1.
Monarchy
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The actual power of the monarch may vary from purely symbolic, to partial and restricted, to completely autocratic. Traditionally and in most cases, the monarchs post is inherited and lasts until death or abdication, occasionally this might create a situation of rival claimants whose legitimacy is subject to effective election. Finally, there have been cases where the term of a reign is either fixed in years or continues until certain goals are achieved. Thus there are widely divergent structures and traditions defining monarchy, Monarchy was the most common form of government until the 19th century, but it is no longer prevalent. Currently,47 sovereign nations in the world have monarchs acting as heads of state,19 of which are Commonwealth realms that recognise Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state. The monarchs of Cambodia, Japan, and Malaysia reign, the word monarch comes from the Greek language word μονάρχης, monárkhēs which referred to a single, at least nominally absolute ruler. In current usage the word usually refers to a traditional system of hereditary rule. Depending on the held by the monarch, a monarchy may be known as a kingdom, principality, duchy, grand duchy, empire, tsardom, emirate, sultanate, khaganate. The form of societal hierarchy known as chiefdom or tribal kingship is prehistoric, the Greek term monarchia is classical, used by Herodotus. The monarch in classical antiquity is often identified as king, the Chinese, Japanese and Nepalese monarchs continued to be considered living Gods into the modern period. Since antiquity, monarchy has contrasted with forms of democracy, where power is wielded by assemblies of free citizens. In antiquity, monarchies were abolished in favour of such assemblies in Rome, much of 19th century politics was characterised by the division between anti-monarchist Radicalism and monarchist Conservativism. Many countries abolished the monarchy in the 20th century and became republics, advocacy of republics is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchies is called monarchism. In the modern era, monarchies are more prevalent in small states than in large ones, most monarchs, both historically and in the modern day, have been born and brought up within a royal family, the centre of the royal household and court. Growing up in a family, future monarchs are often trained for the responsibilities of expected future rule. Different systems of succession have been used, such as proximity of blood, primogeniture, and agnatic seniority. While most monarchs have been male, many female monarchs also have reigned in history, rule may be hereditary in practice without being considered a monarchy, such as that of family dictatorships or political families in many democracies. The principal advantage of hereditary monarchy is the continuity of leadership
2.
Kutaisi
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Kutaisi is the legislative capital of Georgia, and its 3rd most populous city. Situated 221 kilometres west of Tbilisi, it is the capital of the region of Imereti. Kutaisi is located along banks of the Rioni River. The city lies at an elevation of 125–300 metres above sea level, to the east and northeast, Kutaisi is bounded by the Northern Imereti Foothills, to the north by the Samgurali Range, and to the west and the south by the Colchis Plain. Kutaisi is surrounded by deciduous forests to the northeast and the northwest, the low-lying outskirts of the city have a largely agricultural landscape. The city centre has many gardens its streets are lined with high, in the springtime, when the snow starts to melt in the nearby mountains, the storming Rioni River in the middle of the city is heard far beyond its banks. Kutaisi has a subtropical climate with a well-defined on-shore/monsoonal flow during the Autumn. The summers are hot and relatively dry while the winters are wet. Average annual temperature in the city is 14.5 degrees Celsius, january is the coldest month with an average temperature of 5.3 degrees Celsius while July is the hottest month with an average temperature of 23.2 degrees Celsius. The absolute minimum recorded temperature is −17 degrees Celsius and the maximum is 44 degrees Celsius. Average annual precipitation is around 1,530 mm, rain may fall in every season of the year. The city often experiences heavy, wet snowfall in the winter, Kutaisi experiences powerful easterly winds in the summer which descend from the nearby mountains. Kutaisi was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Colchis, archaeological evidence indicates that the city functioned as the capital of the kingdom of Colchis in the sixth to fifth centuries BC. From 978 to 1122 CE, Kutaisi was the capital of the united Kingdom of Georgia, in 1508, the city was captured by Selim I, who was the son of Bayezid II, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. During the seventeenth century, Imeretian kings made many appeals to Russia to help them in their struggle for independence from the Ottomans, all these appeals were ignored as Russia did not want to spoil relations with Turkey. Totleben helped King Solomon I of Imereti to recover his capital, Kutaisi, finally, the Russian-Turkish wars ended in 1810 with the annexation of the Imeretian Kingdom by the Russian Empire. The city was the capital of the Gubernia of Kutaisi, which included much of west Georgia, in March 1879, the city was the site of a blood- libel trial that attracted attention all over Russia, the ten accused Jews were acquitted. Kutaisi was an industrial center before Georgias independence in 1991
3.
Kartvelian languages
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There are approximately 5.2 million speakers of Kartvelian languages worldwide. It is not known to be related to any language family. The Georgian script is the system used to write all Kartvelian languages. Georgian is the language of Georgia and the main language for literary. It is written with an original and distinctive alphabet, and the oldest surviving text dates from the 5th century AD—the only Caucasian language with an ancient literary tradition. The old Georgian script seems to have derived from Aramaic. Mingrelian has been written with the Georgian alphabet since 1864, especially in the period from 1930 to 1938, when the Mingrelians enjoyed some cultural autonomy, the Laz language was written chiefly between 1927 and 1937, and now again in Turkey, with the Latin alphabet. Laz, however, is disappearing as its speakers are integrating into mainstream Turkish society, georgian-Zan Georgian with approximately 4.5 million native speakers, mainly in Georgia. There are Georgian-speaking communities in Russia, Turkey, Iran, Israel, and EU countries, zan Mingrelian, with some 500,000 native speakers in 1989, mainly in the western regions of Georgia, namely Samegrelo and Abkhazia. The Mingrelians displaced from Abkhazia are scattered elsewhere in the Georgian government territory, with clusters in Tbilisi. Laz, with 220,000 native speakers in 1980, mostly in the Black Sea littoral area of northeast Turkey, zan is the branch that contains the Mingrelian and Laz languages. No relationship with other languages, including the two North Caucasian language families, has demonstrated so far. Some linguists, such as Tamaz V, certain grammatical similarities with Basque, especially in the case system, have often been pointed out. Any similarities to other phyla may be due to areal influences. Heavy borrowing in both directions has been observed, therefore it is likely that certain features have been influenced as well. Certain Kartvelian-Indo-European lexical links are revealed at the level, which are ascribed to the early contacts between Proto-Kartvelian and Proto-Indo-European populations. The Kartvelian languages classify objects as intelligent and unintelligent beings, Kartvelian verbs can indicate one, two, or three grammatical persons. A performer of an action is called the subject and affected persons are objects, the person may be singular or plural
4.
Iron Age
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The Iron Age is an archaeological era, referring to a period of time in the prehistory and protohistory of the Old World when the dominant toolmaking material was iron. It is commonly preceded by the Bronze Age in Europe and Asia with exceptions, meteoric iron has been used by humans since at least 3200 BC. Ancient iron production did not become widespread until the ability to smelt ore, remove impurities. The start of the Iron Age proper is considered by many to fall between around 1200 BC and 600 BC, depending on the region, the earliest known iron artifacts are nine small beads dated to 3200 BC, which were found in burials at Gerzeh, Lower Egypt. They have been identified as meteoric iron shaped by careful hammering, meteoric iron, a characteristic iron–nickel alloy, was used by various ancient peoples thousands of years before the Iron Age. Such iron, being in its metallic state, required no smelting of ores. Smelted iron appears sporadically in the record from the middle Bronze Age. While terrestrial iron is abundant, its high melting point of 1,538 °C placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the second millennium BC. Tins low melting point of 231, similarly, recent archaeological remains of iron working in the Ganges Valley in India have been tentatively dated to 1800 BC. By the Middle Bronze Age, increasing numbers of smelted iron objects appeared in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, African sites are turning up dates as early as 1200 BC. Modern archaeological evidence identifies the start of iron production in around 1200 BC. Between 1200 BC and 1000 BC, diffusion in the understanding of iron metallurgy and use of objects was fast. As evidence, many bronze implements were recycled into weapons during this time, more widespread use of iron led to improved steel-making technology at lower cost. Thus, even when tin became available again, iron was cheaper, stronger, and lighter, and forged iron implements superseded cast bronze tools permanently. Increasingly, the Iron Age in Europe is being seen as a part of the Bronze Age collapse in the ancient Near East, in ancient India, ancient Iran, and ancient Greece. In other regions of Europe, the Iron Age began in the 8th century BC in Central Europe, the Near Eastern Iron Age is divided into two subsections, Iron I and Iron II. Iron I illustrates both continuity and discontinuity with the previous Late Bronze Age, during the Iron Age, the best tools and weapons were made from steel, particularly alloys which were produced with a carbon content between approximately 0. 30% and 1. 2% by weight. Steel weapons and tools were nearly the same weight as those of bronze, however, steel was difficult to produce with the methods available, and alloys that were easier to make, such as wrought iron, were more common in lower-priced goods
5.
Georgia (country)
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Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. The capital and largest city is Tbilisi, Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres, and its 2016 population is about 3.72 million. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy, during the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia adopted Christianity in the early 4th century, a unified Kingdom of Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter the kingdom declined and eventually disintegrated under hegemony of various powers, including the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire. Russian rule over Georgia was eventually acknowledged in various treaties with Iran. Since the establishment of the modern Georgian republic in April 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil, the countrys Western orientation soon led to the worsening of relations with Russia, culminating in the brief Russo-Georgian War in August 2008. Georgia is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and it contains two de facto independent regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which gained limited international recognition after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Georgia and a part of the international community consider the regions to be part of Georgias sovereign territory under Russian military occupation. Georgia probably stems from the Persian designation of the Georgians – gurğān, in the 11th and 12th centuries adapted via Syriac gurz-ān/gurz-iyān, starting with the Persian word gurğ/gurğān, the word was later adopted in numerous other languages, including Slavic and West European languages. This term itself might have established through the ancient Iranian appellation of the near-Caspian region. The self-designation used by ethnic Georgians is Kartvelebi, the medieval Georgian Chronicles present an eponymous ancestor of the Kartvelians, Kartlos, a great-grandson of Japheth. However, scholars agree that the word is derived from the Karts, the name Sakartvelo consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i, specifies an inhabitant of the core central-eastern Georgian region of Kartli, ancient Greeks and Romans referred to early western Georgians as Colchians and eastern Georgians as Iberians. Today the full, official name of the country is Georgia, before the 1995 constitution came into force the countrys name was the Republic of Georgia. The territory of modern-day Georgia was inhabited by Homo erectus since the Paleolithic Era, the proto-Georgian tribes first appear in written history in the 12th century BC. The earliest evidence of wine to date has found in Georgia. In fact, early metallurgy started in Georgia during the 6th millennium BC, the classical period saw the rise of a number of early Georgian states, the principal of which was Colchis in the west and Iberia in the east
6.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
7.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
8.
History of Georgia (country)
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The country of Georgia was first unified as a single kingdom in 1008 AD, arising from the ancient predecessor states of Colchis and Iberia. The Kingdom of Georgia flourished and reached its Golden Age during the 10th to 13th centuries under King David IV, lasting for several centuries, the kingdom fell to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, but managed to re-assert sovereignty by the 1340s. Throughout the early period, Georgia fell into decline as it clashed against various hostile empires, including Ottoman Empire. The kingdoms geopolitical situation further worsened after the Fall of Constantinople, as a result of these processes, by the end of the 15th century Georgia turned into an isolated, Christian enclave, surrounded by hostile Turco-Iranic neighbors with which it had little in common. Renewed incursions beginning in 1386 led to the collapse of the kingdom by 1493. Georgia’s geopolitical landscape began to shift in 1783, when the struggling Eastern Georgia forged an alliance with the Russian Empire and this led to the gradual, forced annexation of Georgia by Russia starting in 1801. Present-day Georgia has been independent since the Soviet collapse in 1991, post-communist Georgia was almost immediately beset by Russian-backed separatist rebellions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It also suffered from civil unrest and economic crisis for most of the 1990s and this lasted until the Rose Revolution of 2003, when Georgia pursued a strongly pro-Western foreign policy, introducing major economic and democratic reforms. Notwithstanding these crises and the change of political forces in the country, as a developing economy, Georgia made significant changes, moving from a near-failed state in 2003 to a relatively well-functioning market economy in 2014. In 2014, Georgia joined the European Unions Free Trade Area, evidence for the earliest occupation of the territory of present-day Georgia goes back to c.1.8 million years ago, as evident from the excavations of Dmanisi in the south-eastern part of the country. This is the oldest evidence of humans in Europe, later prehistoric remains are known from numerous cave and open-air sites in Georgia. Numerous excavations in tell settlements of the Shulaveri-Shomu type have been conducted since the 1960s, the earliest evidence of wine to date has been found in Georgia, where 8000-year old wine jars were uncovered. Early metallurgy started in Georgia during the 6th millennium BC, associated with the Shulaveri-Shomu culture, from the beginning of the 4th millennium, metals became used to larger extend in East Georgia and in the whole Transcaucasian region. These dwellings were circular or oval in plan, a feature being the central pier. These features were used and further developed in building Georgian dwellings, in the Chalcolithic period of the fourth and third millennia BC, Georgia and eastern Asia Minor were home to the Kura-Araxes culture, giving way in the second millennium BC. to the Trialeti culture. Archaeological excavations have brought to light the remains of settlements at Beshtasheni and Ozni, together, they testify to an advanced and well-developed culture of building and architecture. Diauehi, a union of early-Georgians, first appear in written history in the 12th century BC. Between 2100 and 750 BC, the area survived the invasions by the Hittites, Urartians, Medes, at the same period, the ethnic unity of Proto-Kartvelians broke up into several branches, among them Svans, Zans/Chans and East-Kartvelians
9.
Prehistoric Georgia
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Humans have been living in Georgia for an extremely long time, as attested by the discoveries, in 1999 and 2002, of two Homo erectus skulls at Dmanisi in southern Georgia. The archaeological layer in which the remains, hundreds of stone tools. The site yields the earliest unequivocal evidence for presence of early humans outside the African continent, later Lower Paleolithic Acheulian sites have been discovered in the highlands of Georgia, particularly in the caves of Kudaro, and Tsona. Acheulian open-air sites and find-spots are also known in other regions of Georgia, the first uninterrupted primitive settlement on the Georgian territory dates back to the Middle Paleolithic era, more than 200,000 years ago. Sites of this period have been found in Shida Kartli, Imeretia, Abkhazia, buffered by the Caucasus Mountains, and benefiting from the ameliorating effects of the Black Sea, the region appears to have served as a biogeographical refugium throughout the Pleistocene. These geographic features spared the Southern Caucasus from the climatic oscillations. Upper Paleolithic remains have been investigated in Satsurblia, Devis Khvreli, Sakazhia, Sagvarjile, Dzudzuana, Samertskhle Klde, Gvarjilas Klde, a cave at Dzudzuana has yielded the earliest known dyed flax fibers that date back to 36,000 BP. At that time, the area of the South Caucasus appears to have been sparsely populated in contrast to the valleys of the Rioni River. The Paleolithic ended some 10, 000-12,000 years ago to be succeeded by the Mesolithic culture and it was when the geographic medium and landscapes of the Caucasus were finally shaped as we have them today. Signs of Neolithic culture, and the transition from foraging and hunting to agriculture, the so-called early Neolithic sites are chiefly found in western Georgia. These are Khutsubani, Anaseuli, Kistriki, Kobuleti, Tetramitsa, Apiancha, Makhvilauri, Kotias Klde, Paluri, most of these sites relate to the flourishing late Neolithic/Eneolithic archaeological complex known as the Shulaveri-Shomu culture. Radiocarbon dating at Shulaveri sites indicates that the earliest settlements date from the late sixth − early fifth millennium BC. In the highlands of eastern Anatolia and South Caucasus, the combination of domesticable animals and sowable grains. In this sense, the region can justly be considered one of the cradles of civilization. The entire region is surmised to have been, in the beginning in the last quarter of the 4th millennium BC, inhabited by people who were possibly ethnically related. The ethnic and cultural unity of these 2,000 years is characterized by scholars as Chalcolithic or Eneolithic. Early metallurgy started in Georgia during the 6th millennium BC, very early metal objects have been discovered in layers of the Neolithic Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture. From the beginning of the 4th millennium metals became used to extend in East Georgia
10.
Trialeti culture
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The Trialeti culture, is named after the Trialeti region of Georgia. It is attributed to the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC, Trialeti culture emerged in the areas of the preceding Kura-Araxes culture. The earliest Shulaveri-Shomu culture existed in the area from 6000 to 4000 BC, the flourishing stage of Trialeti culture began near the end of the third millennium BC. At that time, there was already strong social differentiation indicated by rich mound burials, there are parallels to the Early Kurgan culture. Geographical interconnectedness and links with other areas of the Near East are seen in aspects of the culture. For example, a found in Trialeti is nearly identical to the one from Shaft Grave 4 of Mycenae in Greece. Trialeti-Vanadzor painted monochrome and polychrome pottery is similar to that in the other areas of the Near East. In particular, similar ceramics is known as the Urmia ware, also, similar pottery was produced by the Uzarlik culture, and the Karmirberd-Sevan culture. The site at Trialeti was originally excavated in 1936–1940 in advance of a hydroelectric scheme, a further six barrows were uncovered in 1959–1962. Martqopi kurgans are somewhat similar, and are contemporary to the earliest among the Trialeti kurgans, together, they represent the early stage of the Early Kurgan culture of Central Transcaucasia. This Early Kurgan period, known as Martkopi-Bedeni, has interpreted as a transitional phase. The Trialeti culture was known for its form of burial. The elite were interred in large, very rich burials under earth and stone mounds, also there were many gold objects found in the graves. These gold objects were similar to found in Iran and Iraq. They also worked tin and arsenic and this form of burial in a tumulus or kurgan, along with wheeled vehicles, is the same as that of the Kurgan culture which has been associated with the speakers of Proto-Indo-European. In fact, the black burnished pottery of especially early Trialeti kurgans is similar to Kura-Araxes pottery, in a historical context, their impressive accumulation of wealth in burial kurgans, like that of other associated and nearby cultures with similar burial practices, is particularly noteworthy. This practice was probably a result of influence from the civilizations to the south in the Fertile Crescent. Kura-Araxes culture Shulaveri-Shomu culture Prehistoric Georgia Middle Bronze Age, Trialeti Culture, South Caucasus - collection of articles at academia. edu
11.
Diauehi
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Diauehi or Diaokhi, Daiaeni was a coalition of tribes, or kingdoms, located in northeastern Anatolia, that was formed in the 12th century BC in the post-Hittite period. It is mentioned in the Urartian inscriptions and it is usually identified with Daiaeni of the Yonjalu inscription of the Assyria king Tiglath-Pileser I’s third year. Diauehi is a locus of proto-Kartvelian, it has been described as an important tribal formation of possible proto-Georgians by Ronald Grigor Suny. Most probably, the core of the Diauehi lands may have extended from the headwaters of the Euphrates into the valleys of Çoruh to Oltu. This federation was powerful enough to counter the Assyrian forays, although in 1112 BC its king and he was captured and later released on terms of vassalage. In 845 BC, Shalmaneser III finally subdued Diauehi and downgraded its king, Asia, king Asia of Diauehi was forced to submit to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in 845 BC, after the latter had overrun Urartu and made a foray into Diauehi. In the early 8th century, Diauehi became the target of the newly emerged regional power of Urartu, both Menua and Argishti I campaigned against the Diauehi king, Utupurshi, annexing his southernmost possessions and forcing him to pay tribute, which included copper, silver and gold. Diauehi was finally destroyed by Colchian incursions by about the 760s BC, antonio Sagona, Claudia Sagona, Archaeology At The North-east Anatolian Frontier, I, An Historical Geography And A Field Survey of the Bayburt Province, Peeters, ISBN 90-429-1390-8 Georgia. Retrieved February 14,2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service Kavtaradze, an Attempt to Interpret Some Anatolian and Caucasian Ethnonyms of the Classical Sources, Sprache und Kultur, #3. The Bulletin of Ancient History, vol, Ancient kingdoms of Anatolia Prehistoric Georgia
12.
Kingdom of Iberia
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Caucasian Iberians is a Greco-Roman designation for the population of Caucasian Iberia, a Kartvelian speaking people in the east and southeast Transcaucasus region in Antiquity and Middle Ages. In the southwest, Iberians extended into Anatolia, inhabiting interior lands beside Colchians, ancient Caucasian Iberians are considered to be the ancestors of modern eastern Georgians as well the Laz people, another Kartvelian-speaking group. The area was inhabited in earliest times by several related tribes collectively called Iberians by ancient Greek, Iberians called their country Kartli after a mythic chief, Kartlos. One of the Iberian tribes of Mtskheta dominated the early Kingdom, the Mtskheta tribe was later ruled by a prince locally known as mamasakhlisi. The Roman general Pompey invaded Iberia in 65 BC, during his war with Mithridates VI of Pontus, and Armenia, nineteen years later, the Romans again marched on Iberia, forcing King Pharnavaz II to join their campaign against Albania as their ally. While another kingdom of Colchis was administered as a Roman province, Iberia freely accepted the Roman Imperial protection, the Iberian king Mirian III adopted Christianity as a state religion in AD327, and Iberia allied itself with the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. The religion would become a strong tie between Iberia and Rome, and would have a large impact on the states culture. The early reign of the Iberian king Vakhtang I dubbed Gorgasali was marked by relative revival of the kingdom, formally a vassal of the Persians, he secured the northern borders by subjugating the Caucasian mountaineers, and brought the adjacent western and southern Iberian lands under his control. He established an autocephalic patriarchate at Mtskheta, and made Tbilisi his capital, in 482, he led a general uprising against Persia. A desperate war for independence lasted for twenty years, but he could not get Byzantine support, Pharnavaz, victorious in the power struggle, became the first king of Iberia. Driving back an invasion, he subjugated the areas, including a significant part of the western state of Colchis. Pharnavaz then focused on projects, including the citadel of the capitol, the Armaztsikhe. He also reformed the Georgian written language and created a new system of administration and his successors managed to gain control over the mountainous passes of the Caucasus, with the Daryal being the most important of them. It may be possible to trace the presence of Caucasian Iberians in the region for several millennia, the Iberian tribes were an indigenous people of the Caucasus region, united by a common language, the ancestor of the Ibero-Caucasian language group. The name Iberian in its own appears in ancient Greek authors who identified early Georgian tribes as Iberoi. The Iberians called their kingdom Kartli, and their nation Kartlians, some theories have proposed common ethnic and linguistic origins of ancient Caucasian Iberians with the Iberians of the Iberian Peninsula, or the modern Basques in Spain
13.
Roman Georgia
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Roman Georgia refers to the area of Georgia that was under Roman control. Between the 1st century BC and the 7th century AD Rome, at times, intermittently controlled directly or indirectly the kingdoms of Colchis. Romes conquests reached the Caucasus area at the end of the 2nd century BC, when the Roman Republic started to expand in Anatolia and the Black Sea. In the area of what is now western Georgia there was the Kingdom of Colchis that in those years had fallen under control of the Kingdom of Pontus, Iberia, on the other hand was invaded and became a vassal state of the empire. From this point on Colchis became the Roman province of Lazicum, with Emperor Nero later incorporating it into the Province of Pontus in 63 AD, despite the fact that all major fortresses along the seacoast were occupied by the Romans, their rule was pretty loose. In 69 AD, the people of Pontus and Colchis under Anicetus staged an uprising against the Romans which ended unsuccessfully. Christianity began to spread in the early 1st century, traditional accounts relate the event with Saint Andrew, Saint Simon the Zealot, and Saint Matata. While the Laz peoples kingdom of Colchis was administered as a Roman province, a stone inscription discovered at Mtskheta speaks of the 1st-century ruler Mihdrat I as the friend of the Caesars and the king of the Roman-loving Iberians. Emperor Vespasian fortified the ancient Mtskheta site of Arzami for the Iberian kings in 75 AD, in the 3rd century AD, the Lazi tribe came to dominate most of Colchis, establishing the kingdom of Lazica, locally known as Egrisi. Colchis was a scene of the rivalry between the Eastern Roman/Byzantine and Sassanid empires, culminating in the Lazic War from 542 to 562. This new South Western Caucasian state survived more than 250 years until 562 when it was absorbed by the Eastern Roman Empire, during Justinian I. Indeed, in 591 AD Byzantium and Persia agreed to divide Caucasian Iberia between them, with Tbilisi to be in Persian hands and Mtskheta to be under Roman/Byzantine control, at the beginning of the 7th century the temporary truce between the Romans and Persia collapsed again. The Iberian Prince Stephanoz I, decided in 607 AD to join forces with Persia in order to all the territories of Caucasian Iberia. Sebastopolis continued to remain the last Roman/Byzantine stronghold in western Georgia, one of the main legacies of Rome to Georgia is the Christian faith. The final conversion of all Georgia to Christianity in 327 is credited to St. Nina of Cappadocia. She was the daughter of pious and noble parents, the Roman general Zabulon, a relative of the great martyr St. George. Christianity was declared the state religion by King Mirian III of Iberia as early as 327 AD, which gave a stimulus to the development of literature, arts. Petra in Lazica is an ancient bishopric in Georgia that is included in the Catholic Churchs list of titular sees, Roman presence was huge in coastal Georgia, where some Roman Forts were defended for centuries by legionaries
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Lazica
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Lazica was the name given to the territory of Colchis during the Roman period, from about the 1st century BC. By the mid-3rd century, Lazica was given autonomy within the Roman Empire. Throughout much of its existence, it was mainly a Byzantine strategic vassal kingdom occasionally coming under Sassanid Persian rule, the kingdom fell to the Muslim conquest in the 7th century. Egrisi in the 8th century successfully repelled the Arab occupation and formed the Kingdom of Abkhazia-Egrisi from c,780, one of the early medieval polities which would converge into the unified kingdom of Georgia in the 11th century. In the early 4th century, the Christian eparchy of Pitiunt was established in this kingdom, other ancient episcopal sees in Lazica include Rhodopolis, Saesina, and Zygana. In 325 among the participants of the First Council of Nicaea was the bishop of Pitiunt, the first Christian king of Lazica was Gubazes I, in the 5th century, Christianity was made the official religion of Lazica. Later, the nobility and clergy of Lazica switched from the Hellenic ecclesiastic tradition to the Georgian, the Bichvinta Cathedral is one of oldest monuments of the Georgian Christian architecture constructed by the Georgian King Bagrat III of the Bagrationi Royal House in the late 10th century. It was under Bagrat III, that Lazica unified with the eastern Georgian lands of Iberia-Kartli to form a united Kingdom of Georgia. 456 –466 Damnazes. –521/522 Tzath I, attested 521/522 – 527/528 Opsites, dates of reign unknown, likely some time before 541 Gubazes II c.541 –555 Tzath II, 556–. 662, mentioned as patricius of Lazica in the Hypomnensticum of Theodosius and Theodore of Gangra Grigor 670 – c.675 Sergius, son of Barnucius, c. 696/697 Culture of Georgia Diaokhi History of Georgia History of Abkhazia Laz people Lazic War Roman Georgia Sanigs http, //web. raex. com/~obsidian/caucasus. html#Colchis www. colchis. de
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Principality of Iberia
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Principality of Iberia was an early medieval aristocratic regime in a core Georgian region of Kartli, i. e. Iberia per classical authors. It flourished in the period of interregnum between the sixth and ninth centuries, when the political authority was exercised by a succession of princes. Its borders fluctuated greatly as the princes of Iberia confronted the Persians, Byzantines, Khazars, Arabs. When the king of a unified Iberia, Bakur III, died in 580, Iberia became a Persian province ruled by a marzpan. However, the direct Persian control brought about heavy taxation and a promotion of Zoroastrianism in a largely Christian country. Therefore, when the Eastern Roman emperor Maurice embarked upon a campaign against Persia in 582. Maurice did respond, and, in 588, sent his protégé, Guaram I of the Guaramids, however, Guaram was not crowned as king, but recognized as a presiding prince and bestowed with the Eastern Roman title of curopalates. The Byzantine-Sassanid treaty of 591 confirmed this new rearrangement, but left Iberia divided into Roman-, the presiding princes of Iberia, as the leading local political authority, were to be confirmed and sanctioned by the court of Constantinople. They are variously entitled in Georgian sources, eristavt-mtavari, eris-mtavari, eristavt-eristavi, most of them were additionally invested with various Roman/Byzantine titles. For example, eight out of the fourteen presiding princes held the dignity of curopalates, dispossessed of the principate of Iberia, the Chosroids retired to their appanage in Kakheti where they ruled as regional princes until the family became extinct by the early 9th century. The Guaramids returned to power and faced a difficult task of maneuvering between the Byzantines and Arabs, the Arabs, primarily concerned with maintaining control of the cities and trade routes, dispossessed them of Tbilisi where a Muslim emir was installed in the 730s. The Guaramids were briefly succeeded by the Nersianids between c.748 and 779/80, and had vanished once and for all by 786 and this year witnessed a bloody crackdown upon the rebellious Georgian nobles organized by Khuzayma ibn Khazim, an Arab viceroy of the Caucasus. The extinction of the Guaramids and near-extinction of the Chosroids allowed their cousins of the Bagratid family. Having accepted the Byzantine protection, the Bagratids, from their base in the region of Tao-Klarjeti,590 Stephen I, the Guaramid, c. 590–627 Adarnase I, the Chosroid, 627–637/642 Stephen II, the Chosroid,650 Adarnase II, the Chosroid, c. 650–684 Guaram II, the Guaramid, 684–c,693 Guaram III, the Guaramid, c. 748 Adarnase III, the Nersianid, c, toumanoff, Cyril, Studies in Christian Caucasian History
16.
Arab rule in Georgia
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This period is called Araboba in Georgian. The history of Arab rule in Georgia can be divided into 3 main periods,1, from the first appearance of Arab armies around 645 until the establishment of the Emirate of Tbilisi in 736. Those years saw the installation of political control over the Georgian lands by the Umayyad Caliphate. From 736 until 853, when the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad destroyed Tbilisi to quell a rebellion by the local emir, from 853 until the 2nd half of the 11th century, when the Great Seljuq Empire replaced the Arabs as the main force in the Middle East. Before that, the power of the emirate of Tbilisi had already declined in favor of independent Georgian states, Tbilisi remained however under Arab rule until 1122. In the first decades of the 7th century, most of present-day Georgia was under the authority of the Principate of Iberia. This state, like its predecessors, continually played the two powers of the time, the Byzantine and Sassanid Empires, to guarantee its own survival as an independent state. From the next decade however, the Muslim conquests of the Middle East started, the first Arab incursions in present-day Georgia happened approximately between 642 and 645, during the Conquest of Persia. It soon turned into an invasion, and Tbilisi was taken in 645. The presiding prince Stephen II had to recognize the suzerainty of the Rashidun Caliph, the Caliphate was then still in its first decades, very unstable politically, and had not yet developed a system of administration able to keep their numerous conquests under control. The main manifestation of Arab power over a region was at the time a religious command of Islam. The most significant of those uprisings, which engulfed the whole Caucasus region, happened in 681–682, despite a two-year-long struggle, the revolt was quelled, Adarnase was killed, and the Arabs installed in his place Guaram II of the rival Guaramid Dynasty. In their efforts to assert their rule over Iberia, the Arabs also had to contend with two major powers in the region, the Byzantine Empire and the Khazars. The latter, a confederation of semi-nomadic Turkic peoples, ruled over the north of the Greater Caucasus range. They had played a role in Caucasian history since the beginning of the 7th century, later, they successfully halted the Muslim armies in a series of wars, but also helped them suppressing the Georgian revolt of 682. Around 685, the Emperor Justinian II concluded a truce with the Caliph, in which they agreed on joint possession of Iberia and Armenia. However, the Arab victory at the Battle of Sebastopolis in 692 upset the balance, and led to a new Arab conquest of Armenia, a new status quo, more favourable to the Arabs, was now in place. Around 730, two led to a change in Umayyad policy towards Georgia
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Emirate of Tbilisi
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The Emirs of Tbilisi ruled over the parts of today’s eastern Georgia from their base in the city of Tbilisi, from 736 to 1080. Since then, the city has been the capital of Georgia to this day, the Arabs first appeared in Georgia, namely in Kartli in 645. It was not, however, until 735, when they succeeded in establishing their control over a large portion of the country. In that year, Marwan II took hold of Tbilisi and much of the lands and installed there an Arab emir. During the Arab period, Tbilisi grew into a center of trade between the Islamic world and northern Europe, beyond that, it functioned as a key Arab outpost and a buffer province facing the Byzantine and Khazar dominions. Over time, Tbilisi became largely Muslim, but the Islamic influences were strictly confined to the city itself, Tbilisi was a large city with a strong double wall pierced by three gates. It lay on both banks of the Kura River, and the two parts were connected by a bridge of boats, the contemporary geographers especially mention its thermal springs, which supplied the baths with constant hot waters. The houses were built, to the surprise of contemporary Arab travelers. In the first half of the century, Tbilisi is said to have been the second largest, after Derbend. The Abbasid Caliphate weakened after the Abbasid civil war in the 810s, at the same time, the emirate became a target of the resurgent Georgian Bagrationi dynasty who were expanding their territory from Tao-Klarjeti across Georgian lands. The Emirate of Tbilisi grew in strength under Ishaq ibn Ismail. He withheld his annual payment of tribute to Baghdad, and declared his independence from the Caliph, the Abbasids chose not to rebuild the city extensively, and as a result the Muslim prestige and authority in the region began to wane. Beginning in the 1020s, the Georgian kings pursued a contradictory but generally expansionist policy against the emirs of Tbilisi, the territories of the emirate shrank to Tbilisi and its immediate environs. However, the Seljuk invasions of the 1070s–1080s thwarted the Georgian advance, Georgian King David IV’s victories over the Seljuk Turks inflicted a final blow to Islamic Tbilisi, and a Georgian army entered the city in 1122, ending four hundred years of Muslim rule. The office of emir —now an appointed Georgian royal official—survived in Tbilisi, as well as big cities of Georgia, into the 18th century. Khalil Isa b. ash-Sheikh ash-Shayban Ibrahim Gabuloc Jaffar I b, Jaffar Fadlun of Ganja According to Georgian sources between 1062 and 1068 and again between 1080 and 1122 council of elders rule Emirate of Tbilisi
18.
Bagrationi dynasty
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The Bagrationi dynasty is a royal family that reigned in Georgia from the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, being among the oldest extant Christian ruling dynasties in the world. In modern usage, this line is often referred to as the Georgian Bagratids. The common origin with the Armenian Bagratuni dynasty has been accepted by scholars, the family, in the person of Ashot I, the great-grandson of the presiding prince of Armenia Ashot III Bagratuni, gained the principate of Iberia at the end of the 8th century. His descendants restored, in 888, the Georgian monarchy and united various native polities into the Kingdom of Georgia, which prospered from the 11th to the 13th century. This period of time, particularly the reigns of David IV the Builder, the dynasty persisted within the Russian Empire as an Imperial Russian noble family until the 1917 February Revolution. The earliest Georgian forms of the name are Bagratoniani, Bagratuniani and Bagratovani. These names as well as the Armenian Bagratuni and the modern designation Bagratid mean the children of Bagrat or the house of/established by Bagrat. A successor, Guaram, was installed as a prince of Kartli under the Byzantine protectorate. Thus, according to version, began the dynasty of the Bagratids. This tradition enjoyed a general acceptance until the early 20th century, the Jewish origin, let alone the biblical descent, of the Bagratids has been discounted by modern scholarship. Adarnase’s son, Ashot I, acquired the principality of Kartli in 813, although certain, the generation-by-generation history of the Bagrationi dynasty begins only in the late 8th century. The Odzrkhe line, known in the annals as the Bivritianis. They cannot, however, be considered the ancestors of the later Bagratids who eventually restored Georgian royal authority. In 813, the new dynasty acquired, with Ashot I, despite the revitalization of the monarchy, Georgian lands remained divided among rival authorities, with Tbilisi remaining in Arab hands. The sons and grandsons of Ashot I established three separate branches – the lines of Kartli, Tao, and Klarjeti – frequently struggling with each other, the Kartli line prevailed, in 888, with Adarnase I, it restored the indigenous Georgian royal authority dormant since 580. In spite of repeated incidents of dynastic strife, the continued to prosper during the reigns of Demetrios I, George III. With the death of George III the main line became extinct. The invasions by the Khwarezmians in 1225 and the Mongols in 1236 terminated Georgia’s golden age, the struggle against the Mongol rule created a dyarchy, with an ambitious lateral branch of the Bagrationi dynasty holding sway over western Georgia
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Kingdom of Abkhazia
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Writing the kingdoms primary history was dominated by Georgian and Byzantine sources supported by modern epigraphic and archaeological records. This can be explained by the scarcity of primary sources on these issues. Most Abkhaz historians claim the kingdom was formed as a result of the consolidation of the early Abkhaz tribes that enabled them to extend their dominance over the neighboring areas. This is objected to on the side of the Georgian historians, Abkhazia, or Abasgia of classic sources, was a princedom under Byzantine authority. It had Anacopia as the capital, Abkhazia was ruled by a hereditary archon who effectively functioned as a Byzantine viceroy. The country was chiefly Christian and the city of Pityus was a seat of an archbishop directly subordinated to the Patriarch of Constantinople, another Abasgian episcopal see was that of Soteropolis. The Arabs, pursuing the retreating Georgian princes – brothers Mir of Egrisi, dysentery and floods, combined with a stubborn resistance offered by the archon Leon I and his Kartlian and Egrisian allies, made the invaders retreat. Leon I then married Mir’s daughter, and a successor, Leon II exploited this dynastic union to acquire Egrisi in the 770s, presumably considered as a successor state of Lazica, this new polity continued to be referred to as Egrisi in some contemporary Georgian and Armenian chronicles. The successful defense against the Arabs, and new territorial gains, towards circa 786, Leon won his full independence with the help of the Khazars, he assumed the title of King of the Abkhazians and transferred his capital to the western Georgian city of Kutatisi. According to Georgian annals, Leon subdivided his kingdom into eight duchies, Abkhazia proper, Tskhumi, Bedia, Guria, Racha and Takveri, Svaneti, Argveti, the most prosperous period of the Abkhazian kingdom was between 850 and 950. The increasingly expansionist tendencies of the led to the enlargement of its realm to the east. Beginning with George I, the Abkhazian kings controlled also Kartli, in about 908 King Constantine III had finally annexed a significant portion of Kartli, bringing his kingdom up to the neighborhood of Arab-controlled Tfilisi. Under his son, George II, the Abkhazian Kingdom reached a climax of power, for a brief period of time, Kakheti in eastern Georgia and Hereti in the Georgian-Albanian marches also recognized the Abkhazian suzerainty. As a temporary ally of the Byzantines, George II patronized the missionary activities of Nicholas Mystikos in Alania, george’s successors, however, were unable to retain the kingdom’s strength and integrity. During the reign of Leon III, Kakheti and Hereti emancipated themselves from the Abkhazian rule, a bitter civil war and feudal revolts which began under Demetrius III led the kingdom into complete anarchy under the unfortunate king Theodosius III the Blind. By that time the hegemony in Transcaucasia had finally passed to the Georgian Bagratids of Tao-Klarjeti, in 978, the Bagratid prince Bagrat, nephew of the sonless Theodosius, occupied the Abkhazian throne with the help of his adoptive father David III of Tao. In 1008, Bagrat succeeded on the death of his natural father Gurgen as the King of Kings of the Georgians, thus, these two kingdoms unified through dynastic succession, in practice laying the foundation for the unified Georgian monarchy, officially styled then as the Kingdom of Georgians. Only Abkhazia and the areas of Svanetia, Racha and Khevi-Khevsureti did not acknowledge Seljuk suzerainty
20.
Principality of Tao-Klarjeti
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Tao and Klarjeti were originally only the names of the two most important provinces of the Georgian lands that stretched from the Georgian Gorge in the south to the Lesser Caucasus in the north. The landscape is characterised by mountains and the river-systems of the Chorokhi, the principalities of Tao-Klarjeti arose out of the turmoils of the Muslim conquests in the Caucasus in the 7th and 8th centuries, succeeding the early medieval kingdom of Caucasian Iberia. The new era began in Tao-Klarjeti in 813, when the Georgian prince Ashot I of the Bagrationi family made Klarjeti a base in his struggle against the Arab occupation. Recognizing the Byzantine suzerainty, he received a title of κουροπαλάτης, Ashot fought the Arabs from there, gradually incorporating the surrounding lands of Tao, Kola, Artaani and Shavsheti, along with a few other lesser lands, from the Arab dominance. He encouraged resettlement of Georgians in these lands, and patronized monastic life initiated by the prominent Georgian ecclesiastic figure Grigol Khandzteli in Klarjeti, for a long time the region became a cultural safe-house and one of the most important religious centers of Georgia. Ashot’s successors continued fighting for the Kartlian lands, contested also by the Abkhazian dynasty of western Georgia, however, internal feuds, not infrequent in the principality, were an important obstacle. A civil war following the assassination of David I brought the victory of Adarnase I over his rival, Nasra, David’s murderer. During the reign of Adarnase’s son David II the Georgians had also to defend against the Byzantine aggression, the Kingdom of the Kartvels also included several other minor princedoms more or less dependent to the Tao crown. In 958, Bagrat II Regueni, the Simple was crowned King of the Georgians and inherited Northern Tao, while David III received a title of Kuropalates and got Southern Tao in possession. With the strong intention to unite all Georgian lands, he adopted Prince Bagrat, the only setback was the 987–989 unsuccessful conflict with the Byzantine Empire that forced David to agree to cede his dominion to Emperor Basil II on his death. Despite this reverse, Bagrat was able to become the first ruler of the unified Georgian kingdom on his father’s death in 1008, the area continued to remain a Georgian territory and was administered by the princes of Samtskhe-Saatabago until conquered by the Ottomans in 1551. During their rule, a policy of Islamization was implemented and many of the Christian churches were converted into mosques, the Ottoman defeat in World War I allowed the newly created Democratic Republic of Georgia to regain control of the region. Olti district, which was contested between Georgians and Armenians had stayed under Turkish control. Several monuments of medieval Georgian architecture – abandoned or converted churches, monasteries, bridges and castles – are scattered across the area. Best known are the monasteries of Khandzta, Khakhuli, Ancha, F. Macler, 2e partie, livre III, Paris 1917 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, ed. G. Moravcsik and R. J. H. Jenkins, Dumbarton Oaks 1967 Aristakes Lastivert, Récit des malheurs de la nation arménienne, M. Canard and H. Berberian, Brussels 1973 John Scylitzes, Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis historiarum, ed. I. Thurn, Berlin – New York 1973 Elishe, History of Vardan,1982 The Life of Kartli, Das Leben Kartlis. 300-1200, ed. G. Pätsch, Leipzig 1985 Life of John and Euthymius, B. kratchkovsky and A. Vasiliev, Patrologia Orientalis 18, 700-833 “Histoire de Yahya-Ibn-Sa‘ïd d’Antioche”, ed. and transl
21.
Kingdom of Hereti
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The Kingdom of Hereti was a kingdom in the medieval Caucasus on the Georgian-Albanian frontier. Nowadays it roughly corresponds to the corner of Georgias Kakheti region. The area was inhabited in earliest times by Hers, Sujs, Tchilbs, collectively called Hers, these tribes came under the rule of the Caucasian Albania. Hereti was populated by Caucasian Albanians, Dagestani, Armenians, Persians and Georgians and it had flourishing towns that traded with Persia and Armenia. With its decline, the area was incorporated into the Iberian kingdom forming one of its duchies in the 5th century. It was when the name Hereti first appeared in the Georgian sources, according to traditional accounts, the name of the province originated from the legendary patriarch Heroes, the son of Thargamos, who founded the city of Hereti at the Alazani River. As a reward for the contribution in struggle against the Arab occupants, after the death of the last Kartlian erismtavaris John and Juansher, the Heretian lords extended their fiefdoms and, in 787, established an independent principality with the capital in Shaki. The principality gained significant strength and prestige by 893 allowing Prince Hamam to be crowned the king, the allies occupied and divided the country but for a short time as Adarnase Patrikios soon reconquered what had been lost. A son and successor, Ishkhanik ruled together with his mother Dinar, sister of Grand Magister Gurgen IV, under them, Hereti was forced to recognize the supremacy of the stronger neighbour, Principality of Deilam, ruled by the Salarid dynasty. In 950, Ishkhanik took advantage of the power struggle in the Salarid State. It was during his reign, that the Heretians abandoned their Monophysite faith to convert to Georgian Orthodox Christianity, the next Heretian ruler, John added to his kingdom part of the former Albanian kingdom and the eastern Georgian mountainous area Tzanaria. After his death, a local dynasty seems to have ceased to exist, the area then was contested between his successor, David, and the Georgian king Bagrat III who sought to bring all Georgian lands into a single monarchy. The next Kakhetian ruler, already titled as the king, Kvirike III the Great finally absorbed Hereti into his “kingdom of Kakhs, when the Georgian king David the Builder brought the kingdom under his control in 1104, Hereti became a saeristavo within the Georgian realm. Georgian rule of Hereti was interrupted by Atabegs of Azerbaijan, Khwarezmid Empire, after the final disintegration of the unified Georgian monarchy in 1466, Hereti came under the Kakhetian crown. Afterwards the name of the province itself has disappeared from the historic records and public usage due to successively Karakoyunlu, Akkoyunlu, Safavid, Afsharid. Kingdom of the Rans and Kakhs
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Kingdom of Georgia
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The Kingdom of Georgia, also known as the Georgian Empire, was a medieval monarchy which emerged in circa 1008 AD. It reached its Golden Age of political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV, a predominantly Christian, Georgian-speaking realm, it was the principal historical precursor of present-day Georgia. Lasting for several centuries, the fell to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. The Kingdoms geopolitical situation further worsened after the Fall of Constantinople, as a result of these processes, by the end of the 15th century Georgia turned into an isolated, fractured Christian enclave, surrounded by hostile Turco-Iranic neighbors. The ascendancy of the Bagrationi dynasty can be traced to the 8th century, the restoration of the Georgian kingship begins in AD888, when Adarnase IV of Iberia took the title of King of Georgians. The United Kingdom of Georgia was established in 1008, in this year, Bagrat III, son of Gurgen II, became the ruler of the Kingdom of Western Georgia, including the Principalities of Imereti, Samegrelo, Abkhazeti, Guria and Svaneti. Bagrats mother was Queen Gurandukht, a daughter of George II of Abkhazia, the first decades of the 9th century saw the rise of a new Georgian state in Tao-Klarjeti. Ashot Courapalate of the family of Bagrationi liberated from the Arabs the territories of former southern Iberia. In practice, however, the region functioned as an independent country with its capital in Artanuji. The hereditary title of Curopalates was kept by the Bagrationi family, the first united Georgian monarchy was formed at the end of the 10th century when Curopalate David invaded the Earldom of Kartli-Iberia. Three years later, after the death of his uncle Theodosius the Blind, King of Egrisi-Abkhazia, in 1001 Bagrat added Tao-Klarjeti to his domain as a result of Davids death. In 1008–1010, Bagrat annexed Kakheti and Hereti, thus becoming the first king of a united Georgia in both the east and west, in 1071, the Seljuq army destroyed the united Byzantine-Armenian and Georgian forces in the Battle of Manzikert. By 1081, all of Armenia, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria, in Georgia, only the mountainous areas of Abkhazia, Svaneti, Racha, and Khevi–Khevsureti remained out of Seljuq control and served as a relatively safe havens for numerous refugees. The rest of the country was dominated by the conquerors who destroyed the cities and fortresses, looted the villages, in fact, by the end of the 1080s, Georgians were outnumbered in the region by the invaders. The Golden Age began with the reign of David IV, the son of George II and Queen Helena, in 1121, he decisively defeated much larger Turkish armies during the Battle of Didgori, with fleeing Seljuq Turks being run down by pursuing Georgian cavalry for several days. A huge amount of booty and prisoners were captured by Davids army, David IV made particular emphasis on removing the vestiges of unwanted eastern influences, which the Georgians considered forced, in favor of the traditional Christian and Byzantine overtones. As part of this effort he founded the Gelati Monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, David also played a personal role in reviving Georgian religious hymnography, composing the Hymns of Repentance, a sequence of eight free-verse psalms. In this emotional repentance of his sins, David sees himself as reincarnating the Biblical David, with a relationship to God
23.
Timur's invasions of Georgia
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These conflicts were intimately linked with the wars between Timur and Tokhtamysh, the last khan of the Golden Horde and Timur’s major rival for control over the Islamic world. Timur officially proclaimed his invasions to be jihad against the regions non-Muslims, although he was able to invade parts of Georgia, he was never able to make the country Muslim and even recognized Georgia to be a Christian state. In the first of eight invasions, Timur sacked Georgias capital, Tbilisi, Georgian resistance prompted a renewed attack by the Turco-Mongol armies. Bagrat’s son and successor, George VII, put up a resistance and had to spend much of his reign fighting the Timurid invasions. Timur personally led most of these raids to subdue the recalcitrant Georgian monarch, although he was not able to establish a firm control over Georgia, the country suffered a blow from which it never recovered. By the time George VII was forced to accept Timurs terms of peace and agree to pay tribute, he was a master of more than gutted towns, ravaged countryside. Timurs first appearance in the Caucasus was a response to Khan Tokhtamysh’s marauding inroad into Northern Iran through the Caucasian lands in 1385 and this marked an outbreak of outright hostility between the two Islamic monarchs. Timur responded by launching an invasion of the small frontier countries. After having overrun Azerbaijan and Kars, Timur marched into Georgia, the official history of his reign, Zafarnama, represents this campaign in Georgia as a jihad. Timur set out from Kars and assailed Samtskhe, the southernmost principality within the Kingdom of Georgia later in 1386, from there, he marched against Tbilisi which the Georgian king Bagrat V had fortified. The city fell on November 21,1386, and King Bagrat V was captured and converted to Islam at sword point. The Georgian Chronicle and Thomas of Metsoph mention the apostasy of the king, Bagrat was given some 12,000 troops to reestablish himself in Georgia whose government was run by Bagrat’s son and co-ruler George VII during his father’s absence at Timur’s court. The old king, however, entered in negotiations with George who ambushed Bagrat’s Islamic escort. In the spring of 1387, Timur returned to Georgia to take revenge for the ambush, Bagrat and George managed to evacuate the civilian population of the frontier regions to the mountains and forests, and began organising their defences. Khan Tokhtamysh’s reappearance in Iran forced Timur to temporarily withdraw, however once the Golden Horde was defeated, Timur returned to attack Georgia again. In 1394, he dispatched four generals to the province of Samtskhe and this event prompted Timur to return, later in 1399, to inflict massive revenge on the general population of the region. He took Shekki and devastated the region of Kakheti. In the spring of 1400, Timur moved back to destroy the Georgian state once and he demanded that George VII should hand over the Jalayirid Tahir
24.
Turkmen incursions into Georgia
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After the devastating invasions by Timur and subsequent enfeeblement of the Kingdom of Georgia, it soon faced a new threat. Timurs death in 1405 marked the beginning of the end of his Empire, unified only by fear, Turkomans, particularly the Kara Koyunlu clan, were among the first to rebel against Shah Rukh who ruled most of the Persia and Mawerannahr. Qara Yusuf, ruler of the Kara Koyunlu, defeated Shah Rukh, captured Baghdad, after they established themselves as the new leading power in the middle east. They took advantage of the weakness of Georgians and launched attacks against them, apparently in which. In captivity Constantine behaved very proudly, which infuriated Qara Yusuf to such an extent, Alexander I of Georgia who sought to strengthen and restore his declining Kingdom, faced constant invasions by the tribal Turkomans. They sacked Akhaltsikhe, city of the regional importance in 1416. Alexander re-conquered Lorri from the Turkomans in 1431, which was of importance in securing of the Georgian borders. Around 1434/5, Alexander encouraged the Armenian prince Beshken II Orbelian to attack the Kara Koyunlu clansmen in Siunia and, for his victory, in 1440, Alexander refused to pay tribute to Jahan Shah of the Kara Koyunlu. In March, Jahan Shah surged into Georgia with 20,000 troops, destroyed the city of Samshvilde and he massacred thousands of Christians, put heavy indemnity on Georgia, and returned to Tabriz. He also mounted a military expedition against Georgia in 1444. His forces met those of Alexander’s successor, King Vakhtang IV at Akhaltsikhe, as a result of foreign and internal struggles unified Kingdom of Georgia stopped to exist after 1466 and was subdivided into several political units. Kara Koyunlu tribal confederation was destroyed by Aq Qoyunlu, their kin tribesmen who formed another confederation, Aq Qoyunlu Turkomans naturally took advantage of the Georgian fragmentation. Georgia was at least twice attacked by Uzun Hasan, the prince of the Aq Qoyunlu in 1466,1472, bagrat VI of Georgia, temporary ruler of most of Georgia at the time, had to make peace with the invaders, abandoning Tbilisi to the enemy. It was only after Uzun Hasan’s death when the Georgians were able to recover their capital, in the winter of 1488, the Ak Koyunlu Turkomans led by Halil Bey attacked Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, and took the city after a long-lasted siege in February 1489. Alexander II of Imereti, another pretender to the throne, took advantage of the Aq Qoyunlu Turkoman invasion of Kartli, occupation of the capital did not last long and Constantine II of Georgia was able to repel them, but it was still costly to Georgians
25.
Kingdom of Kartli
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The Kingdom of Kartli was a feudal Georgian state that existed from 1466/84 to 1762, with the city of Tbilisi as its capital. Through much of period of time the kingdom was a vassal of the Persian empire. Georgia experienced a degree of civil instability, feudal separatism. In 1465, George VIII was captured by Kvarkvare II Jaqeli the Atabeg of Samtskhe, sensing opportunity, Bagrat VI immediately proclaimed himself King of Kartli as well and took control of it in 1466. Bagrat VI continued to rule Kartli until 1478, when he was challenged by yet another pretender to the throne, Constantine II, the attempts of Constantine II, in 1489, to restore his rule over united kingdom of Kartli-Imereti were unsuccessful. In 1490, he was forced to recognize the splitting of Georgian kingdom into kingdoms of Kartli, Imereti, Kakheti. The new realms were not long at peace, soon after coming into power, George II of Kakheti launched an expedition against Kartli, intending to depose King David X and conquer his kingdom. Davids brother Bagrat successfully defended the kingdom and managed to capture George II in an ambush, peace didnt linger in the west either, as David X faced incursions from Alexander II of Imereti, who was somewhat less successful than his Kakhetian counterpart. From the mid-16th century till 1762, Kartli stayed under intermittent Persian rule and was a part of their various dynasties. It regularly paid tribute and sent gifts to the shah in the form of boys and girls for use as slaves, horses, and wines. Following the Treaty of Georgievsk and the sack of Tblisi by Agha Mohammad Khan, Russian suzerainty over Kakheti and the rest of Georgia became finalised with Qajar Iran in 1813 with the Treaty of Gulistan. List of kings of Georgia Kartli kings family tree
26.
Kingdom of Kakheti
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The Second Kingdom of Kakheti was a late medieval/early modern monarchy in eastern Georgia, centered at the province of Kakheti, with its capital first at Gremi and then at Telavi. A previous Kingdom of Kakheti was created in the 8th century following the rebellion of the mountainous tribes of Tzanaria. The reemergence of the Kingdom of Kakheti was the first step towards the partition of Georgia which had been embroiled in wars since the mid-15th century. Overwhelmed by these difficulties, Constantine II, king of a reduced Georgia, was obliged to sanction the new order of things, in this way the tripartite division of the Kingdom of Georgia was consummated. Unlike other Georgian polities, Kakheti was spared, for the time being, from foreign incursions. Furthermore, it had the advantage over other parts of Georgia of flanking the important Ghilan-Shemakha-Astrakhan “silk route. ”The Kakhetian government sponsored this trade and actively participated in it, closely tying the kingdom to the life of eastern Transcaucasia. This relative stability for a time strengthened the power and increased the number of his supporters among the nobility. Nevertheless, in 1589, Alexander II of Kakheti officially pledged his allegiance to Tsar Feodor I of Russia, with Alexander’s murder in an Iranian-sponsored coup staged by his own son, a Muslim convert Constantine I, in 1605, the fortunes of Kakheti began to reverse. Thus began Teimuraz’s long and difficult reign in conflict with the Safavids, in the mid-1610s, Shah Abbas I renewed his effort to bring Georgia more completely into the Safavid empire and subjected Kakheti to repeated invasions in 1614,1615 and 1616. In a series of Georgian insurrections and Iranian reprisals, sixty to seventy people were killed. The population of Kakheti dropped by two-thirds, once flourishing towns, like Gremi and Zagemi, shrank to insignificant villages, agriculture declined, by 1648, the indefatigable Taimuraz had finally been ousted from Kakheti. The Safavid government tightened its control of Kakheti, implemented a policy of replacing the native population with nomadic Turkic tribes, at the same time, the Dagestani mountaineers started to attack and colonize the Kakhetian marchlands. For a time, the two kingdoms of eastern Georgia were virtually united under Shah-Nawaz and his son, and a period of peace ensued. Making the town of Telavi his capital, in place of Gremi which was ruined by the Iranian invasions, however, the promising situation was of short duration. This latter house finally succeeded, at the expense of their apostasy to Islam, in reestablishing themselves in 1703 and this proved to be of little benefit, however, and the kingdom continued to be plagued by the incessant Dagestani inroads. From 1724 to 1744, Kakheti was subjected to the successive Ottoman and Iranian occupations. Teimuraz II’s cooperation with Nader enabled him to secure his power in both Kakheti and Kartli, and to recognition for himself as king of Kartli, and for his son, Erekle II. Both monarchs were crowned in accordance to a Christian tradition in 1745 and they exploited the turmoil in Iran that followed Nader’s assassination in 1747 and established themselves as virtually independent rulers
27.
Kingdom of Imereti
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The Kingdom of Imereti was a Georgian monarchy established in 1455 by a member of the house of Bagrationi when the Kingdom of Georgia was dissolved into rival kingdoms. This was due to the Mongolian conquest of the 13th century which decentralized and fragmented Georgia, Imereti was conquered by Giorgi the Brilliant, who was subject to the Mongols, and united with the east Kingdom of Georgia. From 1455 onward, however, the became a constant battleground between Georgian, Persian, and Turkish forces until it was annexed into Russia completely in 1810. Throughout the course of time, Mingrelia, Abkhazia and Guria princedoms declared their independence from Imereti. In Persian - Azeri nomenclature the name of the region is changed to baş açıq which literally means without a head scarf
28.
Principality of Guria
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The Principality of Guria was a historical state in Georgia. The principality emerged during the process of fragmentation of a unified Kingdom of Georgia, in 1463, Bagrat and his allies met and defeated the king at the Battle of Chikhori. As a result, George VIII lost all the western provinces, from this time on, the Gurieli also invested local bishops at Shemokmedi, Jumati, and Khinotsminda, nominally under the spiritual superintendence of the Georgian Orthodox Catholicos of Abkhazia. The polities of western Georgia fought one another for supremacy, particularly the Gurieli of Guria and they forged a temporary alliance and organized, in January 1533, an ultimately disastrous expedition against the piratical tribe of Zygii in the north of Abkhazia. This setback enabled the king of Imereti to reassert his hegemony over Guria, the situation became even more precarious after the allied army of Georgian dynasts suffered a defeat at the Battle of Sokhoista. Mamia II Gurieli managed to reconquer Adjara in 1609, but was forced to renounce, on December 13,1614, any claims to the region. The incessant feudal wars in western Georgia resulted in the decline of Guria, yet, several princes of Guria, most notably Giorgi III Gurieli, and Mamia III Gurieli, managed to occasionally attain to the crown of Mingrelia and even of Imereti. The princely vassals of the Gurieli included the houses of Gugunava, Machutadze, Maksimenishvili, Nakashidze, Tavdgiridze, Shalikashvili, Zedginidze, during the early 18th century, Guria faced an increasing political and economic downfall due to the Ottoman encroachments as well as repeated occasions of civil strife. Attempts by the Gurian princes to enter into alliances with other Georgian rulers, by 1723, the Gurieli had lost Batumi and Chakvi to the Ottomans and the whole coastline of Guria had been garrisoned by the Turks. The Gurian support to the Russians during the Russo-Turkish War caused a reaction from the Ottoman government. Kobuleti and the area were detached from Guria and subjected to Islamization. The rest of Christian population had to move to regions of Georgia. This, combined with extensive slave trade and Turkish inroads, resulted in a depopulation of several areas of Guria towards the late 18th century. The population of Guria was estimated by Güldenstädt at 5,000, the latter-day princes of Guria firmly chose a pro-Russian orientation. During the Russo-Turkish War, on June 19,1810, Mamia V Gurieli accepted Russian suzerainty, Guria joined the empire as an autonomous principality, retaining its self-governance and a local code. Very desirous of adopting European customs and habits, Mamia initiated a series of reforms and modernized administration, economy, when Mamia died on October 26,1826, his underage son, David succeeded him on the throne under the regency of Princess Dowager Sophia. Anxious to secure her autonomy from the Russian government, she sided with the Turks during the Russo-Turkish War, on September 2,1829, the Russian authorities deposed David and forced Sophia into exile to Turkey. Guria was annexed to the Russian Empire, first under a provisional governance, and then, in 1840, as the Ozurgeti uyezd within the Kutais Governorate
29.
Principality of Svaneti
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The Principality of Svaneti was a small principality in the Greater Caucasus mountains that emerged following the breakup of the Kingdom of Georgia in the late 15th century. It was ruled successively by the houses of Gelovani and Dadeshkeliani, a series of Ottoman invasions and civil wars in western Georgia resulted in a breakdown of communications and the mountainous regions became increasingly isolated. In Svaneti, a feudal system effectively collapsed and once flourishing regional Georgian Orthodox culture went in decline to the point of reversal to some pagan practices. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, Svaneti fragmented into three political entities, the second, Upper Svaneti, lay along the upper reaches of the Enguri river for whose control the families of Richgviani and Dadeshkeliani vied. The latter clan emerged as the winners by the 1720s and established their rule on the territory to the west of the Enguri. The communities to the east of the Enguri seceded, however, in the 1820s, the Principality of Svaneti effectively split into two as a result of a blood feud between the rival Dadeshkeliani branches. Through the mediation by the princes of Mingrelia, both branches accepted nominal Russian suzerainty in 1833 as did the Free Svanetian communities in 1840, nevertheless, they continued to run their affairs independently and did not allow Russian officials or church missions into the area until the late 1840s. Continuing dynastic strife among the Dadishkeliani, their defiance to the Russian government, in 1857, Prince Alexander Baryatinsky, Viceroy of the Caucasus, ordered Svaneti to be subdued by armed force. The ruling prince of Svaneti, Constantine, chose to negotiate, on a farewell audience in Kutaisi, he quarreled with a local Russian administrator, Alexander Gagarin, and stubbed to death him and three of his staff. When captured, Constantine was summarily tried by court martial and shot, in 1858, the principality was abolished and converted into a district administered by a Russian-appointed officer. Several members of the Dadeshekeliani family were exiled to the remote Russian provinces and those who remained in Georgia were deprived of their autonomous powers
30.
Samtskhe-Saatabago
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The Principality of Meskheti or Principality of Samtskhe was a Georgian feudal principality existing between 1268 and 1628. Its territory consisted of modern Meskheti and the region of Tao-Klarjeti. Samtskhe-Saatabago was established after the expansion of the dukedom of Samtskhe, dukes of Samstkhe were always distinguished by their longing for higher autonomy from the king of Georgia. Samtskhe-Saatabago managed to remain a culturally developed part of Georgia as well as maintaining territorial integrity, Samtskhe-Saatabago, which was fully independent at a time, was again incorporated in the Georgian Kingdom by George V of Georgia, who claimed maternal descent from the House of Jaqeli. George V made Samtskhe-Saatabago an integral part of Georgia once again, at the end of the 14th century, Timurs forces invaded Samtskhe-Saatabago several times. After the weakening of Georgian monarchy, the rulers of Samtskhe turned to separatism once more, in 1500, Shah Ismail inveigled the atabeg of Samtskhe, king Constantine II and king Alexander II of Imereti to attack Ottoman possessions nearby Tabriz. As a precaution, Ismail had Aleksander send his son Demetre to the conquered region of Shirvan. Ismail promised Constantine, once Tabriz was captured, to cancel the tribute he still paid the Ak Koyunlu Turcomans, each Georgian ruler contributed 3,000 men to the existing Ismails own 7,000. By 1503 they enabled him to recapture Nakhchivan from the Ottomans, but Ismail broke his promise, and made Kartli and Kakheti his vassals
31.
Principality of Abkhazia
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The principality retained a degree of autonomy under the Ottoman, and then the Russian rule, but was eventually absorbed into the Russian Empire in 1864. Abkhazia, as a duchy within Georgia, was ruled by the clan of Shervashidze since the 12th century, the sources are very scarce about the Abkhazian history of that time. The Genoese established their trading factories along the Abkhazian coastline in the 14th century, as a result, Georgia split into three rival kingdoms and five principalities. The Abkhazian princes were the vassals of the Principality of Mingrelia under the dynasty of Dadiani, the vassalage was, however, largely nominal, and both Mingrelian and Abkhazian rulers not only successfully fought for their independence, but contested borders with each other and with Imereti. The independence of Abkhazia was largely symbolic as the region was left alone as the kings of Imereti had their hands full governing their designated area. In 1490, the split became official as Georgia was split by treaty into the three entities, the Kingdom of Kartli, Imereti, which Abkhazia was theoretically part of, and Kakheti. In the 1570s, the Ottoman navy occupied the fort of Tskhumi, throughout the 16th–18th centuries, the Abkhazian lords were involved in the incessant border conflicts with the Mingrelian princes. After the death of the Abkhazian prince Zegnak circa 1700, his principality was divided among his sons, the highlands of Tzabaldal were without any centralized government, but were dominated by the clan of Marshania. Sadzny, formerly known as Zygia extended north to Abkhazia proper between the cities of Gagra and Sochi, and was run by the Gechba clan. All these princedoms were more or less dependent on the princes of Abkhazia proper, Keilash Bey seems to have been the first presiding prince of Abkhazia to embrace Islam, and was given, on this account, the fort of Suhum-Kale. The first attempt to enter into relation with Russia was made by the said Keilash Bey in 1803, after the assassination of this prince by his son Aslan-Bey on May 2,1808, the pro-Ottoman orientation prevailed but for a short time. On July 2,1810, the Russian Marines stormed Suhum-Kale and had Aslan-Bey replaced with his brother, Sefer-Bey. Abkhazia joined the Russian empire as an autonomous principality, the next Russo-Turkish war strongly enhanced the Russian positions, leading to a further split in the Abkhaz elite, mainly along religious divisions. During the Crimean War, Russian forces had to evacuate Abkhazia, later on, the Russian presence strengthened and the highlanders of Western Caucasia were finally subjugated by Russia in 1864. Abkhazia was incorporated in the Russian Empire as a military province of Suhum-Kale which was transformed, in 1883. In July 1866 an attempt made by the Russian authorities to collect information concerning the conditions of the Abkhaz, for the purpose of taxation. The rebels proclaimed Michael Shervashidzes son George as prince and marched on Suhum-Kale, only the strong Russian reinforcements led by General Dmitry Ivanovich Svyatopolk-Mirsky were able to suppress the revolt by the same August. As a result, many areas became virtually deserted and the population of Abkhazia was reduced threefold, Abkhazian Kingdom Caucasian War History of Georgia Russian Empire Gigineishvili, Levan
32.
Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti
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By the 1790s, a new strong Iranian dynasty had emerged under Agha Mohammad Khan, who founded the Qajar dynasty of Iran, which would prove pivotal in the history of the short-lived kingdom. In the next few years, having secured mainland Iran, the new Iranian king straightly set out to reconquer the Caucasus, following the Russo-Persian War, Iran officially ceded the kingdom to Russia, marking the start of a Russian-centred chapter in Georgian history. Historically, Kartli was the dominant province in Georgia, but at that time, therefore, the Kings of Kakheti became the rulers of the new kingdom and Telavi, the capital of Kakheti, the capital of the new state. The unification did not deter the Persian Empire, now under the Qajar dynasty, from bringing it back within the Iranian domains. However, despite these large concessions made to Russia, Erekle II was successful in retaining internal autonomy in his kingdom. Following the death of Nader Shah, the kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti had broken free from Iranian rule, between 1747 and 1795, Erekle was therefore, by the turn of events in Iran following the ongoing turmoil there, able to maintain Georgias autonomy through the Zand period. In 1783, Heraclius placed his kingdom under the protection of the Russian Empire in the Treaty of Georgievsk. In the last few decades of the 18th century, Georgia had become an important element in Russo-Iranian relations than some provinces in northern mainland Iran. On top of that, having another port on the Georgian coast of the Black Sea would be ideal, the consequences of these events came a few years later, when a new dynasty, the Qajars, emerged victorious in the protracted power struggle in Iran. Qajar shah, Agha Mohammad Khan, as his first objective, for Agha Mohammah Khan, the re-subjugation and reintegration of Georgia into the Iranian Empire was part of the same process that had brought Shiraz, Esfahan, and Tabriz under his rule. He him, like to the Safavids and Nader Shah before him, as the Cambridge History of Iran states, its permanent secession was inconceivable and had to be resisted in the same way as one would resist an attempt at the separation of Fars or Gilan. The Ottomans, Irans neighboring rival, recognized the rights over Kartli. Nevertheless, Heraclius II still rejected the shah’s ultimatum. Petersburg, with half of the troops Agha Mohammad Khan crossed the Aras river. He now marched directly upon Tbilisi, where it commenced into a battle between the Iranian and Georgian armies. Erekle had managed to mobilize some 5,000 troops, including some 2,000 from neighboring Imereti under its King Solomon II, the Georgians, hopelessly outnumbered, were eventually defeated despite stiff resistance. In a few hours, the Iranian king Agha Mohammad Khan was in control of the Georgian capital. The Persian army marched back laden with spoil and carrying off thousands of captives, by this, after the conquest of Tbilisi and being in effective control of eastern Georgia, Agha Mohammad was formally crowned Shah in 1796 in the Mughan plain. As the Cambridge History of Iran notes, Russias client, Georgia, had been punished, Heraclius II returned to Tbilisi to rebuild the city, but the destruction of his capital was a death blow to his hopes and projects
33.
Georgia within the Russian Empire
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The country of Georgia was part of the Russian Empire from 1801 to 1918. Since Russia was an Orthodox Christian state like Georgia, the Georgians increasingly sought Russian help, for the next 117 years, Georgia would be part of the Russian Empire. Russian rule offered the Georgians security from external threats, but it was also often heavy-handed, by the late 19th century, discontent with the Russian authorities led to a growing national movement. Both peasants and workers found expression for their discontent through revolts and strikes and their cause was championed by the socialist Mensheviks, who became the dominant political force in Georgia in the final years of Russian rule. Georgia finally won its independence in 1918, less as a result of the nationalists and socialists efforts, but during the second half of the century a third imperial power emerged to the north, namely the Russian state of Muscovy, which shared Georgias Orthodox religion. Diplomatic contacts between the Georgian Kingdom of Kakheti and Moscow began in 1558 and in 1589, Tsar Fyodor I offered to put the kingdom under his protection. Yet little help was forthcoming and the Russians were still too remote from the south Caucasus region to challenge Ottoman or Persian control, only in the early 18th century did Russia start to make serious military inroads south of the Caucasus. However, the two failed to link up and the Russians retreated northward again, leaving the Georgians to the mercy of the Persians. Vakhtang ended his days in exile in Russia, vakhtangs successor, Erekle II, king of Kartli-Kakheti from 1762 to 1798, turned towards Russia for protection against Ottoman and Persian attacks. The kings of the other major Georgian state, Imereti, also contacted Russia, the Russian empress Catherine the Great was keen to have the Georgians as allies in her wars against the Turks and Persians, but sent only meagre forces to help them. In 1769-1772, a handful of Russian troops under General Totleben battled against Turkish invaders in Imereti and Kartl-Kakheti, in 1783, Erekle signed the Treaty of Georgievsk with Russia, according to which Kartli-Kakheti agreed to forswear allegiance to any state except Russia, in return for Russian protection. But when another Russo-Turkish War broke out in 1787, the Russians withdrew their troops from the region for use elsewhere, in 1795, the new Persian shah, Agha Mohammed Khan issued an ultimatum to Erekle, ordering him to break off relations with Russia or face invasion. Erekle ignored it, counting on Russian help, which did not arrive, Agha Muhammad Khan carried out his threat and captured and burned the capital, Tbilisi, to the ground. In spite of Russias failure to honour the terms of the Treaty of Georgievsk, the Persians had sacked and burned Tbilisi, leaving 20,000 dead. Agha Mohammad Khan, however, was assassinated in 1797 in Shusha, Erekle died the following year, leaving the throne to his sickly and ineffectual son Giorgi XII. After Giorgis death on 28 December 1800, the kingdom was torn between the claims of two heirs, Davit and Iulon. However, Tsar Paul I of Russia had already decided neither candidate would be crowned king, instead, the monarchy would be abolished and the country administered by Russia. He signed a decree on the incorporation of Kartli-Kakheti into the Russian Empire which was confirmed by Tsar Alexander I on 12 September 1801, the Georgian envoy in Saint Petersburg, Garsevan Chavchavadze, reacted with a note of protest that was presented to the Russian vice-chancellor Alexander Kurakin
34.
Democratic Republic of Georgia
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The Democratic Republic of Georgia existed from May 1918 to February 1921 and was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Georgia. The DRG was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and it had a total land area of roughly 107,600 km², and a population of 2.5 million. The republics capital was Tbilisi, and its language was Georgian. Proclaimed on May 26,1918, on the break-up of the Transcaucasian Federation, after the February Revolution of 1917 and collapse of the tsarist administration in the Caucasus, most power was held by the Special Transcaucasian Committee of the Russian Provisional Government. All of the soviets in Georgia were firmly controlled by the Georgian Social Democratic Party, the Bolshevist October Revolution changed the situation drastically. The Caucasian soviets refused to recognize Vladimir Lenins regime, many Georgians, influenced by the ideas of Ilia Chavchavadze and other intellectuals from the late 19th century, insisted on national independence. A cultural national awakening was further strengthened by the restoration of the autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church, in contrast, the Georgian Mensheviks regarded independence from Russia as a temporary step against the Bolshevik revolution and considered calls for Georgias independence chauvinistic and separatist. The union of Transcaucasus was short-lived though, Noe Ramishvili formed the first government of Democratic Republic of Georgia. Georgia was immediately recognized by Germany and the Ottoman Empire, the young state had to place itself under German protection and to cede its largely Muslim-inhabited regions to the Ottoman government. However, German support enabled the Georgians to repel the Bolshevik threat from Abkhazia, German forces were almost certainly under the command of Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein. Following the German defeat in the First World War, British occupation forces arrived in the country, Relations between the British and the local population were more strained than they had been with the Germans. British-held Batum, remained out of Georgias control until 1920, on December 25,1918, a British force was deployed in Tbilisi too. Georgias relations with its neighbours were uneasy, territorial disputes with Armenia, Denikins White Russian government and Azerbaijan led to armed conflicts in the first two cases. A British military mission attempted to mediate these conflicts in order to consolidate all anti-Bolshevik forces in the region, the threat of invasion by Denikins forces, notwithstanding the British position, brought Georgia and Azerbaijan together in a mutual defense alliance on June 16,1919. On February 14,1919, Georgia held parliamentary elections won by the Social Democratic Party of Georgia with 81. 5% of the vote. On March 21, Noe Zhordania formed the government, which had to deal with armed peasants revolts incited by local Bolshevik activists. These became more troublesome when carried out by ethnic minorities such as Abkhazians and Ossetians, in 1919, reforms in judicial system and local self-governance were carried out. Nevertheless, ethnic issues continued to trouble the country, especially on the part of the Ossetians, some contemporaries also observed increasing nationalism among the Social Democratic Party of Georgia leaders
35.
Red Army invasion of Georgia
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The independence of Georgia had been recognized by Soviet Russia in the Treaty of Moscow, signed on 7 May 1920, and the subsequent invasion of the country was not universally agreed upon in Moscow. Soviet forces took the Georgian capital Tbilisi after heavy fighting and declared the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic on 25 February 1921, the rest of the country was overrun within three weeks, but it was not until September 1924 that Soviet rule was firmly established. Georgia effectively escaped Russian control in the aftermath of the February Revolution in Russia in 1917. After an abortive attempt to unite with Armenia and Azerbaijan in a federative state, although there were a significant number of highly qualified officers who had served in the Imperial Russian military, the army as a whole was underfed and poorly equipped. Since early 1920, local Bolsheviks were actively fomenting political unrest in Georgia, capitalizing on agrarian disturbances in rural areas, the operational centre of the Soviet military-political forces in the Caucasus was the Kavburo attached to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party. Set up in February 1920, this body was chaired by the Georgian Bolshevik Grigol Ordzhonikidze, the Soviet leadership successfully exploited this situation and sent in its army to occupy Baku, the capital of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. Following the establishment of Soviet rule in Baku in April 1920, Ordzhonikidze, probably acting on his own initiative, when the coup failed, the Georgian government was able to concentrate all its forces on successfully blocking the Soviet advance over the Georgian-Azerbaijani border. Facing a difficult war with Poland, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin ordered a start to negotiations with Georgia, in the Treaty of Moscow signed on 7 May 1920, Soviet Russia recognized Georgias independence and concluded a non-aggression pact. The treaty established the borders between the two nations de jure and also obliged Georgia to surrender all third-party elements considered hostile by Moscow. In a secret supplement, Georgia promised to legalize the local Bolshevik party, despite the peace treaty, an eventual overthrow of the Menshevik-dominated government of Georgia was both intended and planned. Stalin called his homeland the kept woman of the Western Powers, Georgian independence was seen as a propaganda victory for exiled Russian Mensheviks in Europe, the Bolsheviks couldnt long tolerate a viable Menshevik state on their own doorstep. By that time, the British expeditionary corps had completely evacuated the Caucasus, Soviet military intervention was not universally agreed upon in Moscow, and there was considerable disagreement among the Bolshevik leaders on how to deal with their southern neighbor. He strongly supported a military overthrow of the Georgian government and continuously urged Lenin to give his consent for an advance into Georgia. The Peoples Commissar of War, Leon Trotsky, strongly disagreed with what he described as a “premature intervention”, for many Bolsheviks, self-determination was increasingly seen as a diplomatic game which has to be played in certain cases. Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks had already set up a Georgian Revolutionary Committee in Shulaveri, chaired by the Georgian Bolshevik Filipp Makharadze, the Revkom formally applied to Moscow for help. Disturbances also erupted in the town of Dusheti and among Ossetians in northeast Georgia who resented the Georgian governments refusal to grant them autonomy, Georgian forces managed to contain the disorders in some areas, but the preparations for a Soviet intervention were already being set in train. The ultimate decision was made at the 14 February meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and it was opposed by Karl Radek and was held secret from Trotsky who was in the Ural area at that time. Later Trotsky would reconcile himself to the fact and even defend the invasion in a special pamphlet
36.
Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic
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Georgia, formally the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, also commonly known as Soviet Georgia was one of the republics of the Soviet Union from its inception in 1922 to its breakup in 1991. From November 18,1989, the Georgian SSR declared its sovereignty over Soviet laws, geographically, the Georgian SSR was bordered by Turkey to the south-west and the Black Sea to the west. Within the Soviet Union it bordered the Russian SFSR to the north, Armenian SSR to the south, on November 28,1917, after the October Revolution in Russia, there was a Transcaucasian Commissariat established in Tiflis. A moderate, multi-party democratic system led by the Social Democratic Party of Georgia operated in the Democratic Republic of Georgia, but in February 1921, the Red Army invaded Georgia. The Socialist Soviet Republic of Georgia was established on February 25,1921, on March 2 of the following year the first constitution of Soviet Georgia was accepted. From March 12,1922 to December 5,1936 it was part of the Transcaucasian SFSR together with the Armenian SSR, in 1936, the TSFSR was dissolved. In 1936, the TSFSR was dissolved and Georgia became the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, lavrentiy Beria became head of the Georgian OGPU and purged Georgia until he was transferred to Moscow in 1938. Reaching the Caucasus oilfields was one of the objectives of Hitlers invasion of the USSR in June 1941. The country contributed almost 700,000 fighters to the Red Army and he abolished their respective autonomous republics. The Georgian SSR was briefly granted some of their territory until 1957, the decentralisation program introduced by Khrushchev in the mid-1950s was soon exploited by Georgian Communist Party officials to build their own regional power base. A thriving pseudo-capitalist shadow economy emerged alongside the official state-owned economy, corruption was at a high level. Among all the republics, Georgia had the highest number of residents with high or special secondary education. Although corruption was hardly unknown in the Soviet Union, it became so widespread, shevardnadze ascended to the post of First Secretary with the blessings of Moscow. He was an effective and able ruler of Georgia from 1972 to 1985, improving the official economy, Soviet power and Georgian nationalism clashed in 1978 when Moscow ordered revision of the constitutional status of the Georgian language as Georgias official state language. Bowing to pressure from street demonstrations on April 14,1978. April 14 was established as a Day of the Georgian Language, on April 9,1989, Soviet troops were used to break up a peaceful demonstration at the government building in Tbilisi. Twenty Georgians were killed and hundreds wounded and poisoned, the event radicalised Georgian politics, prompting many - even some Georgian communists - to conclude that independence was preferable to continued Soviet unity. On October 28,1990, democratic elections were held
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Name of Georgia (country)
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Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. The capital and largest city is Tbilisi, Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres, and its 2016 population is about 3.72 million. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy, during the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia adopted Christianity in the early 4th century, a unified Kingdom of Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter the kingdom declined and eventually disintegrated under hegemony of various powers, including the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire. Russian rule over Georgia was eventually acknowledged in various treaties with Iran. Since the establishment of the modern Georgian republic in April 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil, the countrys Western orientation soon led to the worsening of relations with Russia, culminating in the brief Russo-Georgian War in August 2008. Georgia is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and it contains two de facto independent regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which gained limited international recognition after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Georgia and a part of the international community consider the regions to be part of Georgias sovereign territory under Russian military occupation. Georgia probably stems from the Persian designation of the Georgians – gurğān, in the 11th and 12th centuries adapted via Syriac gurz-ān/gurz-iyān, starting with the Persian word gurğ/gurğān, the word was later adopted in numerous other languages, including Slavic and West European languages. This term itself might have established through the ancient Iranian appellation of the near-Caspian region. The self-designation used by ethnic Georgians is Kartvelebi, the medieval Georgian Chronicles present an eponymous ancestor of the Kartvelians, Kartlos, a great-grandson of Japheth. However, scholars agree that the word is derived from the Karts, the name Sakartvelo consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i, specifies an inhabitant of the core central-eastern Georgian region of Kartli, ancient Greeks and Romans referred to early western Georgians as Colchians and eastern Georgians as Iberians. Today the full, official name of the country is Georgia, before the 1995 constitution came into force the countrys name was the Republic of Georgia. The territory of modern-day Georgia was inhabited by Homo erectus since the Paleolithic Era, the proto-Georgian tribes first appear in written history in the 12th century BC. The earliest evidence of wine to date has found in Georgia. In fact, early metallurgy started in Georgia during the 6th millennium BC, the classical period saw the rise of a number of early Georgian states, the principal of which was Colchis in the west and Iberia in the east
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History of Tbilisi
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The history of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, dates back to at least the 5th century AD. Under the Russian rule, from 1801 to 1917 it was called Tiflis, Tbilisis proximity to lucrative east-west trade routes often made the city a point of contention between various rival empires, and its location to this day ensures an important transit role. Tbilisis varied history is reflected in its architecture, which is a mix of medieval, classical, archaeological studies of the region have however revealed that the territory of Tbilisi was settled by humans as early as the 4th millennium BC. The earliest written accounts of settlement of the come from the second half of the 4th century AD. Towards the end of the 4th century the fortress fell into the hands of the Persians, according to one account King Vakhtang Gorgasali went hunting in the heavily wooded region with a falcon. The kings falcon caught a pheasant, but both fell into a nearby hot spring and died. King Vakhtang was so impressed with the discovery that he decided to build a city on this location, the name Tbilisi derives from the Old Georgian word Tpili, meaning warm. The name Tbili or Tbilisi therefore was given to the city because of the areas numerous sulfuric hot springs and this mythical foundation account is still popular, but archaeological evidence shows that Vakhtang revived, or rebuilt parts of the city but did not found it. King Dachi, the son and successor of Vakhtang Gorgasali, is said to have moved the capital of Iberia from Mtskheta to Tbilisi to obey the will left by his father. During his reign, Dachi also finished the construction of the wall that lined the citys new boundaries. Beginning from the 6th century, Tbilisi started to grow at a steady pace due to the favorable location. However, this location was also strategic from the point of view. In the 6th century, Persia and the Byzantine Empire were the contenders for such hegemony over the Caucasus. In the second half of the 6th century, Tbilisi mostly remained under Sassanid control, in 627, Tbilisi was sacked by the allied Byzantine and Khazar armies. Around 737, Arab armies entered the town under Marwan II Ibn-Muhammad, the Arab conquerors established the Emirate of Tbilisi. Arab rule brought an order to the region and introduced a more formal and modernized judicial system into Georgia. The Arab rule heavily influenced the development of the city. Few Georgians converted to Islam during this time, but Tbilisi became a mainly Muslim city, in 764, Tbilisi was once again sacked by the Khazars, while still under Arab control
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History of Batumi
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Batumi is the capital city of Adjara, an autonomous republic in southwest Georgia, located on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. The history of Batumi is inextricably bound with that of Adjara, founded on the site of the Hellenic colony of Bathys, it was a small fortified town in the medieval kingdom of Georgia. In the 17th century, Batumi was conquered by the Ottoman Empire which relinquished its control of the town to the Russian Empire in 1878 and it was under the Russian rule that Batumi became a major port city on the crossroads of Eurasia. After the successive Ottoman and British occupations at the end of World War I, Batumi, after the Sovietization of Georgia in 1921, Adjara was granted the status of an autonomous republic and Batumi became its capital. Along with Poti, Batumi is one of Georgia’s most important ports and it is also an important cultural and political center. Batumi is purported to be located on the site of one of the Greek colonies on the coast of Colchis and its environs the ancient Greeks named Bathus Limen or Bathys Limen, whence the city’s modern name. This Bathys is sometimes identified with Portus altus, possibly a Latin rendition of the locale’s Greek name, of the Tabula Peutingeriana, the earliest archaeologically confirmed settlement on the territory of present-day Batumi dates to the 8th-7th century BC. It is located along the Karolitskhali River and centered on a hillock which is now referred to as Tamar’s Fortress after the medieval Georgian queen Tamar. A number of unearthed imported items, fragments of amphorae among them, the medieval history of Batumi, or Batomi as Georgians called it down to the early 20th century, is unremarkable and the town is scarcely mentioned in the contemporary sources. However, it reemerges in both Georgian and European accounts in the 15th century, the Venetian diplomats, Giosafat Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini, call Batumi Vati or Vathi. Barbaro reports it being one of the two ports of the lord Bendian, while Contarini describes it as a town centered on a fortress. De Thoisy was taken captive and released through the mediation of the emperor John IV of Trebizond, after the fragmentation of the Kingdom of Georgia in the late 15th century, the town and district of Batumi passed to the Georgian noble house of Gurieli, Princes of Guria. In the reign of Kakhaber II Gurieli, the Ottomans occupied Batumi and they returned in force a century later after the decisive defeat which they inflicted on the combined army of Georgian rulers at Sokhoista in 1545. Batumi was reclaimed, first by the prince Rostom Gurieli in 1564, who lost it soon afterwards, however, the Ottoman naval blockade imposed on the western Georgian coast forced Mamia II into surrendering Batumi and Adjara to the Ottoman control in the treaty of 13 December 1614. Under the Ottoman government, the city was known as Batoum and was made a center of a sanjak that stretched from the Chrorokhi-Adjaristskali basin to Tsikhis-Dziri to the north of the city. With the Ottoman conquest the Islamization of the region, hitherto Christian, began, Batoum had an active port, which was also a big center of the Caucasian slave-trade. During the following two decades, the Ottoman government consolidated their hold of the Batoum area by eliminating the power of the Khimshiashvili, a local family of Muslim Georgian beys. In 1863, the Ottoman government decided to make Batoum a principal town of the Lazistan province, a new fort Burun-Tabiya was also built at the cape of Batoum
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Military history of Georgia
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The country of Georgia has known a rich military history, both as a battlefield of empires and as an independent political and military power. The strategic significance and natural wealth of its territory made it the target of invasions. The term Caucasian Iberia is used to distinguish it from the Iberian Peninsula, the Caucasian Iberians provided a basis for later Georgian statehood and along with Colchis formed a core of the present day Georgian people. Pompey invades Georgia in 65 BC after making the Kingdom of Armenia a vassal of Rome and he demands vassalage from the Iberians, but the Iberians refuse and begin partisan wars against Pompey. Roman troops are ambushed in arboreous areas. Reportedly, a number of women also participate in this irregular warfare. Later in the year, the Iberians fight a battle against Pompeys main force over the Aragvi river near Mtskheta. Greek historian Plutarch refers to that engagement as a great battle, after subdueing Iberia, Pompey turns towards the Kingdom of Colchis and subjugates its various fortresses and local peoples on the way with both cunning diplomacy and the use of force. In ancient Geography, Colchis or Kolkhis is an ancient Georgian state kingdom and region in Western Georgia, the Colchians are probably established on the Black Sea coast by the Middle Bronze Age. The War between Armenia and Iberia is known chiefly through its description in Tacitus Annals, fearing usurpation by Rhadamistus, his father convinces him to declare war upon his uncle and claim the Armenian throne for himself. Rhadamistus is unable to take the fortress by assault or by siege, pollio, swayed by bribery from Rhadamistus, induces the Roman soldiers to threaten the capitulation of the garrison. Under this threat, Mithridates leaves the fortress in order to make peace with Rhadamistus, Rhadamistus then executes Mithridates and his sons, despite a promise of non-violence, and becomes King of Armenia. Of this usurpation, Tacitus writes Rhadamistus might retain his ill-gotten gains, as long as he was hated and infamous, shortly after the Iberians are expelled from Armenia by a rebellion of the Armenian nobility which is supported by the Parthian Empire. Both kingdoms would then take sides respectively during the Roman–Parthian War of 58–63, in 327 Georgia adopts Christianity and becomes a Christian state, which causes it to grow more distant from its Zoroastrian neighbor. From 483 to 522 the then Georgian king Vakhtang I turns Georgia into a regional power. Persians refer to him as Gorgasal, which translated means wolf. The king wore that particular piece of armour in battle, military ambitions also grow in that period which is reflected by a large fighting force. King Vakhtang dies during an invasion when an arrow strikes through a gap of his armor, the Iberian War is a conflict between the Eastern Roman and Sassanid Empires over the Georgian kingdom of Iberia, which lasts from 526 to 532
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History of Georgia
