Something from the history of Georgia
The Georgian nation is one of the oldest. Its state life began approximately 1500 BC, originally in the vast valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Thus, most Georgian people lived in Central Asia, although Georgian tribes had been scattered in the Caucasus since ancient times. The Georgian kingdom was destroyed under the pressure of Babylon, especially Assyria, and then the Indo-Germans.
According to the testimony of the Greek traveller and historian Strabo, who lived in the 1st century and visited the Georgian country of Colchis, this country was already flourishing and had lively trade and cultural relations with all the nations of Eastern and Central Asia including India. 120 stone bridges were thrown across the River Rion, which flows into the Black Sea, and up to 70 translators of different languages were needed in the port city of Poti.
Christianity in Georgia began to spread in the 1st century, but the Georgian people officially accepted the Christian faith in 325 under the reign of King Mirian. It is significant – from the hand of the holy virgin Nina, who, according to tradition, came from Cappadocia at the behest of the Mother of God, who appeared to her in a dream and said: “Get up, go to the land of the pagans and enlighten it.”
The ancient capital of Georgia was Mtskhet, from which the famous Georgian military road begins. The wonderful cathedral “St. Tshoveli” (pillar of life) was also built there. However, the king of Vakhtang, Gorg Aslani, transferred the capital in the 5th century. The capital city of Tbilisi was already built there, the name of which comes from the word “tbili” (warm), because there are hot sulfur springs in this place.
In the 7th century, the power of the Arabs grew, who having conquered all of Front Asia, reached the borders of Georgia and took it over. The Arab rule lasted until 1121.
From 1121 to 1221, within one century, Georgia achieved high development. Notably under the glorious Queen Tamar. The borders of Georgia at this time stretched from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea and to Trebizond, where the so-called State of Trebizond was under the protectorate of Georgia. This period in the history of Georgia is called the golden age, and the famous Shota Rustaveli, who created the majestic poem “The Knight in the Tiger’s Skin”, appeared at this time.
In 1221, Chinggis-Khan invades Georgia and then marches on Russia. With the rule of the Mongols, the decline of the power of Georgia begins. She tries under Tsar Alexander in the 15th century to rise to her former power, but the hostile Muslim world that surrounds her is too strong, and all her efforts remain in vain. With the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 and the final destruction of Byzantium, the door to Europe was closed to the Christian countries to which Georgia repeatedly appealed for help, but without success.
The Insidious Policy of Moscow
Weakened in the continuous war against Persia and Turkey, Georgia, not finding help from Europe to save itself from complete absorption by the Muslim world, had to turn to the north – in the hope that Orthodox Russia would extend a helping hand to the Christian country. Georgian ambassadors often visit Moscow tsars and ask for help. But Moscow at that time was still weak, the main lines of its policy of advancing to the southeast and southwest had not yet been determined, although Ivan the Terrible had already managed to capture the city of Astrakhan. But when Moscow becomes stronger and begins its policy of aggression in the above-mentioned directions, the Moscow rulers take advantage of Georgia’s predicament and, instead of helping, resort to insidious methods to weaken it even more, aiming to absorb it.
From the many examples that illustrate the immorality of the methods of the Russian rulers, we will cite some to make it clear in what ways Russia established itself in Georgia, which well understood that owning Georgia means sooner or later owning the entire Caucasus.
Vakhtang VI and Peter I
In 1722, Peter I declared war on Persia, allegedly because Russian merchants were robbed on the territory of Persia. The Russian emperor, knowing that the Georgian king Vakhtang VI was being pressed by Persia, offered him a military alliance against the common enemy. Of course, Vakhtang VI willingly agreed to finally free himself from the protection of the Persian shah. But Peter I agreed with the Persian shah, who had surrendered Baku to Russia, after which the Russian emperor ordered his army to withdraw from Derbent and send it back to Astrakhan, leaving Vakhtang VI with his army on the battlefield. Of course, the Persian shah brutally dealt with Georgia. Vakhtang VI was forced to flee to Russia; 2,389 people surrendered with him: princes, clerics and nobles.
Heraclius II and Catherine II
In 1768, Catherine II began to prepare for war with Turkey. She turned to the Georgian king Irakli II for help. A military alliance between Georgia and Russia was created. The Russian Tsarina sent only 3,767 soldiers under the command of the famous adventurer Count Totleben to help Georgia, instead of the agreed five regiments. He, even though the help provided was worthless, began to weave various intrigues in Tbilisi, inciting some disgruntled princes against Heraclius.
George XII is the last king of Georgia
The war began. On March 15, 1770, Herakliy and his troops set out from Tbilisi against the Turks who had occupied Akhal-tsikhe. On April 20, fighting began near the village of Aspindzi, but to the horror of the Georgian king, news was received that Totleben had returned his army and gone to Tbilisi. Despite the betrayal, Heraclius, who never retreated and often defeated enemies with small forces, gave battle and won a brilliant victory, which is called the “brilliant battle near Aspindza” in the history of Georgia.
It turned out that Totleben, hoping that Heraklion would be defeated by the Turkish army, wanted to carry out his plan: to overthrow the Georgian king and declare himself the ruler of Georgia. Even Russian officers were outraged by Totleben’s behaviour, who, of course, did not know the true intentions of the St. Petersburg court. To prove the true intentions of Catherine II, it is appropriate to cite one part from the letter of the queen’s first minister, Panin, sent by him to Totleben: “Your behaviour, although useful, is still too early, and one must be careful, especially during the war, but perhaps there will come a time for that too, but meanwhile, Georgians must fight together with us against Turkey” (A. Tsagareli. Documents, volume I, article 141). This letter from Panin needs no further comments.
On 10 July 1774, the so-called Kuchuk-Kainardzhsky Treaty was drawn up between Russia and Turkey. The Russian army withdrew from Georgia.
Heraclius II, despairing in Russia, again turned his eyes to Europe, sending ambassadors to Rome, Paris, and Vienna, but all his efforts remained unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Russia is advancing even further to the borders of the Caucasus. This again worries Turkey. It smells like war again, and it is at this time that Gen. In 1782, Potemkin sent Doctor Reineg to Tbilisi to persuade Georgia to become a protectorate or rather an alliance with Russia. Finding no other way out, Herakli II reluctantly agrees, although many influential people in Georgia, including his own chancellor, the wise Leonidze, were against the alliance with Russia.
24 July 1783, representatives of both states — Russia and Georgia — signed a treaty in the city of Georgiivskyi. Regarding the content of this treatise, the French professor Le Fur, analyzing it, makes, among other things, the following observations: “We have before us an international agreement concluded between equal states and, from a legal point of view, between sovereign parties. Therefore, even after concluding the treaty with Russia, Georgia continues to rely on international law. From the point of view of international law, it remains a state.”
This is the condition between Russia and Georgia, often referred to and the basis on which Russia undertook to help Georgia during the war. Yet again, Russia did not keep its word. She sent only two battalions of troops to Georgia, and after it ended, she took back this insignificant military force. Again, Georgia found itself under the blows of the Persian Aga-Mohammed-Khan, who invaded Georgia with a large army in 1795 and after bloody battles on 12 September captured Tbilisi. The massacre was fierce, the city was badly destroyed, and up to 80,000 Georgian residents were driven to Persia by the victors. General Hudovich, commander-in-chief of the so-called Caucasian line, had just received an order to help Georgia on 10 October, when Aga-Mohammed-Khan was already leaving Tbilisi. The army itself (two battalions) arrived in Georgia in December, but only to sneakily prepare for the country’s annexation.
After such devastation, Georgia could not recover, especially since the present Russian army did not help, but only hindered and tried to create such a situation that Georgia would fall into the hands of Russia like a ripe vegetable.
Catherine II died in 1796, and Aga-Matomet-Khan died in 1797, which dealt such a terrible blow to Georgia and thus made it easier for Russia to swallow it. On 11 January 1798, Heraclius II also died, about whom Frederick II of Prussia once said: “I am the only commander in Europe and in the east – Heraclius II, the king of Georgia.”
If under Heraclius II Russia did not yet dare to carry out its insidious plan, after his death the issue of annexation was already resolved in the St. Petersburg court. They were still waiting for the death of Heraklius George XII’s son, who ascended the throne after his father’s death. Unfortunately, he was also sick with a terrible disease, dropsy, and his death was expected from day to day. But they were in a hurry in St. Petersburg: on 18 December 1800, the senate passed a resolution on the annexation, on 22 December, Emperor Paul I signed a manifesto, and George XII died on 22 December. So they didn’t even wait for his death. As Paul I soon died it fell to Emperor Alexander I to announce the Manifesto of 1801 about the destruction of the kingdom of Georgia and its transformation into a Russian province.
The Georgian people, once again convinced of the deception of tsarist Russia, responded with uprisings: in 1802, then in 1804, and 1812, the national uprising, so-called “The Kakheti” uprising and, finally, the conspiracy of 1832, but all efforts were in vain.
Kateryna Dadiani, the last ruler of the Principality of Mingrelia
Russia, having captured eastern Georgia, its centre, thereby took a decisive step towards possessing the Caucasus and further expansion. First of all, she turned her attention to the southeast, leaving western Georgia, the provinces: Imereti, Guria, Mingrelia and Svaneti in peace. These provinces, being parts of Georgia, were governed autonomously. In addition, they were in the sphere of influence of Turkey, and Russia had to reckon with this. Although already from 1802, it sought in various ways that these provinces should at least nominally recognize the protectorate of the Russian emperor. It managed this easily thanks to Turkey’s policy. As a result, before 1810, Imereti, Guria, and Abkhazia were annexed one by one by Russia, which operated using the same methods as in eastern Georgia.
Only Migrelia and Svaneti managed to hold out until 1857 due to their geographical position. Russia was in no hurry here, waiting for a favourable time.
The methods applied by Russia to these two principalities are even more marked by treachery. Russia and its rulers in the Caucasus dealt with the widow of David Dadiani, a woman of extraordinary beauty, named Kateryna, the daughter of Catherine II’s godson, Alexander Chavchavadze, a participant in the conspiracy of 1832 and a great poet of Georgia. After her husband’s death, she inherits Mingrelia, and Russia approves it. In 1855, the Crimean War began. The Turkish commander-in-chief, Omar Pasha, occupies Mingrelia. Kateryna, according to the old tradition, on a horse and in a burka, commands a detachment of Mingrelian soldiers acting against the attacker. Petersburg is captivated by her, legends are created about her in the salons of high-class ladies.
Kateryna Dadiani
Now, when the war ends and Mingrelia is freed from the Turkish army, Kateryna is invited to St. Petersburg for the coronation. Everyone is fascinated by her, and most of all, the young emperor himself. But the coronation celebration is over. It’s time for Kateryna to go to Mingrelia, but she is detained in St. Petersburg under a decent pretext; Meanwhile, the rulers of the Caucasus, Governor Baratinsky and Gen. Kolubyakin are preparing the annexation of Mingrelia. Fortunately for Russia and unfortunately for Mingrelia, based on the needy state of the population, destroyed during the stay of the Turkish army, a peasant uprising against the local princes, who also suffered from the war, arose. Here is the first opportunity for the Russian authorities to intervene and take Mingrelia into their hands. That’s what they do. General Kolubyakin goes with his army to Mingrelia. He takes the side of the peasants against the local lords. When Kateryna arrives, she finds the following picture in her country: the Russians promise the peasants liberation from serfdom and thereby attract them to themselves. Kateryna angrily asks Baratinsky and Alexander II himself: “Peasants have not yet been freed anywhere in Russia, why are they starting with Mingrelia?” Of course, she gets no response. The fact has happened, Russian troops have entered Mingrelia, and all that remains is to remove Kateryna herself from the country, but “with dignity, so as not to offend her pride.” This is the order of the emperor himself. she is promised that her young son, coming of age, will get back the autonomy of Mingrelia. She does not believe, but what is left for her? She left for Petersburg with her son on October 25, 1857, never to return. In 1867, her son came of age, but he was forced to abdicate the throne. In exchange, they give him 1 million rubles and the surname Mingrelsky.
The abolition of autonomy in Svaneti, which has communication with the outside world only three months a year, was not without a bloody sacrifice for the Russian rulers in Georgia. Baratinsky, having decided to put an end to the last vestiges of self-government in the Caucasus, ordered the Kutaisi governor Gagarin to summon its ruler, Konstantin Dadeshkeliani, from Svaneti. Having received the invitation and not suspecting anything bad, Dadeshkeliani goes calmly to Kutais to introduce himself to the governor. There he learns that his “case” has been transferred to St. Petersburg for consideration; he himself is placed under the care of Russian government officials. Months pass, Dadeshkeliiyani wants to return to Svaneti, but he is not allowed. Finally, he decides to talk to Gagarin one last time and explain that he must go back. But nothing helps. Even worse, Gagarin tells him that he must immediately leave for Erivan, the place of exile. Then Dadeshkeliani, a man with the character of a lamb, becomes the titular. Grabbing a dagger from his sheath, he rushes at Gagarin and kills him with several blows, along with three of his government officials. Dadeshkeliani is arrested, a military court punishes him, and the next day he is shot.
One of the top government officials in Mingrelia at that time, Borosdin, in his memoirs about Mingrelia notes: “The demand of Kateryna Dadiani to preserve the autonomy of Mingrelia contradicted the entire policy of Russia, which carried out assimilation in line with the main aspirations of the empire.” (Borozdin, “Memories”, p. 183).
You can’t think of a better description. Imperial Russia was organically unable to be guided by principles other than assimilation and Russification. In the end, it destroyed her.
D. Sagirashvili
Архів ОУН. – Бібліотека. – Газети. – Сучасна Україна. – 25 квітня 1954. – С.7-8
