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Eurasia
Critic, June 2008
By George HEWITT (Professor; London School Of Oriental and
African Studies)
Historical BackgroundBagrat' III (d. 7th May 1014) was the
first ruler of the united feudal kingdom of Georgia, having
inherited the 200 year-old 'Kingdom of Abkhazia' (which
encompassed not only today's Abkhazia but western Georgia
too) from his mother. In the Georgian chronicles he (and his
successors) carried the title /mepe apxazta da kartvelta/ 'King
of the Abkhazians and Kartvelians' in recognition of the
role played by the Abkhazians in creating this union. The
arrival of the Mongols in the 13th century dissolved it into
smaller statelets, of which Abkhazia (under the Chachba
ruling family) was one. The political border with
neighbouring Mingrelia (under the Dadiani ruling family) was
set along the River Ingur in the 1680s. It has remained here
ever since, serving today as the front line between de facto
independent Abkhazia and post-Soviet Georgia. In the north,
Abkhazian speakers traditionally occupied the coastal strip
up to the River Mzymta, where settlements belonging to their
Ubykh cousins began; further north (up to the River Kuban
and in land) lived the various communities of their other
cousins, the Circassians. Since the Mzymta lies north of
Abkhazia's current border with Russia (River Psou), any
Abkhazian irredentist claims would be lodged in Moscow (not
Tbilisi)!
Over the
centuries the littoral attracted Genoese, Ottoman and
Catholic missionary interest, but little altered the
population-distribution until the tsars moved south, having
gained a foothold in Transcaucasia with the 1783 Treaty of
Georgievsk between Catherine the Great and Erek'le II, King
of the Central and Eastern Georgian Kingdoms of Kartli and
K'akheti. At the end of the Great Caucasian War (1864), all
Ubykhs plus most Circassians and Abkhazians migrated to
Ottoman territory — a further outflow followed the Russo-Turkish
war of 1877-78. As of 1878, then, the Abkhazians would have
regarded the Russians as their worst nightmare. This is what
the Georgians think their attitude should still be. But
history moved on...
Read
more:
http://www.eurasiacritic.com/june/june_hewitt.html
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Origins and Evolution of
the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict
By Stephen SHENFIELD (JRL Research & Analytical Supplement)
In this paper I trace the
emergence and evolution of the Georgian—Abkhaz conflict
up to the invasion of Abkhazia by Georgian forces on
August 14, 1992. I try to pinpoint the most crucial
events and causative factors, and to infer the likely
motives and calculations of the parties to the conflict.
Section I is an analytical narrative, subdivided into
the following seven periods:
1) The period before the Russian occupation of Abkhazia
(up to 1810);
2) The tsarist period (1810—1917);
3) The period of independent Georgia (1917—1921);
4) The early Soviet period (1921—1936);
5) The period of the Stalin--Beria terror (December
1936—1953);
6) The post-Stalin period (1953—1985);
7) The period of perestroika and post-Soviet transition
(1986—August 1992).
Section II is devoted to the decision taken in summer
1992 by the State Council of Georgia, headed by
Shevardnadze, to intervene militarily in Abkhazia: the
likely motives and goals of the Georgian leadership, the
direct trigger of the decision (if any), and whether and
how the decision might have been averted by preventive
diplomacy. Also considered is the related question of
why the intervention occurred during the presidency of
Shevardnadze rather than during that of Gamsakhurdia.
In Section III I share some general reflections
concerning the failures of perception and calculation on
both sides that contributed to the escalation of the
conflict to large-scale violence.
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