Posted by
Wil on Saturday, August 09, 2008 12:41:16 PM
In light of the newest conflict on the world stage, I thought it might be worthwhile to do an outline history of Georgia, its relationship with Russia, and the other ethnicities within the Caucasus region.
The Caucasus is the mountainous region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The Russian Federations states of Dagestan and Chechnya, and the independent nations of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan make up this region between Iran and Turkey to the south and Russia to the north. Being in a gateway region such as they are, the people of this region have been conquered a number of times. The Russians under the czars conquered some of them in 1864, adding them to the Russian Empire. This region became more important than a geographical gateway when Oil became important around the turn on the 20
th century. When the Russians took over, many of the Circassians and others fled into Ottoman Turkey, while others stayed and fought, and still others accepted Russian rule. After the Soviet revolution in 1917, the region was briefly autonomous, then later was divided into Republics after being reconquered in 1921. These Republics were simply administrative states. Soviet policy was to mix 2 or more ethnic groups into an administrative area so that they would distrust each other and be less likely to rebel against Soviet authority.
As you can see from the map below, the state boundaries really do not tell the whole story. From my research, I have been able to find about 50 differentiated ethnic groups split into three linguistic families, many of whom were ancient enemies. Most of these enmities were accentuated under Russian rule.
One of the reasons for this accentuation of enmities was the Russian and especially Soviet policy of transporting people into areas where their ancient enemies are and then forcing them to live there, as well as drawing boundaries to include 2 or more ethnic groups. Notice the pockets of Armenians in Azerbaijan and the Azeris within Armenia. This was done on purpose and these people have lived where they are since the 1920’s, making it unrealistic to ask them to simply leave their homes of the last 4-5 generations.
The three dominant ethnicities of the south Caucasus are the Armenians, Azeris, and Georgians. Each have their own language, culture, and history of resistance to Russians and to each other. According to the website cornellcaspian.com , there are three unresolved conflicts in the region. First is a fight between Armenians living in Azerbaijan against their rule. Second is Abkhazia declaring independence from Georgia in 1992. This is the region on the Black Sea coast, with pink and yellow. According to the website, about 240,000 Georgians were ethnically cleansed out of Abkhazia in 1993, and Russia, the only country to recognize Abkhazia as an independent state has “peacekeepers” there while Georgia still attempts to maintain control with paramilitary groups. The third conflict is the one that has just recently flared up, the de facto independence of South Ossetia which also declared independence from Georgia in 1992. Notice on the map above the Ossetians (dark green, number 19) also are the majority in a region further south, and if united could cut Georgia in half. There also is an Ossetian region in Russia, North Ossetia, which some in the south desire reunification with. Of course reunification would mean this region becomes part of the Russian federation again.
Georgia is a nation of 4.4 million, and 84% of its people are ethnically Georgian. It was a Kingdom in medieval times, but submitted voluntarily to Russian rule in about 1800. It had a brief period of independence from 1918 -1921 after the breakup of Tsarist Russia, then was invaded and assimilated into The Soviet Union in 1921. Since 1991, it has been independent but mostly a mess. In1995, Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet leader of Georgian descent, stepped into the messy civil war and was elected President. He was reelected in 2000, but in 2003, the Rose Revolution established overthrew him because of charges of corruption and election fraud. Since 2003, a representative democracy that is much more respected by the outside world has been in place. In 2004, Mikhail Shaakashvili was elected president. He has been responsible for cleaning out much of the corruption, removing state control of land and allowing private ownership, and trying to resolve the two conflicts listed above. Russia has granted citizenship to many in the two breakaway region since 2004, and now considers them citizens it must protect. That leads us to yesterday, when Georgia after months of restraining itself, responded to provocations from its separatists and the Russian peacekeepers it says are inciting rebellion. To “protect its citizens”, Russia sent in tanks and jets and the war looks almost inevitable.
This is a summary of what I could find on the region. I cannot say whether Georgia is the “good guy” and Russia the “bad guy” or visa versa. All I know is that this war could have very serious consequences for the US. In my next post, I’ll try to explain why.