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Mariam LORDKIPANIDZE
D.Sc. (Hist.), professor, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Academician, National Academy of Sciences of Georgia, Merited Scholar
(Tbilisi, Georgia).
Georgy OTKHMEZURI
D.Sc. (Hist.), professor, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
(Tbilisi, Georgia).
OSSETS IN GEORGIA
Abstract
The authors probe into issues related to the autochthonous nature of the Ossetian population that lives on the territory that used to be Georgia’s historical and geographic province of Shida
Kartli (Inner Kartli); they have investigated the sources and the causes of Ossetian migrations and exposed the historical roots of the problem of so-called South Ossetia.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
According to historical sources, the Ossets came in more or less large numbers to Georgia in the 17th century; before that there were individual cases of migration from the Northern Caucasus where the Ossets were living. The conquerors (the Arabs in the 9th and the Mongols in the 13 th century) moved small Ossetian groups to Georgian territory to fortify their position in the conquered lands. Later these migrants were either assimilated or driven beyond the Georgian borders.
In the 16th century and later, the never ending military confrontation between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Persia on Georgian territory and the Georgians’ struggle against the conquerors decreased the local population strength. Later, under Russia’s pressure, people from the Northern
Caucasus, the Ossets among them, started moving to depopulated Georgia. In the 17th and 18th centuries, a compact Ossetian settlement (especially in the northwestern part of Shida Kartli) appeared and began growing.
On 20 April, 1922, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia and the Council of People’s Commissars of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic passed Decree No. 2 that set up the South Ossetian Autonomous Region (SOAR) with the capital in Tskhinvali as part of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. At that time, its population was 65 thousand, about 100 thousand Ossets lived elsewhere in Georgia.
On 20 September, 1990, the SOAR leaders announced sovereignty within the Soviet Union as the South Ossetian Soviet Socialist Republic; on 11 December, 1990, the Georgian government of Zviad Gamsakhurdia annulled the decision of the SOAR leaders and deprived the region of its autonomous status. This triggered the conflict.
The present authors have posed themselves the task of investigating the historical background of this burning issue, the importance of which is not limited to Georgia alone.
Shida Kartli: The Past
The former South Ossetian Autonomous Region was situated in the northwestern corner of Shida Kartli, a Georgian historical-geographic province. In the east, it was confined by the Aragva River; in the north, by the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range, in the west, by the Suram (Likh) range, and in the south, by Lake Paravan.
The area has been populated from time immemorial and was the home of the Kartvelian (Georgian) ethnos since the Late Paleolithic Age. Its cultural tradition was uninterrupted, while the region itself was the center of consolidation of the Georgian tribes.1 The same can be said of the later periods. Since ancient times until a certain stage of the Late Middle Ages and to a great extent today, it was and is populated by Georgians as the autochthonous population.2 People of other nationalities also lived there, but the Georgians were the main ethnic group.
Shida Kartli is one of the centers of the Georgian state and culture. In the 3rd century B.C., Czar of Kartli Farnavaz carried out an administrative reform and divided his state into eristavstvos (princedoms); Shida Kartli was one of them, its head being “the head of all the other eristavstvos.”3 This administrative structure, with minor alterations, existed throughout the Middle Ages as well. In the latter half of the 5th century, the Shida Kartli eristav was still the “head of all the eristavstvos.”4 A similar system was registered in the mid-7th century in the so-called Deed of Protection signed by the Kartli ruler and the Arab conquerors.5
1 See: B.A. Kuftin, “O drevneyshikh korniakh gruzinskoy kul’tury na Kavkaze po dannym arkheologii,” in: Trudy Gosudarstvennogo muzeia Gruzii, Vol. XII, Tbilisi, 1944, p. 333; idem, Arkheologicheskaia marshrutnaia ekspeditsia 1945 g. v Iugo-Osetiu i Imeretiu, Tbilisi, 1949; O. Japaridze, At the Sources of Georgian History, Tbilisi, 2003 (in Georgian).
2 See: N. Apkhazava, “Kul’turno-etnicheskie protsessy v severo-zapadnoi chasti Shida Kartli s drevneishego vre-meni do pozdnego Srednevekovia (na osnove arkheologicheskikh materialov,” in: Osetinskiy vopros, Tbilisi, 1994, p. 73; R. Topchishvili, The Questions Related to Ossetian Migration to Georgia and Ethnic History of Shida Kartli, Tbilisi, 1997 (in Georgian); idem, The Georgian-Ossetian Ethnohistorical Essays, Kutaisi, 2006 (in Georgian).
3 L. Mroveli, “The Lives of Czars,” in: Kartlis Tskhovreba (History of Georgia), Vol. I, ed. by S.G. Kaukhchishvi-li, Tbilisi, 1955, pp. 24-25 (in Georgian).
4 Juansher, “The Life of Vakhtang Gorgasali,” in: Kartlis Tskhovreba, Vol. I, p. 185 (see also: D. Juansheriani, Zhizn' Vakhtanga Gorgasala, Transl. into Russian, introduced and annotated by G.V. Tsulaia, Tbilisi, 1986, p. 83).
5 See: Baladzori, Kniga zavoevania stran (text and translation by P.K. Zhuze), Baku, 1927; M. Lordkipanidze, “‘The Deed of Protection’ by Khabib ibn Maslama” (the Arabic text with Georgian translation by M. Lordkipanidze), in: Documents of History of Georgia and the Caucasus, Issue 29, Tbilisi, 1951, pp. 61-65 (in Georgian).
In the 8th-10th centuries, in the heat of the struggle for a united Georgian feudal state, Shida Kartli was seen as a region, the possession of which would determine the outcome of the struggle.6 In the united Georgian feudal monarchy, Shida Kartli remained an eristavstvo of the kingdom of Sakartvelo.7
In the 16th-18th centuries, when the united feudal Georgian state disintegrated into three kingdoms (Kartli, Kakheti, and Imereti) and the Samtskhe-Saatabago princedom, Shida Kartli belonged to the Kartli kingdom. It included the Georgian princedoms of Satsitsiano (the Tsitsishvili princes), the Ksani eristavstvo, Saamilakhoro (the Amilakhvari princes), Samachablo (the Machabeli princes), and others.8
Under the Treaty of Georgievsk of 1783 between the Kartli-Kakheti kingdom and Russia, Shida Kartli, together with the future SOAR territory, became part of the Kartli-Kakheti kingdom.9 The map of Colonel S. Burnashov confirms these borders.10
There are no doubts about the ethnic composition of Shida Kartli, including its northwestern corner: this was Georgian land populated by Georgians (Kartvelians). We have already written about archaeological evidence. Numerous monuments of material culture (Christian churches, palaces, fortresses with Georgian inscriptions and separately standing towers) provide ample evidence of the medieval population’s ethnic origins. The local Christian churches are an inalienable part of Georgian Christian architecture.11 Such is, for example, the Ikorta Temple in the Tskhinvali District, the earliest monument of the Georgian domed churches dated to the 12th-13th centuries, the time when the canonical style of the Georgian domed churches took its final shape. Ikorta was the residence of the Ksan eristavs, where all the members of the clan are buried.12
Dozens of separately standing towers are scattered across the former SOAR; their different dates notwithstanding, they obviously form an entity: similar approaches and similar styles can be seen everywhere in Shida Kartli and on the territory of the former SOAR. This similarity can be observed elsewhere in Georgia, irrespective of the time and the region. They are typically Georgian and differ greatly from the fortresses of Ossetia and other countries on the northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountain Range.13
The inscriptions on the monuments of material culture are even more eloquent: they mention the ktetors Tbeli, Kanchaveli, Pavneli, Korinteli, Machabeli, Amiredjibi, Palavandishvili, Eristavi; members of the Georgian royal family: Tamar, daughter of Czar David (1089-1125), Ketevan Tsereteli, bride of Czar Georgi XII (1798-1800), members of the royal administration, church figures, bishops Nikozeli and Mroveli, and others. The names of some of the architects were placed alongside the names of the ktetors (Feodor Taplaisdze, Bavreli, Georgi and Ivane, Giorgisdze, Kurdgelashvili),
6 See: M. Lordkipanidze, Political Unification of Feudal Georgia, Tbilisi, 1963, pp. 237-250 (in Georgian); idem, Essays on Georgian History, Tbilisi, 1994, pp. 29-36.
7 See: “The History and Laudation of the Crowned Rulers,” in: Kartlis Tskhovreba, Vol. II, ed. by S.G. Kaukh-chishvili, Tbilisi, 1959, p. 34 (see also: Istoria i voskhvalenie ventsenostsev. Transl. into Russian, introduced and annotated by K.S. Kekelidze, Tbilisi, 1954, p. 38).
8 See: V. Bagrationi, “Description of the Georgian Kingdom,” in: Kartlis Tskhovreba, Vol. IV, ed. by S.G. Kaukh-chishvili, Tbilisi, 1973, p. 509 (in Georgian).
9 See: Georgievskiy traktat. Issledovanie, dokumenty, fotokopii V. Macharadze, Tbilisi, 1983, pp. 73-80.
10 The map was drawn in 1784 by Colonel S. Burnashov dispatched to Georgia by the Russian government. The original is kept in the Central State Historical Archives in Moscow (VUA Record Group, No. 20477) (see: D. Gvasalia, “Shida Kartli i osetinskaia problema,” in: Osetinskiy vopros, p. 84).
11 See: R. Mepisashvili, V. Tsintsadze, Arkhitektura nagornoy chasti istoricheskoy provintsii Gruzii—Shida Kartli, Tbilisi, 1975; P. Zakaraia, “K istorii zodchestva Shida Kartli,” in: Osetinskiy vopros, pp. 89-111.
12 See: “Ikorta” by Djondo Gvasalia and Tamaz Sanikidze, in: Gruzinskaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopedia, Vol. 5, Tbilisi, 1980, p. 105.
13 See: P. Zakaraia, op. cit., pp. 103-104.
workers, builders, and stonemasons (Vakhtang, Mikael, Arseni, and others). The inscriptions are in Georgian, personal names and family names are obviously Georgian as well.14
The inscriptions and official documents mention the names of the vassals (aznaurs) of the princely homes of the Ksan eristavs—the Machabeli, Amiredjibi, Pavlenishvili, Davitisshvili and others (the aznaurs Zhuruli, Mchedlidze, Garakanisdze, Kebadze, Babutsidze, Gamtsemrishvili, and others). Documents contain a large number of names of Georgian peasants.15
There are several churches with Georgian inscriptions in Tskhinvali (the future SOAR capi-tal).16 Largvisi, the center of the Ksan eristavstvo, one of the princedoms on the territory that later became the SOAR, was an important seat of Georgian culture where the Chronicle of the Eristavs (Dzegli Eristavta) appeared and where religious books were copied and translated into Georgian.17
Monuments of material culture, inscriptions, official deeds, and other documents and sources testify that all social groups lived on the territory: nobles, their vassals, architects, artisans, and peasants. The majority of them were Georgians.
Ossetian Migration to Georgia
We all know that the state of the Ossets (Alans) existed in the Northern Caucasus. Since ancient times the Alans of the valleys and northern gorges of the Northern Caucasus (called Osi [Ovses, Os-nies] in the Georgian written sources) and the Georgians maintained close relations. They either fought each other or fought together against their common enemies; not infrequently, Ossetian armed units took part in Georgia’s military ventures as mercenaries.
The main road that connected Georgia with the Northern Caucasus, and particularly with Alania, ran across North Caucasian Ossetia and was known as the Ossetian Road, or the Ossetian Gates, while the fortress that dominated the road was called Daryalan, or Ovsta Kari. The Georgian czars did a lot to fortify both the road and the fortress.
Between the 9th and 12th centuries, there was an early feudal state of Alans in the Northern Caucasus, with which Georgia had close cultural and political ties strengthened by dynastic marriages. Migrations, a natural phenomenon between the neighboring peoples, were more or less normal and peaceful with the exception of those cases when the Ossets claimed the lands of Georgian peasants. The conflicts were resolved on the spot. Only outside interference could disrupt the neighboring peoples’ peaceful coexistence: in the mid-9th century (853-854), Arabian military leader Buga Turk moved one hundred Ossetian families through the Daryal Gorge to settle them in Dmanisi.18 In the 13th century, the Mongolian Khan forced Czar David VII (1246-1270) to give space to his allies, Ossetian military units, in Dmanisi and Zhinvali.19 All the conquerors moved in alien tribes to create
14 See: G. Otkhmezuri, “Epigrafika severnoi chasti Shida Kartli,” in: Osetinskiy vopros, pp. 112-142.
15 See: G. Otkhmezuri, “The Book of Gifts of Kutsna Amiredjibi,” in: Transactions of Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, 1996, No. 321, p. 202 (in Georgian); idem, “Epigrafika severnoi chasti Shida Kartli”; Annotated Dictionary of Personal Names Found in Georgian Historical Documents of the Hth-17th Centuries, Vol. I, Tbilisi, 1991; Vol. II, 1993; Vol. III, 2004 (in Georgian).
16 See: I. Megrelidze, “Inscriptions of the Liakhva Gorge and Other Antiques,” Matsne, Language Series, Tbilisi, No. 2, 1981, p. 117; idem, “Antiquities from the Liakhva Gorge,” in: Soviet Georgia, Tbilisi, 1984, pp. 176-178; M. Tsot-niashvili, On the History of Tskhinvali, Staliniri, 1961 (all in Georgian).
17 See: Sh.A. Meskhia, “The Monument of the Eristavs (Dzegli Eristavta),” in: Materials on the History of Georgia and the Caucasus, Issue 30, Tbilisi, 1951, pp. 344-367 (in Georgian).
18 See: M. Kartlisa, Kartlis Tskhovreba, Vol. I, p. 257 (Transl. into Russian, introduced and annotated by M.D. Lord-kipanidze, 1976, p. 30). Dmanisi in Southern Georgia was never part of what later became the SOAR; the fate of one hundred Ossetian families is unknown.
19 See: Zhamtaagmtsereli, Kartlis Tskhovreba, Vol. II, p. 251. Zhinvali is found on the right bank of the Aragva, in the Dusheti District, and like Dmanisi, was never part of the future SOAR.
more or less reliable allies in the occupied lands. Aided by the Mongols, the Ossets gradually captured more land, moved into the town of Gori and, undaunted by the local feudal lords’ resistance, plundered the local people.
It was only under Georgi V (1318-1346) that Georgia liberated itself from the Mongol yoke and drove the Ossets out of the country: the czar “drove them away and exterminated”20 and fortified the North Caucasian Road.
At the turn of the 16th century, Georgia found itself encircled by Muslim states: in the southwest it bordered on the powerful and aggressive Ottoman Empire; in the southeast, on the strong and no less aggressive Iran of the Safavids, while in the north, the former Christian neighbors had been pushed away by the khanates that had embraced Islam under pressure of the Mongols and Timur.21
From the 16th to the 18th centuries, the Ottoman Empire and Iran were engaged in an uninterrupted chain of military operations on Georgian territory: they were fighting for the Southern Caucasus. They divided Georgia between them, retreated when pressed too hard only to attack again to capture all the Georgian lands. Iranian, Turkish, and Lezghian inroads from the north were the common feature of life in Georgia. Three centuries of wars and a weak state cost Georgia a large part of its valley population, which urged the Georgian feudal lords to resettle the Georgian mountain dwellers to the vacated lands in the valleys.
On the other hand, by the 16th century Russia had become strong enough to move gradually into the North Caucasian valley, driving the local people up the northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountain Range, and later to its southern slopes and the piedmont area. In the 17th century Lezghians reached Kakheti, Ossets, Shida Kartli, Absuas, the northwestern corner of Western Georgia (they were commonly known as Abkhazians after the name of the ancient Georgian province Abkhazia where they finally settled).
The Ossets arrived with their families or even entire villages to settle on the vacated lands of the Georgian landowners (tavads) as their serfs. This was a peaceful process, although not without friction with the local Georgians.22 Vakhushti Bagrationi, a Georgian historian of the 18th century, described the process in great detail. He wrote that Georgian peasants used to live in the mountain areas now populated by Ossets. The Georgian peasants were resettled to the valleys by the Georgian feudal lords who did this to revive the lowlands depopulated by enemy inroads. The Ossets moved into the settlements vacated by mountain dwellers.23
According to the reports from the head of the Russian mission in Georgia in 1604-1615, in the early 17th century, about two hundred Ossets were living on the upper reaches of the Greater Liakhva River.24 In the first half of the 17th century, there were still no Ossets in Verkhniaia Java: “Verkhniaia Java was deserted and depopulated by Ossets.”25 In an attempt to prove that in the mid-17th century, the date of the document, there were Ossets living in Java, its translators and publishers put the phrase in the following way: “Verkhniaia Java was deserted and there were no longer Ossets there.”26 It should be said that the original did not say “there were no Ossets there.” This is a purposeful invention of those who translated the document: the paper in fact contains only the personal and family names of the local Georgians and the name of its owner, Dziganidze, also a Georgian.27
20 Ibidem.
21 Only some of the Ossets remained Christians.
22 See: Essays on History of Georgia, in eight volumes, Vol. IV, 1973, Chapters I, V, VI, VIII, XIII, XIV; Z. Chi-chinadze, Ossetian Migration to Georgia, Tbilisi, 1911 (all in Georgian).
23 See: Vakhushti, “Description of the Georgian Kingdom (History of Georgia),” in: Kartlis Tskhovreba, Vol. IV, p. 71.
24 See: S.A. Belokurov, Snoshenia Rossii s Kavkazom, Moscow, 1889, p. 508.
25 Documents of Social History of Georgia, ed. by N. Berdzenishvili, Vol. 1, Tbilisi, 1940, p. 364 (in Georgian); D. Gvasalia, op. cit., p. 81.
26 Istoria Osetii v dokumentakh i materialakh, Vol. I, Tskhinvali, 1962, p. 109.
27 See: Documents of Social History of Georgia, p. 364.
A document by Czar Rostom (1653-1658) confirms that there were no Ossets in Java in the mid-nth century. The royal paper says that Czar Rostom helped the Ossets to settle to the north of Java, on the upper reaches of the Greater Liakhva.28
The Vakhushti Bagrationi maps that show the Georgian and Ossetian settlements testify that in the 1720s the Ossets were confined to the mountain villages of Shida Kartli.29 Prominent Ossetian scholar V. Abaev indirectly confirmed this by saying in the late 1950s that the Ossets appeared in the Ksan Gorge “about 200 years ago.”30
In the 1770s, I.A. Guldenstadt, a prominent scholar and academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, spent some time in the area on the instructions of the Russian government. He testified that at that time Ossets were living side by side with Georgians on the upper reaches of the Liakhva.31 German academic E.I. Eichwald (who lived in the first half of the 19th century) reported that Ossets lived in the mountains thirty versts away from Gori.32 In 1802, Akhalgori was populated only by Georgians and Armenians, Java was a purely Georgian settlement, while Tskhinvali had a mixed Georgian, Armenian, and Jewish population.33
The maps drawn by foreign travelers in the 17th and 18th centuries place Alania (Ossetia) to the northwest of the Karachais. The Carte de la Georgie French geographer and cartographer JosephNicola de Lille published in 1775 in Venice carries an inscription “Oseti” to the north of the Caucasus Mountain Range, on the territory that borders on Kabarda and Basiani.
In 1783, Eastern Georgia, the Kartli-Kakhetian kingdom, recognized the protectorate of the Russian Empire. Simultaneously, Colonel Burnashov was dispatched to Georgia to map the Georgian kingdoms and princedoms, the adjacent territories, and the Caucasian peoples. As we noted, in 1784, he completed his general map, which carried the inscription “Ossetian” on the area to the north of Mount Kazbek. The central part of Georgia was marked as Kartalinia and covered the basins of the rivers of Kartli and the upper reaches of the Terek (“Khevi”).
Starting in the 1770s, the number of the Ossets in Shida Kartli increased, but it was not until the early 19th century that they reached the piedmont and valleys. In 1902, compact Ossetian groups were confined to 11 villages in that part of Shida Kartli that twenty years later, in 1922, became the SOAR; they lived alongside Georgians in 15 villages, while all the other villages were purely Georgian.34 According to the family lists of 1886, there were no Ossets in the city of Tskhinvali, its population was made up of Georgians, Jews, and Armenians.35
Early in the 19th century, B. Kaloev, an Ossetian academic, wrote that many Ossets had settled around Dusheti and Gori and that they were living on the lands of the Georgian princes. He supplied his work with a map, according to which “in the 19th century the boundaries of the compact Ossetian settlements in Shida Kartli did not exceed one-third of the territory of the so-called South Ossetia.”36
28 See: Central Historical Archives of Georgia, rec. gr. 1448, Doc. No. 10326 (in Georgian).
29 See: Atlas of Georgia (18th Century), the Vakhushti Bagrationi Institute of Geography, Georgian Academy of Sciences, 1997, Tbilisi, pp. 29-30 (in Georgian).
30 V.I. Abaev, Osetinskiy iazyk i folklor, Moscow, 1959, p. 50.
31 See: I.A. Guldenstadt, Travel in Georgia, Tansl. into Georgian (with parallel German text) by G. Gelashvili, Vol. I, Tbilisi, 1961. pp. 277-279; Vol. II, 1964, p. 67.
32 See: E.I. Eichwald, About Georgia, Transl. into Georgian by G. Gelashvili, Tbilisi, 2005, p. 116.
33 See: Akty Kavkazskoy arkheologicheskoy komissii, Vol. I, Tiflis, 1866, pp. 446-470; D. Gvasalia, op. cit., pp. 83-84.
34 See: D. Gvasalia, op. cit., p. 83.
35 See: Itogi perepisi naselenia gorodov Gruzii ot 30 noiabria 1922 goda, Part I, Issue 2, Tbilisi, 1923, p. 36; A. Totadze, “Osetiny na gruzinskoi zemle,” in: Osetinskiy vopros, p. 197.
36 B. Kaloev, Osetiny, Moscow, 1967, pp. 58-61. This probably explains why the map was removed from the second edition (1982) of the work by Ossetian author Solomon Lekishvili, “Kogda voznik termin ‘Iuzhnaia Osetia’” (see: Osetinskiy vopros, p. 229). It should be said that in 1973 when Vol. IV of Essays on History of Georgia (eight-volume edition ed. by M. Dumbadze, in Georgian) came out, several pages were removed, on instructions “from above,” from the article by M. Dumbadze, “Osset Colonies in the Mountain Kartli” (pp. 429-432).
Throughout the 19th and in the early 20th century, the Ossetian population of Georgia was significantly growing. In 1918-1921, the territory of the future SOAR was part of the Georgian Democratic Republic and belonged to the Gori Uezd. This was recognized under the treaty of 7 May, 1920 signed by Lenin’s government and the government of the Georgian Democratic Republic.37
In 1921, when Bolshevist Russia annexed Georgia, Shida Kartli with its northwestern corner, where the SOAR appeared in 1922, was part of Georgia. From that time on, the Ossetian population of Georgia has steadily growing. According to the 1989 population census, Georgia’s total population was 5,401,000, 3,787,393 of whom were Georgians and 164,000 Ossets; there were also Russians, Armenians, Jews, Azeris, etc. Sixty-five thousand Ossets lived in the SOAR, while the rest, 100,000, lived elsewhere in Georgia.38 The share of Ossets in Tskhinvali increased when the city was made the capital of the newly formed SOAR: in 1886, there were no Ossets in Tskhinvali; in 1922, the Ossetian population was 613 strong compared with the Georgian population of 1,436. In 1989, 31,537 Ossets and 6,905 Georgians lived in the SOAR capital.
Until the mid-19th century, the term “South Ossetia” did not appear in Georgian and foreign sources, while Ossetia itself was not specified as South or North.39 The term South Ossetia was brought into circulation by the so-called Society for the Restoration of Orthodox Christianity in the Caucasus active among the Shida Kartli Ossets in 1863-1900,40 which used this term to describe part of Shida Kartli with its compact Ossetian population. Its official reports pointed out time and again that the Ossetian migrants had settled on lands that “belonged mainly to Georgian landowners, the Machabelov and Eristavov princely families.”41 Still, the Russian Empire insisted on this term to unite this part of Georgia with genuine Ossetia.
The term “South Ossetia” gave rise to the term “South Ossets.” Well-known Russian historian N. Dubrovin wrote: “Lack of land drove some of the Ossets to the southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range... Having settled in the gorges of the Greater and Lesser Liakhva, Rekhula and Ksan and its tributaries, the Ossets became serfs of the Eristavov and Machabelov princely families. These migrants are so-called South Ossets.”42
Gradually and with the active support of the Russian government, the terms “South Ossetia” and “South Ossets” were accepted in academic writings. A. Galazov, an Ossetian academic and political figure, has the following to say on this score: “On the one hand, the czarist government did not want the South Ossets to become completely assimilated by the Georgians. It wanted to preserve South Ossetia as a toehold of sorts, from which it could put pressure on the recalcitrant Georgian rulers.”43
It should be said that when they annexed Georgia in the 19th century and before the term “South Ossetia” was applied to an administrative unit, the Russians used the term “the Ossetian Okrug” to describe the compact Ossetian settlements of Shida Kartli. As soon as Russia established its power in the Northern Caucasus, this term was used to describe the entire territory of the Northern Caucasus populated by the Ossets. The term “South Ossetia” gradually came into circulation to describe the compact Ossetian settlements on Georgian territory.44 It, however, became an official term only when the SOAR was set up.
37 See: Sbornik deystvuiushchikh dogovorov, soglasheniy i konventsiy, zakliuchennykh RSFSR s inostrannymi gos-udarstvami, Issues I, II, 1922.
38 See: National Composition of the Population of Georgia. Collection of Statistics, Tbilisi, 1991, p. 5 (in Georgian).
39 See: S. Lekishvili, op. cit., p. 243.
40 See: Ibid., p. 230.
41 Report of the Society for the Restoration of Orthodox Christianity in the Caucasus, 1867, pp. XXVI-XXVIII (see: S. Lekishvili, op. cit., pp. 230-231).
42 N. Dubrovin, Istoria voyny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze, Vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1871, p. 287.
43 A. Galazov, Narody brat’ia, iazyki brat’ia, Ordzhonikidze, 1987.
44 See: S. Lekishvili, op. cit., pp. 229-245.
How the South Ossetian Autonomous Region (SOAR) was Set Up
Instigated by the local Bolsheviks and abetted by Russia, the Ossets who compactly lived in the northwestern corner of Shida Kartli rebelled three times during the very short history of the Georgian Democratic Republic.
The rebels demanded that a mono-national Ossetian state (the South Ossetian Soviet Socialist Republic—SOSSR) should be set up as part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The Georgian rulers responded in a way natural for any state wishing to defend its rights. After the failed negotiations, the government sent troops and people’s guards into the rebel area. The South Ossetian revolutionary committee asked Russia for help, which contrary to the agreement of 7 May, 1920 under which the R.S.F.S.R. recognized Georgia’s independence and pledged not to interfere in its internal affairs45 demanded that its government immediately remove its troops. The Russian government described Georgia’s attempt to defend its sovereign right as interference in the internal affairs of so-called South Ossetia.46
The Georgian government, in turn, interpreted this as interference in its internal affairs and responded with the note that said: “There is no South Ossetia in Georgia, while the Ossetian villages on Georgian territory are found on territory that undoubtedly belongs to Georgia: to the south of the old administrative border of the Tiflis Gubernia and to the south of the state border between Georgia and Russia.” Georgia, demanded that the “Soviet troops and two pieces of artillery” should be withdrawn.47
The riots were suppressed despite Russia’s support. It should be said that all Soviet works that deal with the events spoke about the loss of Ossetian lives, the destruction or even genocide of the Ossets, of which Georgia was guilty. Nothing was said about the causes, destruction on Georgian territory, and Georgia’s losses. The Soviet works preferred not to mention that the heads of the Ossetian Bolsheviks, who displayed a lot of extremism, were to blame for what happened. Indeed, any government of any civilized country will use force to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.48 As a result the Russian official representatives had to publicly part ways with the extremists of the so-called South Ossetian Bolshevist Okrug Committee.49
In February 1921, Russia, helped by Georgian and South Ossetian Bolsheviks, annexed Georgia for the second time; the latter immediately started another campaign aimed at detaching South Ossetia from Georgia.
Early in September 1921, the Revolutionary Committee and the Party Committee of so-called South Ossetia met for a joint sitting to discuss the “Question of Self-Determination and Political Status of South Ossetia.” The sitting decided to set up the South Ossetian S.S.R., which would include Georgian villages and Tskhinvali as its capital,50 with a population of 4,534, 1,436 of whom were Georgians and 613 Ossets, the rest being Jews, Armenians, and Russians (according to the 1922 population census).51
45 See: “Mirnyi dogovor mezhdu RSFSR i Demokraticheskoy Respublikoy Grusia, zakliuchennyy v Moskve 7 maia 1920 goda,” in: Sbornik deystvuiushchikh dogovorov, soglashenyi i konventsiy, zakliuchennykh RSFSR s inostrannymi go-sudarstvami, Issue I, Petrograd, 1922.
46 See: Bor’ba za pobedu Sovetskoy vlasti v Gruzii. Sbornik dokumentov, Tbilisi, 1958, p. 579.
47 The U.S.S.R. Foreign Policy Archives, rec. gr. 148, inv. 3, point 4, f. 39, sheet 9; A. Menteshashvili, “ Ose-
tinskiy separatism v 1918-1920 godakh,” in: Osetinskiy vopros, p. 260.
48 See: A. Menteshashvili, op. cit., p. 269.
49 See: bid., p. 271.
50 See: L. Toidze, “Obrazovanie osetinskoi avtonomii v Gruzii,” in: Osetinskiy vopros, p. 297.
51 See: Itogi perepisi naselenia gorodov Gruzii ot 30 noiabria 1922 goda, Part I, Issue 2, Tbilisi, 1923, p. 36; A. To-
tadze, “K voprusu o rasselenii osetin v Gruzii,” in: Osetinskiy vopros, p. 197.
People from the capital and the Georgian villages earmarked to be included in so-called South Ossetia organized protest rallies to declare that “Tskhinvali and its area are populated mainly by Georgians... this is the central part of Kartli” and to inquire: “Why should we (Georgians) be included in Ossetia for the sake of self-determination of the nation (the Ossets)? We do not know their tongue, which is absolutely alien to us; as for the national majority, it should be said that the district’s northern fringe, with insignificant exceptions, is populated by Georgians who use their native tongue (the Dzartsemi village, 21 December, 1921).”52
On 20 April, 1922, after discussing the issue several times and taking into account the situation, the government of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (G.S.S.R.) passed a decision to set up the SOAR (South Ossetian Autonomous Region) within the Georgian S.S.R., rather than creating the South Ossetian Soviet Socialist Republic.53 Its territory included the former administrative units: the Tskhinvali, Znauri, Leningorsk, and Java districts. This was probably intended as a delayed action bomb to be detonated if the Georgian S.S.R. wished to withdraw from the Soviet Union.
The SOAR in Georgia (Shida Kartli) was formed even before the Ossets acquired their own administrative unit in the Northern Caucasus, their homeland. The North Ossetian Autonomous Region was set up on 7 July, 1924; its rights were changed several times until on 5 December, 1936, it became the North Ossetian Autonomous Socialist Republic.54
The two Ossetian administrative units in one country were set up with the intention of insisting on their unification at an opportune moment.
The Ossets in Georgia are an autochthonous population, not only according to the current international laws, but also under the laws of medieval Georgia: the third generation of aliens who settled in Georgia (khizani) was considered to be autochthonous (mkvidri).
The population of the former SOAR has the right to self-administration and cultural self-determination; it can protect and develop its traditions and teach children in their native tongue. To be involved in state activities, however, it should learn the Georgian language and it has no right to raise the question of detaching the region from Georgia.
The local people enjoyed the above rights in the past, within the SOAR: there were Ossetian secondary schools and bilingual (Ossetic-Georgian and Ossetic-Russian) schools.55 The Tskhinvali Teacher’s College (later University) was a purely Ossetian higher educational establishment. The history of Ossetia and Ossetian literature was studied in the Tskhinvali Branch of the Georgian Academy of Sciences. The Ossetic language was taught and studied at Tbilisi State University and the Institute of Linguistics of the Georgian Academy of Sciences. There was an Ossetian Theater, there was no shortage of scientific works, fiction, and periodicals in the Ossetic language.56 The Region’s administrative structure depended on the Center; all top party and administrative posts were normally filled by Ossets. It should be said that there was no enmity between the Ossets and the Georgians, testified to in particular by the large number of mixed marriages.
The fact that the Ossets of Georgia started talking about detaching the region from Georgia when the latter became independent speaks volumes. The conflict was obviously prepared and inspired by the Russian government, which did not want (and does not want?) to accept Georgia’s independence.
52 For more on the decisions of the rallies in Georgian villages, see: L. Toidze, op. cit., pp. 303-304, 310-311.
53 See: Gruzinskaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopedia, Vol. Gruzinskaia SSR, entry “Iugo-Osetinskaia Avtonomnaia Oblast’. Iuzhnaia Osetia,” Tbilisi, 1981, p. 351.
54 See: “Severo-Osetinskaia Avtonomnaia Respublika,” in: Sovetskaia istoricheskaia entsiklopedia, Vol. 12, Moscow, 1969, p. 671.
55 Nothing of the sort existed in the North Ossetian Autonomous Republic.
56 See: Z. Kiria, The Ossetian Question and Georgian Realities of 1921-1940, Tbilisi, 2005, pp. 72-96 (in Georgian with an abstract in Russian).
Several quotes from non-Georgian authors about the conflict’s causes and the roads to its settlement will complete the picture offered above.
Prominent Armenian scholar Sergey Arutiunov has written: “Let’s look back at the sources of this frightening fire in South Ossetia: it was kindled by Ossetia proclaiming its independence from Georgia. The conflict was inevitable if we keep in mind that the region is not Ossetia but Central Georgia with a predominant Ossetian population in the last few centuries. The Ossets have the right to live there, but they should not set up their state on this territory. So-called North Ossetia is true Ossetia.”57
Andrew Andersen, professor of political science and history, who specializes in the Caucasus, offered a highly interesting opinion on the issue in his “The Answer to Chochiev58 from across the Ocean (Georgia-South Ossetia),” which should not be ignored. Having looked into the key issues related to so-called South Ossetia, the author concludes that the entire plan for setting up a state independent from Georgia has no historical, legal, or political legs to stand on.59
In his article in Nezavisimaia gazeta, prominent Ossetian scholar V. Abaev has written: “We should practice impartiality and probe deeper into the conflict to establish whether the Ossetian side demonstrated haste, acted unwisely, or provoked and exacerbated confrontation. I should admit that it did act in this way. I have in mind declaration of sovereignty oriented only at Moscow, with the prospect of uniting South and North Ossetia. The desire of the South Ossets to live together with their northern relatives is completely understandable, but it is geopolitically wrong. The Greater Caucasus Mountain Range is the natural boundary that separates Georgia and Ossetia. Any attempts to ignore it will create a permanent conflict between the Georgians and the Ossets. To restore traditional friendship between the two peoples, we should stop talking about detaching South Ossetia from Georgia. No Georgian government will accept this, and rightly so. This will violate Georgia’s territorial integrity.
“Those who want peace between the South Ossets and Georgians should abandon forever the idea of uniting North and South Ossetia. Those who want peace between Georgia and Russia should also forget this. This is reality.”60
C o n c l u s i o n
The conflict should be settled peacefully in the interests of both peoples. It is still unclear how to achieve this because the final solution should be found by the upper circles and based on international law. International organizations should display more interest in the process.
Besides the opinions quoted in the article, there is any number of opinions to the contrary expressed by Ossetian and certain foreign authors. For lack of space we shall refrain from discussing them. We tried to present a true picture of the process that is now unfolding in this part of Georgia based on historical sources and academic writings.
57 Rodina, No. 1, 1992, p. 71.
58 Boris Chochiev, vice premier of the self-proclaimed South Ossetian state.
59 See: A. Andersen, “Playing ‘Unpredictable Past’ for the Sake of Dubious Future: Response to Chochiev from the Overseas (Georgia-South Ossetia),” available at [http://www.regnum.ru/english/618468.html], 5 April, 2006.
60 V. Abaev, “Tragedia Iuzhnoy Osetii: put’ k soglasiu,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, No.3, 22 January, 1992.
