The Sheila Variations

Georgia's on my mind

On my old blog I used to have this "feature" that I called "Country of the Week".

I took countries I knew a bit about, or at least had 5,000 reference books on, and wrote an entry a day about each country.

Ah, I had a lot of energy those days in my blog-infancy. A long essay a DAY??

I have done so much reading and kept so many notes that I figured: Let's put this vague form of autism to use.

During the life of my old blog, the Countries of the Week were: Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Macedonia, Hungary, The Ukraine, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Uzbekistan, and Georgia. A lot of the entries were made up of book excerpts - and a lot of it I just rambled out myself.

"Okay, so here is what happened with the first Balkan War, as far as I understand..."

That kind of thing.

Anyway. Because of recent upheavals in Georgia, and Shevardnadze stepping down, I went back and looked at my 5 entries for Georgia. And I'm gonna post them here, for whoever is interested.

The tone of these posts rather amuses me, because I do sound like I think I am an expert. Please ignore how obnoxious that is - I am NOT an expert. But I do have a passion for the history of the Caucasus - (as well as the countries in Central Asia) - so while I am not an expert, and could not teach a class on the History of Georgia - there is definitely some good regurgitated information in these posts.

I must give a nod to Robert Kaplan, Colin Thubron, and Ryzsard Kapucinski - all of whom have covered Georgia in great depth, with tremendously beautiful writing. I quote from their books extensively.

So here we go.

The first post is entitled "HISTORY".

HISTORY OF GEORGIA

This week I am going to talk about Georgia. The enclave country in the Caucasus Mountains. It's another one of those countries which may be in complete and utter chaos right now, but they have memories of being an empire. And I mean memory as in cultural memory. Once upon a time, Georgia was a great kingdom. This was in the Middle Ages, but Georgians do not forget. Their country may be run like a criminal enterprise at the moment, but there is a consciousness within of being once-great. Georgians have a strong sense of cultural identity, of "Georgian-ness". This has aided them tremendously in the wrenching and violent changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Georgia is an ancient country, with a largely Orthodox Christian population. The country also has a tremendous mix of ethnicities which has led to a very complex and bloody history. I'll start with the ancient history, and then move on to recent events. It's always good to put a country into context.

Georgia is a beautiful and fertile place, nestled in the Caucasus mountains, and also stretching along the east coast of the Black Sea. Russia fought very hard to keep Georgia under its control, and it is easy to see why. Georgia is a rich breadbasket of a country. The mountain range has allowed Georgia, over the millennia, to remain linguistically homogenous and intact. Which is phenomenal in an area of the world where the minimum amount of ethnicities/languages in any given city is 50. Georgians have been described as "a pocket people preserved in a dusty museum case."

4th century
In 330 A.D., Christianity was brought to Georgia by Assyrian monks. Georgian Christianity is its OWN THING; it has the passion of Orthodox rituals mixed in with flavoring from ancient pagan rites. Georgian Christianity is among the world's oldest form of the religion (along with Armenia, right next door). It mixes in rituals from the Greek pantheon, Zoroastrianism, Anatolian cults. The church holds the country together.

5th century
In the 5th century, A.D., the Georgians created one of the world's 14 alphabets. Incredible.

Georgia's positioning, on the Black Sea, has made it a prize to be captured over the millennia. It is another country (like Armenia, like Poland) which has a long history of being coveted. Empires marched over this land, retreated over it, marched back again, chopping it up, devouring it, ruling it, occupying it. From what I have read, though, there is something in the Georgian character which cannot be subdued. (I'm Irish, so this sounds a bit familiar to me!) Perhaps it is their passionate community-building brand of Christianity. But there is something intractable in Georgians which does not allow them to be psychologically conquered, even when their country is being ruled by an occupying force. They do not take their occupiers very seriously. The land has been ravaged by Arab, Byzantine, Turk, Mongol and Persian armies, and still: these people are Georgian.

Georgia was an ancient monarchy. As long as there was no threat from the outside, all went well. The population was so diverse, and so individualistic that it made things difficult. Diversity is a lovely ideal, but it can be extremely unwieldy when trying to fight off a foe. How do you come to agreement? How do you decide on goals? How do you identify yourself?

10th century
In the 10th century, A.D., that foe arrived in the form of the Byzantine army. The Georgian monarch was unable to unite all the different principalities and populations and ethnicities hiding in the mountains of his country, so the Byzantines easily took over.

11th/12th centuries
Then came the heyday of Georgian history which peaked in the 11th and 12th centuries. The Georgians easily adapted to Byzantine rule, and flourished. The culture thrived, the empire spread from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, and also down into Persia. Georgia was a cosmopolitan mix of Byzantium, Seljuk Turkey, and Persia. The leader of Georgia at the time was David the Builder, who is one of Georgia's many folk-heroes. Georgians love heroes (which is a very important thing to remember....it is one of the keys to this country...their addiction to hero-worship). David the Builder spearheaded the expansion of Georgia. The Turks had conquered and occupied Tbilisi for 400 years, and David basically marched in and took it back.

13th century
The 13th century brought the Mongol invasions. Which were savage and divisive. The Georgian monarchy fell apart. The Mongols supported and promoted the provincial noblemen, in order to shut out the King's influence.

14th century
The 14th century brought the Black Death, which decimated Georgia. This was also the century when the feared Tamerlane conquered Georgia.

Meanwhile, during all of this, the Georgian people are hiding out in the mountains, resisting the outside influence of their conquerors. Yes, they assimilated some of the Persian or Turkic influences, but their alphabet stayed strong, their language stayed strong, their personalities stayed strong. Georgians can thank the barriers of the Caucasus mountains for that.

Georgia eventually was divided up, brutally, between the Turks and the Persians. It was a classic East-West division. (Which, basically, exists in this country until this day). Although Georgia yearns to join the West, yearns to be modern, looks to the West for its inspiration ... the East dictates the tenor of the politics here. It continues to be an internally divided nation. So the Ottoman Turks conquered Georgia from the West, and the Safavid Iranian empire conquered Georgia from the East. The oppression was extreme, from both sides of the coin.

17th century
In the 17th century, we have to add Russia's expansion into this mix. Russia began to creep its way south, keeping its eye firmly set on the jewel of Georgia.

18th century
By the time the 18th century rolled around, Russia and Persia were basically at war over Georgia. This small mountainous chunk of land on the shores of the Black Sea. But again, if you look at a map, you can see how crucial Georgia is to any empire looking to expand in that area. You must have Georgia if you want to have an outlet on the Black Sea. The Black Sea is what connects East to West. It is essential.

19th century
In 1801, Czar Alexander I forcibly incorporated Georgia into the Russian empire. Throughout the 19th century, the Russians hastened the pace in Georgia, forcing them to modernize, to catch up with the rest of the world. This was a jarring transition for the people of Georgia.

However, the Georgian Church continued to bond the people together, in a secret and passionate way. One of the goals of the Russians was to subordinate the Georgian Church to Russian institutions. They were never able to succeed with this. Apparently, some of the most gorgeous painted religious icons came from Georgia. The oppression of the Church catapulted religous art into greatness. I've seen some of those icons, and they bring tears to my eyes. It is faith, burning with a strong and steady flame. It is faith which digs its heels in, sets its jaw squarely. It is faith which does not need a BUILDING to contain it. It is faith which exists whether it is given permission to or not. It is faith which never has to scream about itself, or justify itself, or explain itself. Quite extraordinary. It is indestructible.

20th century
Then along comes the 20th century and slowly, Marxism starts to become very attractive to Georgians. Marxism, in its pure sense, in its naive beginning, was opposed to czarism, opposed to the "officialdom" of Russian society, opposed to the bourgeoisie. All of these elements were extremely appealing to the beleaguered poverty-struck Georgians. Georgia is the real historical birthplace of mass-movement socialism.

It is not surprising at all that such a country would be the birthplace of Josef Stalin. A country filled with peasants, a country bound together by faith (Stalin had studied to be a priest), a country obsessed with heroes, a country obsessed with its own past. This is the ground from which one of the greatest monsters of the 20th century sprung.

Posted by sheila