Georgia, country, Asia: Early History through Soviet Rule

Early History through Soviet Rule

Georgia developed as a kingdom about the 4th cent. b.c. Mtskheta was its earliest capital; coastal Georgia was the Colchis of the ancient Greeks. The Persian Sassanids, who ruled the country from the 3d cent. a.d., were expelled c.400. In the 4th cent. Christianity was introduced in Georgia. In the 9th cent. the rule of the Bagrationi family began. Alp Arslan held the region in the 11th cent., but King David IV (or David II, known as David the Builder) expelled the Seljuk Turks, united the Georgians, and reestablished their independence.

In the 12th and 13th cent. Georgia under Queen Thamar (1184–1213) reached its greatest expansion (it then included the whole of Transcaucasia and part of what is now neighboring Turkey) and cultural flowering. From that period dates the national poem, The Man in the Panther's Skin, by Shota Rustaveli. Ravaged (13th cent.) by the Mongols, Georgia revived but was again sacked by Timur (c.1386–1403). In the 15th cent. King Alexander I divided Georgia into three kingdoms (Imertia, Kakhetia, and Karthlia) among his sons, and the period of decline set in.

In the 16th cent. Georgia became an object of struggle between Turkey and Persia. In 1555, W Georgia passed under Turkish suzerainty and E Georgia (Kakhetia and Karthlia) under Persian rule. In the 18th cent. kings of Kakhetia tried to unite Georgia, but, pressed by the Turks and the Persians, accepted (1783) vassalage to Russia in exchange for assistance. The last king, George XIII, threatened by Persia, abdicated (1801) in favor of the czar and ceded Kakhetia and Karthlia to Russia. Between 1803 and 1829 Russia also acquired from Turkey the western parts of Georgia (Abkhazia, Mingrelia, Imeritia, and Guria).

After the Russian Revolution (1917), the Georgian Menshevik party (see Bolshevism and Menshevism) proclaimed (May, 1918) Georgia's independence, and the country enjoyed a brief period as a democratic socialist republic. The Soviet government in Moscow recognized (May, 1920) the independence, but in 1921 the Red Army invaded Georgia, and in Feb., 1921, it was proclaimed a Soviet republic. It was joined the USSR in 1922 as a member of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic; in 1936 it became a separate union republic. Parts of Georgia were held by the Germans during World War II. After the war, Stalin, who was himself a Georgian, ordered the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Georgians as suspected collaborators. In Apr., 1989, a protest against Soviet rule in Georgia led Soviet troops to fire on demonstrators, killing 20 and injuring hundreds.

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