Georgia

Georgia, the name formerly applied to the central portion of what is now Russian Transcaucasia (q.v.), bounded by the Caucasian mountains on the north and by the Armenian mountains on the south. The Russian name is Gruzia; the Persian Gurjestan, from which form the name Georgia probably arose, it being perhaps a corruption of Guria, the name of one of the western provinces. The early history of the Georgians, who pretend to trace their origin to Thargamos, a great-grandson of Japhet, is wrapped in fable. Mtskhetos, who is said to have built Mtsketha, the ancient capital of the country, situated near Tiflis, but now reduced to a mere village, plays a prominent part in it. We have also to deal with legend in the story of the Argonauts and Medea, who is said to have been born at Kutais. The Georgians first appear in authentic history in the time of Alexander the Great, to whom they submitted. After the death of Alexander in 323 B.C. they gained their independence under Pharnavas (302–237 B.C.). With Pharnavas begins the series of the kings (a title rendered in Georgian by the word mephe), who, under various dynasties, ruled the country almost uninterrupted for more than 2000 years. In 265 A.D. the Sassanian dynasty ascended the throne in the person of King Marian, and ended with Bakour III. in 570. Towards the close of the 4th century Christianity was introduced by the preaching of St Nina, and in 469 Vakhtang built the city of Tiflis (Tbilisi), so called from the hot-springs found there. Soon after the death of Mohammed his followers entered the country and forced many of the inhabitants to embrace Islam. The Sassanides were succeeded by the powerful dynasty of the Bagratides, one of whom, Bagrat III. (980–1008), extended his dominions from the Black Sea to the Caspian; but during the eleventh century the Georgians twice suffered from an invasion of the Seljuks, who committed great devastations.

The country reached the height of its glory in the reign of Queen Thamar or Tamara (1184–1212), the daughter of George III. With her marriage to the son of the Russian prince, Andrew Bogoliubski, may be said to begin the connection between Russia and Georgia. The dominions of Tamara were more extensive than those of any other native sovereign, and her court was graced by the presence of many men of letters. But evil days were in store for Georgia. In 1220 and 1222 we hear of Mongolian invasions, and Tiflis was harried with fire and sword. Towards the end of the 14th century the country fell into the hands of Timour, who, however, was driven from it in 1403 by George VII. One of George's successors, Alexander (1413–42), committed the fatal error of dividing the kingdom between his three sons. The general history of Georgia now separates into two parts: that of the eastern states, Kartli and Kakheteth, and that of the western states, including Imereth, Mingrelia, and Guria. From the 16th to the 18th century the Georgians suffered grievously from the Persians. In 1618 Shah Abbas invaded the country, and Teimuraz I. applied for help to the Czar Michael; in 1638 Levan, king of Mingrelia, took the oath of allegiance to Alexis; it was only from their co-religionists that the Georgians could hope for succour in their hour of need. They also suffered from the encroachments of the Turks. In 1795 the savage Aga Mohammed Shah invaded Georgia, and levelled Tiflis to the ground, carrying away a great number of captives. The aged king Heraclius II., an able sovereign, seeing that all resistance was in vain, fled to the mountains, where he soon afterwards died. His son, George XIII., resigned the crown in favour of Paul, emperor of Russia, in 1799; but his brother Alexander did not acquiesce in this arrangement, and held out for some time, but was defeated in a battle on the banks of the Ior. George died in 1800, and in the following year Alexander of Russia formally annexed the country. In 1810 the prince of Imereth attempted a revolt, which was quickly suppressed. Guria was finally united with Russia in 1829.

The former kingdom of Georgia is mainly included in the governments of Kutais, Tiflis, and Elizabethpol. The district is very fertile, being abundantly productive of cereals, wine—especially the Kakhetian—honey, and silk, of cattle and horses, while the mountains teem with mineral wealth, as yet little utilised. The Georgians belong to the Kartveli stock, forming the southern group of Caucasian peoples. Their numbers have been variously estimated. Some fix them at about 911,000, but Von Erckert (Der Kaukasus und seine Völker, Leip. 1887) gives the following calculation, as based in the main on the last census of 1881:

To this work is appended an excellent ethnological map. The Georgians and their congeners are of the Caucasian or Fair race (as opposed to the Mongolian or Yellow race). They are celebrated for their beauty, and under the Mohammedan rule the white slaves of western Asia and of Egypt were mostly drawn from among them and the Circassians. To the great credit of Russia this disgraceful traffic was put an end to by the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji in 1774. Though endowed by nature with mental no less than physical advantages, the long course of oppression to which they have been subjected has had its effect upon their characters. But, despite the supremacy and brutal tyranny of their Mohammedan conquerors, they have as a nation remained faithful to the Christian religion, according to the doctrines of the Greek Church. In Guria, however, and the country of the Lazes, large numbers of the inhabitants were forced by persecution to embrace Islam, and in these districts the ruins of many churches may still be seen. The southern Caucasians, with magnificent physique, fertile soil, and enervating climate, are somewhat indolent; they are passionately fond of singing and music.

The four chief tongues—Georgian, Mingrelian, Suanetian, and Lazian, which some have called the Iberian group—stand to each other more in the relation of languages than dialects, although they certainly all had a common origin; Mingrelian especially has greatly diverged. Georgian alone of the four has a literature, if we except the few folk-tales of the Mingrelians. These languages are of the agglutinative type; the chief difficulty lies in the verbs, which incorporate the pronominal prefixes and suffixes. In their structure they resemble Basque, but no affinity can be established between these two families of languages, as their vocabularies have no word in common.

The Georgians use two alphabets—the khutsuri or ecclesiastical, and the mkhedruli or civil: the first is only employed in the religious books. They are very old, and legendary accounts are given of their origin. The ecclesiastical resembles the Armenian alphabet; the civil is a very pretty character, with many rounded letters, which make it somewhat resemble Burmese. Georgian literature is by no means poor. Professor Tsagarelli gives a list of 946 Georgian MSS. known to exist; they are preserved in monasteries at Jerusalem, on Mount Athos and Mount Sinai, and at Tiflis, in the library of the Society for the Diffusion of Education among the Georgians. Besides these, there are 36 MSS in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and 34 in private hands at Tiflis. Further search will, no doubt, bring to light others. As far as it can be traced back, the literature begins about the 5th century A.D., with translations of the Scriptures and the Fathers, and later on we get versions of the Greek classical authors, including Plato, Aristotle, and Josephus. To the 7th century belongs a fine psalter on papyrus, and there is a complete manuscript of the Bible of the 10th, preserved at Mount Athos. The great literary development, however, of the country was during the 11th and 12th centuries, and especially in the reign of Queen Tamara. To this period belongs the popular epic, 'The Man in the Panther's Skin' (Vepkhevis-tkaosani), a poem narrating the love of Avtandil for Tinatina, daughter of the Arabian king Rostevan, and that of Tariel for Nestan Dardjian, daughter of the Indian king Parsadan. It is a richly-coloured work, as if written by an oriental Tasso, and enjoys great popularity among the Georgians at the present day, many of the couplets—it is written in quatrains—having passed into proverbs. The author, Shota Rustaveli, was the glory of the reign of Queen Tamara, and is said to have died at Jerusalem as a monk in 1215. A handsome illustrated edition of this work appeared at Tiflis in 1888. Of Shavtel, another poet of the time who also enjoyed considerable reputation, only a few odes have come down. Chakhrukhadze composed a long and rather tedious poem in honour of the famous queen; prose tales were written by Sarkis of Thmogvi, the most celebrated being the Visramiani, and a poem by Mose of Khoni, called Daredjaniani. Now that the Georgians have been secured by Russian protection from their Moslem foes, they are busy in studying their old literature and editing their MSS. Somewhere about the same time as these authors flourished was begun the Georgian chronicle, called Karthlis Tskhovreba, or life of Georgia, the first part of which is anonymous, and carries the history from the earliest times to the year 1224; a continuation, also anonymous, brings it down to the year 1445.

But this brilliant period was destined to a temporary eclipse; during the 14th and the next two centuries the country was a prey to Mongols, Tartars, Persians, and Turks; the cities were devastated, many of the inhabitants were carried into captivity, and valuable MSS. were lost or destroyed. In the 17th century, however, matters began to mend. Towards the close flourished Saba Sulkhan Orbeliani, one of the most learned men of his time, who visited Paris, where he was well received by Louis XIV., and Rome. To him his countrymen are indebted for the first dictionary of their language, called, in oriental style, 'The Bouquet of Words;' it was edited at Tiflis in 1884. His also was the popular work, 'The Book of Wisdom and Falsehood' (Tsigni Sibrmne-sitsruisa), a collection of amusing fables and apologues, some of his own invention, and others drawn from the stores of Georgian and other oriental folk-tales. A Russian translation of this interesting book has been published by Professor Tsagarelli of St Petersburg.

In 1709 King Vakhtang VI. established a printing-press at Tiflis. One of the works which appeared was 'The Man in the Panther's Skin,' to which he added a curious mystical commentary, giving the book a religious meaning, perhaps to rehabilitate it among the clergy, who regarded it as a profane work. Vakhtang also laboured at a translation of the Kalilah and Damnah, in which he was assisted by Sulkhan Orbeliani (edited at Tiflis in 1886). This king, thinking his country lost on account of a fresh invasion of the Turks, emigrated to Russia with many Georgian families, and in consequence of their presence in the country the great Georgian Bible was published at Moscow in 1743. To this century also belong the Davithiani, a poem by Guramishvili, and the first Georgian grammar, by the Catholicos (Primate) Anthony, besides other works. Vakhtang, the son of Vakhtang, continued the chronicle of his country till 1745, and wrote a geographical description of it, a work of great value. Since the peaceful settlement of Georgia under the Russians, literature has been greatly developed. The fine lyric poets, Alexander Chavchavadze (whose daughter married Griboedov, the Russian dramatist), Raphael Eristavi, Nicholas Baratashvili, and Akaki Tsereteli, have appeared. The most conspicuous literary man of Tiflis at the present time is Prince Ilya Chavchavadze, author of some of the most graceful lyrics in the language, and some spirited tales in which he has satirised the luxury and other weaknesses of his countrymen. He is editor of the Georgian literary and political daily journal, Iberia. Some of the plays of Shakespeare, among others Hamlet and Othello, have been translated by Prince Machabeli. Altogether, Georgian literature may be said to be in a flourishing condition.

The pioneer in the study of Georgian history and philology was Brosset, who published Éléments de la Langue Géorgienne (Paris, 1837), an elaborate edition of the Georgian Chronicle (St Petersburg, 1849-58), and many other works. Chubinov's Gruzinsko-russko-frantsuskii Slovar, Dictionnaire Géorgien-français-russe (St Petersburg, 1840), and Russian-Georgian Dictionary (1846; new ed. 1886); Prof. A. Tsagarelli's notices of Georgian literature and Georgian studies (in Russian) and documents illustrating Georgian literature (St Petersburg, 1886-95); and A. Leist's Georgien (1885) and Georgische Dichter verdutscht (Leip. 1887) may be mentioned. See also French books on Georgia by Langlois and Villeneuve; Wardrop, The Kingdom of Georgia (1888), and Georgian Folk Tales (1894).—For the Church in Georgia, see GREEK CHURCH, Vol. V. p. 400.