicts a series of constitutional changes. Instead of a decentralized democratic federation, however, Saakshvili proposes a Lebanon-style inter-ethnic power-sharing arrangement according to which the position – to be established – of vice president of Georgia would be reserved for an Abkhaz.
In August, Georgian forces attack South Ossetia. At the end of the war, Russia recognizes Abkhazia’s independence along with that of Ossetia.
For further reading:
To read an interesting article by Robert English, Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California entitled “Georgia: The Ignored History”, The New York Review of Books, 6 November 2008, please click here.
To read “The 1992-93 Georgia-Abkhazia War: A Forgotten Conflict” by Alexandros Petersen, Southeast Europe Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Caucasian Review of International Affairs, Autumn 2008, please click here.
To read “Georgians and Abkhazians: The Search for a Peace Settlement” by Ghia Nodia and al., Vrije Universiteit Brussel, August 1998, please click here.
____________________________________
Fake European and inconsistent democrat: Mr. Saakachvili (in picture) can easily go into the Guiness World Records as a non-EU country’s head of state who spoke about EU, was photographed in front of the EU flag, and met EU officials more than any EU member country leader of his time.
His superficial allegiance to the European Union has – to my view – seriousely damaged the reputation and credibility of the EU in the South Caucasus.
As it has been repeatedly said, it was in the context of the Abkhazian-Georgian conflict and the rise of Georgian nationalism led by Zvad Gamsakhurdia in the late 80’s that Andrei Sakharov (civil right activist and 1975 Nobel Peace Prize laureate) who supported all the independence movements within the USSR, qualified Georgia’s movement differently. He said that the Soviet empire was being replaced by a “Georgian empire.”
In the Abkhazian-Georgian conflict the Georgian side – the ‘mini-empire’ – has not however been the only protagonist with undemocratic ends and deeds. All the actors in this conflict have, in fact, been and acted as such. The Abkhazian-Georgian conflict has evolved through the complex interactions between ethnic minority nationalism, Georgian nationalism, and Russia’s empirial tendencies in much of the past two centuries.
The Abkhazian-Georgian conflict has also marked and shaped the Georgian mindset as well as those of the other ethnic minorities who live in Georgia as regards to the questions of minority rights and status.
The Georgian political elites – whether Soviet or post Soviet (Shevardnadze and company), nationalist (Gamsakhurdia and company) or pro-west (Saakashvili and company) – as well as the groups that in the Soviet and the post-Soviet times are usually called ‘intelligentsia’– have been unable to think of and propose a democratic solution to the country’s ethnic problems. A truly democratic solution would require acknowledging that Georgia is a multi-ethnic country and as such, if it wants to build a democratic state, must move towards a decentralized system – a loose federation or confederation.
The Georgian-Abkhazian conflict has been heavily centered on the question of cultural identity rather than political and administrative rights. In the struggle for affirmation of Abkhaz identity and resistance to Georgia’s cultural hegemony, several themes have been regularily emphaisized:
> The question of language of instruction at schools
> The question of script
> The question of university
These themes have been replicated by the other ethnic minorities composing Georgia. As such, the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict can also help understand current and future tensions in other provinces.
For instance, both Armenian-dominated Samtskhe-Javakheti and Azeri-populated Kvemo-Kartli have demanded the use of native language at schools. Javakheti population has also been very susceptible on the issue of establishing a regional Armenian university. The Georgian authorities’ reaction, as in the past, has been ignorance, manipulation and repression.
A summarized history of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict that I have compiled from different sources is as follows:
1810
Tsarist Russia takes Abkhazia from the Persian Empire. The territory is administered as province until 1864.
1864
End of Russo-Circassian War. Russia crushes North Caucasian resistance. Many Caucasian ethnic groups including the majority of the Abkhazians, Circassians, and all the Ubykhs go into exile in the Ottoman Empire. Deportations continue until World War I. Depopulated lands are resettled by Russians and Georgians.
1921
Sovietization of the South Caucasus begins. Ambiguous relations between Abkhazia and Georgia; one of the 3 constituents of the Transcaucasian SFSR.
1931
Abkhazia’s status is clarified. As an ASSR (A for autonomous) it is incorporated into Georgia SSR. Some sources emphasize Joseph Stalin’s – an ethnic Georgian – role in the decision.
1937
Political and cultural repressions begin in Abkhazia:
> The majority of the Abkhaz elite is eliminated in a series of Stalinian purges and deportations.
> The Abkhazian language is phased out of secondary school.
> The Abkhaz Latin-based script is changed to a Georgian-based one.
> All leading local state and party posts are held by Georgians.
> Migration of Georgians, especially neighboring Mingrelians, into the province. Some sources interpret this as an attempt by the authorities to modify the ethnic mix of the province. The role of Lavrenti Beria, USSR chief of secret police and a Mingrelian-Georgian, is emphasized.
1953-54
Deaths of Stalin and Beria: Abkhazia experiences a period of recovery and tolerance.
> Abkhaz schools reopen.
> Abkhazians appointed to local administration positions.
> The Abkhazian language is recognized as a distinct language.
> The Georgian script is dropped in favor of a new Cyrillic-based one.
1978
A group of 130 Abkhaz intellectuals write to Leonid Brezhnev and request permission for Abkhazia to secede from Georgia SSR and join Russia SFSR. The request is turned down.
Moscow sends a Communist Party commission headed by I. V. Kapitonov to “defuse the tension”. The Kapitonov Commission advises a range of conciliatory measures in the areas of education and investment allocations. The main compensationary proposal is the establishment of the Abkhaz State University.
1979
The 130 signatories of the petition loose their jobs but the Abkhazian State University opens. The new institution in fact integrates Maxim Gorky Sukhumi Pedagogical Institute. Its first President/Rector is Zurab Anchabadze. The University consists of the following departments: Physics, Mathematics, Biology, Geography, History, Philology, Economics, Law, Pedagogy, and Agro-engineering. The University has 3 sections: Georgian, Russian and Abkhazian.
1989
Following repetitive complaints by Georgian students at the Abkhazian State University alleging discrimination at the hands of their Abkhaz and Russian professors and administrators, attempts are made to open a branch campus of Tbilisi State University in Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia ASSR.
In April, Georgian students launch a hunger strike demanding that the Georgian-language section of the Abkhazian State University be spun off. The students' demand is part of a larger Georgian campaign aimed at reviving or establishing separate Georgian cultural institutions in Abkhazia. Georgian nationalists such as Zvad Gamsakhurdia are thought to be behind this initiative.
The Georgian student movement acquires a widespread support among the Georgian population of Abkhazia. Georgian university professors, schoolteachers, and the Sukhumi Subtropics Institute researchers join in the strike.
In May, the Georgian SSR government gives in to public pressure and orders the opening of the new Sukhumi branch of Tbilisi State University, leaving the Abkhaz and Russian sections under the administration of the Abkhazian State University.
In early July, a special commission of the USSR Supreme Soviet launches an investigation into the university dispute and concludes that the Georgian government had “no legal right” to authorize the new branch campus. This prompts an acute reaction in Georgia. Despite the commission’s conclusion, the local Georgian authorities go ahead with organizing the entrance exams to the new branch university, scheduled for 15 July.
Protests against the opening of the branch university turn into riots. The riots conclude with looting of the school that was expected to house the new institution. The ensuing violence quickly degenerates into a large-scale interethnic confrontation. By the time when the Soviet army brings the situation under control, at least 18 are dead and hundreds, mainly ethnic Georgians, injured.
1991
The Soviet Union collapses. Mr. Zviad Gamsakhurdia is elected President of independent Georgia but is deposed in a coup at the end of the year. Georgia enters into a period of civil strife. Under Gamsakhurdia, the “Georgia for the Georgians” campaign strives to curtail the rights and autonomies enjoyed by ethnic minorities.
1992
All Soviet legislation affecting Georgia is abolished.
> Georgia reinstates its 1921 pre-Bolshevik Constitution.
> Abkhazia reinstates its 1925 Constitution.
Eduard Shevardnadze, former Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, becomes Georgia’s Head of the State Council. The military campaign against forces loyal to Gamsakhurdia spreads into Abkhazia. Some see this as pretext to regain control of Abkhazia while negotiations between the 2 parties on the nature of the future federation are still in progress.
1993
30 September, Abkhaz separatists and their allies, with Russia’s military and logistical assistance, defeat Georgian forces and gain control of Abkhazia. During the war, both sides commit gross human rights violations. Most Georgian residents of Abkhazia are forced into exile.
1994
4 April, under the auspices of President of Russia Boris Yeltsin a ceasefire agreement is signed between Georgia and Abkhazia in Moscow. The agreement embodies a large number of Georgian concessions.
2008
To favor Georgian-Abkhazian reconciliation, the Saakshvili government presents a plan that predicts a series of constitutional changes. Instead of a decentralized democratic federation, however, Saakshvili proposes a Lebanon-style inter-ethnic power-sharing arrangement according to which the position – to be established – of vice president of Georgia would be reserved for an Abkhaz.
In August, Georgian forces attack South Ossetia. At the end of the war, Russia recognizes Abkhazia’s independence along with that of Ossetia.
For further reading:
To read an interesting article by Robert English, Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California entitled “Georgia: The Ignored History”, The New York Review of Books, 6 November 2008, please click here.
To read “The 1992-93 Georgia-Abkhazia War: A Forgotten Conflict” by Alexandros Petersen, Southeast Europe Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Caucasian Review of International Affairs, Autumn 2008, please click here.
To read “Georgians and Abkhazians: The Search for a Peace Settlement” by Ghia Nodia and al., Vrije Universiteit Brussel, August 1998, please click here.
____________________________________Fake European and inconsistent democrat: Mr. Saakachvili (in picture) can easily go into the Guiness World Records as a non-EU country’s head of state who spoke about EU, was photographed in front of the EU flag, and met EU officials more than any EU member country leader of his time.
His superficial allegiance to the European Union has – to my view – seriousely damaged the reputation and credibility of the EU in the South Caucasus.
