User:Kober/History of Abkhazia
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This article is part of the series on: |
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| Early History | |||
| Kura-Araxes | |||
| Diauehi | |||
| Colchis | |||
| Egrisi | |||
| Caucasian Iberia | |||
| Medieval History | |||
| Tao-Klarjeti | |||
| Kingdom of Abkhazeti-Egrisi | |||
| Russian Rule | |||
| Georgia Under Imperial Russia | |||
| Early Independence | |||
| Democratic Republic of Georgia | |||
| Soviet Georgia | |||
| Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic | |||
| March 9 Tragedy | |||
| April 9 Tragedy | |||
| Modern Georgia | |||
| Republic of Georgia | |||
| Georgian Civil War | |||
| Rose Revolution | |||
| Post-Shevardnadze | |||
| History By Autonomous Republics | |||
| History of Abkhazia | |||
| History of Adjara | |||
Contents |
[edit] Prehistoric settlement
Lower Paleolithic hunting-gathering encampments formed the first known settlements on the territory of modern-day Abkhazia. The earliest examples have been unearthed at the sites of Iashkhtva, Gumista, Kelasuri, and Ochamchire. Upper Paleolithic culture settled chiefly the coastline. Mesolithic and Neolithic periods brought larger permanent settlements, and marked the beginning of farming, animal husbandry, and the production of ceramics. The earliest artifacts of megalithic culture appeared in the early 3rd millennium BC and continued into the Bronze Age as the so-called dolmens of Abkhazia, typically consisting of four upright mass stones and a capstone, some of them weighting as much as 50 tones. A dolmen from the Eshera archaeological site is the best studied prehistoric monument of this type. Patriarchal society is believed to have emerged to replace matriarchate and pastoral economy seems to have begun to develop roughly at the same time. The Late Bronze Age saw the development of more advanced bronze implements, and continued into the Iron Age as a part of the Colchian culture (c. 1200-600 BCE), which covered most of what is now western Georgia and part of northeastern Anatolia.
[edit] Abkhazia in antiquity
The written history of Abkhazia largely begins with the coming of the Milesian Greeks to the coastal Colchis in the 6th-5th centuries BC. They founded their maritime colonies along the eastern shore of the Black Sea, with Dioscurias being one of the most important principal centers of trade with the neighboring tribes, that of slaves not excluded. This city, said to be so named for the Dioscuri, the twins Castor and Pollux of classical mythology, is presumed to have subsequently developed into the modern-day Sukhumi. Other notable colonies were Gyenos, Triglitis, and later Pityus, arguably near the modern-day coastal towns of Ochamchire, Gagra, and Pitsunda, respectively.
The peoples of the region were notable for their number and variety, as classical sources testify. Herodotus, Strabo, and Pliny appreciate the multitude of languages spoken in Dioscurias and other towns. The mountainous terrain tended to separate and isolate local peoples from one another and encouraged the development of dozens of separate languages and dialects complicating the ethnic makeup of the region. Even the most well-informed contemporary authors are very confused when naming and locating these peoples and provide only very limited information about the geography and population of the hinterland. Furthermore, some classic ethnic names were presumably collective terms and supposed considerable migrations also took place around the region. Various attempts have been made to identify these peoples with the ethnic terms employed by classical authors. Some scholars identify Pliny the Elder’s Apsilae of the 1st century AD and Arrian’s Abasgoi of the 2nd century AD with the probable proto-Abkhaz- and Abaza-speakers respectively, while others consider them proto-Kartvelian tribal designations. The identity and origin of other peoples (e.g., Heniochi, Sanigae) dwelling in the area are also disputed. Archaeology has seldom been able to make strong connections between the remains of material culture and the opaque names of peoples mentioned by classical writers. Thus, controversies still continue and a series of questions remain open.
Along with the rest of Colchis, Abkhazia was conquered by Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus between c. 110 and 63 BC, and then taken by the Roman commander Pompey. With the downfall of the Roman Empire, the tribes living in the region gained some independence, nominating their rulers who were to be confirmed by Rome. In the 3rd century AD, the western Georgian tribe of Lazoi came to dominate most of Colchis, establishing the kingdom of Lazica, locally known as Egrisi. According to Procopius, the Abasgoi chieftains were also subdued by the Lazic kings. This kingdom was a scene of the protracted rivalry between the Eastern Roman/Byzantine and Sassanid empires, culminating in the well-known Lazic War from 542 to 562. The war resulted in the decline of Lazica, and the Abasgoi in their dense forests won a degree of autonomy under the Byzantine authority. Their land, known to the Byzantines as Abasgia, was a prime source of eunuchs for the empire, and pagan until a mission sent by the emperor Justinian I (527-565) converted the people in Christianity, though at the 325 Council of Nicaea a bishop had attended from the port city of Pityus.
[edit] Medieval Abkhazia
As the Abasgoi tribe grew in relative strength, the name Abasgia came to denote much larger area populated by the various ethnic segments including Mingrelian- and Svan-speaking Georgian tribes, and subordinated to the Byzantine-appointed princes (Greek: archon, Georgian: eristavi) who resided in Anacopia and were viewed as major champions of the empire’s political and cultural influence in western Caucasus. Arabs penetrated the area in the 730s, but they never succeeded in conquering it. It was when the term Abkhazeti (i.e., "the land of the Abkhazians") first appeared in the Georgian annals, giving origin to the modern-day name Abkhazia, used in most foreign languages.
Through their dynastic intermarriages and alliance with other Georgian princes, the Abasgian dynasty acquired most of Lazica/Egrisi, and in the person of Leon established themselves as "kings of the Abkhazians" in the 780s. With the Khazar help, Leon ousted the Byzantine authority and further expanded his kingdom, transferring his capital to the ancient Georgian city of Kutaisi. Although the questions of the nature of this kingdom's ruling family is still disputed, most scholars agree that the Abkhazian kings were Georgian in culture and language. In order to eliminate the Byzantine religious influence, the dynasty subordinated the local dioceses to the Georgian Orthodox catholicosate of Mtskheta. The kingdom is frequently referred in modern history writing as the Egrisi-Abkhazian kingdom due to the fact that medieval authors viwed the new monarchy as a successor state of Egrisi and sometimes used the terms interchangeably.
The most prosperous period of the Abkhazian kingdom was between 850 and 950, when it dominated the whole western Georgia and claimed control even of the easternmost Georgian provinces. The terms "Abkhazia" and "Abkhazians" were used in a broad sense during this period – and for some while later – and covered, for all practical purposes, all the population of the kingdom regardless of their ethnicity. In 1008, the Bagratid ruler Bagrat III united the kingdoms of Abkhazia and Georgia into a single Georgian feudal state, which reached the apex of its strength and prestige under the queen Tamar (1184-1213). On one occasion, a contemporary Georgian chronicler mentions a people called Apsars. This source explains the sobriquet 'Lasha' of Tamar's son and successor George IV as meaning "enlightenment" in the language of the Apsars. Some modern linguists link this nickname to the modern Abkhaz words a-lasha for "clear" and a-lashara for "light", identifying the Apsars with the possible ancestors of the modern-day Abkhaz, though the exact identity and location of this tribe is unclear.
According to the Georgian chronicles, Queen Tamar granted the lordship over part of Abkhazia to the Georgian princely family of Shervashidze. According to traditional accounts, they were an offshoot of the Shirvanshahs (hence allegedly comes their dynastic name meaning "sons of Shirvanese" in Georgian). The ascendancy of this dynasty (later known also as Chachba by the Abkhaz form of their surname) in Abkhazia would last until the Russian annexation in the 1860s.
The Genoese established their trading factories along the Abkhazian coastline in the 14th century, but they functioned for a short time. The area was relatively spared from the Mongol and Timur's invasions, which terminated Georgia's "golden age". As a result, the kingdom of Georgia fragmentized into several independent or semi-independent entities by the late 15th century. The Principality of Abkhazia was one of them. The Abkhazian princes engaged in incessant conflicts with the Mingrelian potentates, their nominal suzerains, and the borders of both principalities fluctuated in the course of these wars. In the following centuries, the Abkhazian nobles finally prevailed and expanded their possessions up to the Inguri River, which is today's southern boundary of the region.
[edit] The Ottoman rule
In the 1570s, the Ottoman navy occupied the fort of Tskhumi on the Abkhazian coastline, turning it into the Turkish fortress of Suhum-Kale (hence, the modern name of the city of Sukhumi). In 1555, Georgia and the whole South Caucasus was divided between the Ottoman and Saffavid Persian empires, with Abkhazia, along with all of western Georgia, remaining in the hands of the Ottomans. As a result, Abkhazia came under the increasing influence of Turkey and Islam, gradually losing its cultural and religious ties with the rest of Georgia.
Towards the end of the 17th century, the principality of Abkhazia broke up into several fiefdoms, depriving many areas of any centralized authority. The region became a theatre of widespread slave trade and piracy. According to several Georgian scholars, it was when a number of the Adyghe clansmen migrated from the North Caucasus mountains and blended with the local ethnic elements, significantly changing the region's demographic situation. In the mid-18th century, the Abkhazians revolted against the Ottoman rule and took hold of Suhum-Kale, but soon the Turks regained the control of the fortress and granted it to a loyal prince of the Shervashidze family.
[edit] The Russian rule
The Russian annexation of two major Georgian kingdoms between 1801 and 1810 facilitated the empire’s expansion far into the Caucasus region. During the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812, in 1810, a Russian force took hold of Suhum-kale and installed their protégé Sefer Bey (Georgi), who agreed to incorporate Abkhazia as a vassal principality within the Russian empire, as a prince. Initially, the Russian control hardly extended beyond Suhum-kale and the Bzyb area, with the rest of the region chiefly dominated by the pro-Turkish Muslim nobility. In a series of conflicts with the Ottoman Empire and the North Caucasian tribes, the Russians acquired possession of the whole Abkhazia in a piecemeal fashion between 1829 and 1842, but their power was not firmly established until 1864, when they managed to abolish the local princely authority. The two ensuing Abkhaz revolts in 1866 and 1877, the former precipitated by the heavy taxation and the latter incited by the landing of the Turkish troops, resulted in the next significant change in the region’s demographics. As a result of harsh government reaction allegedly 60% of the Muslim Abkhaz population, although contemporary census reports were not very trustworthy — became Muhajirs, and emigrated to the Ottoman possessions between 1866 and 1878.
Modern Abkhazian historians insist that large areas of the region were left uninhabited, and that many Armenians, Georgians and Russians subsequently migrated to Abkhazia, resettling much of the vacated territory. This version of events is strongly contested by Georgian historians who argue that the local groups of the Georgian people always constituted the majority in Abkhazia. Either way, at the beginning of the 20th century ethnic Abkhaz were a minority in the region. The Encyclopædia Britannica reported in 1911 that in Sukhumi (population at the time 43.000), two-thirds of the population were Mingrelian Georgians and one-third were Abkhaz. In 1881, the number of the Abkhaz in the Russian Empire was estimated at only 20,000. Those Abkhaz who remained in Abkhazia were declared by the Russian government a "guilty people" and "temporary population" and deprived of the right to settle in the coastal areas.
Meanwhile, in 1870, bound peasants, including slaves, were liberated in Abkhazia as a part of the Russian serfdom reforms. This reform triggered the moderate development of capitalism in the region. Tobacco, tea and subtropical crops became more widely grown. Industries (coal, timber) began to develop. Health resorts started to be built. A small town of Gagra, acquired by a German prince Peter of Oldenburg, a member of the Russian royal family, turned to a resort of particular tourist interest early in the 1900s.
In the Russian revolution of 1905, most Abkhaz remained largely loyal to the Russian rule, while Georgians tend to oppose it. As a reward for their allegiance, tsar Nicholas II officially forgave the Abkhaz for their opposition in the 19th century and removed their status of a "guilty people" in 1907. This split along political divisions led to the rise of mistrust and tensions between the Georgian and Abkhaz communities which would further deepen in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917.
[edit] Abkhazia, 1917-1921
The Bolshevik coup in October 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War forced the major national forces of South Caucasus – Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia – to unite into fragile federative structures. Abkhaz leaders created, on November 8, 1917, their own post-revolutionary body, Abkhaz People’s Council (APC), but Abkhazia became embroiled into a chaos of the civil unrest. It was torn between supporters of the short-lived Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus, a pro-Bolshevik faction, a pro-Turkish nobility, and a pro-Georgian Menshevik group.
In March 1918, local Bolsheviks under the leadership of Nestor Lakoba, a close associate of Joseph Stalin, capitalized on agrarian disturbances and, supported by the revolutionary peasant militias, kiaraz, won power in Sukhumi in April 1918. The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, which claimed the region as its part, sanctioned the suppression of the revolt and, on May 17, the National Guard of Georgia ousted the Bolshevik commune in Sukhumi.
Meanwhile, a short-lived Transcaucasian federation came to an end and the independence of the Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG) was proclaimed on May 26, 1918. On June 8, a delegation of the APC negotiated, in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, a union with Georgia, which gave autonomy to Abkhazia. All domestic affairs were to be under the jurisdiction of the APC, while the central government established the office of Minister of Abkhazian Affairs and the post of the Governor-General of Abkhazia. Abkhaz deputies gained three of 28 seats preserved for ethnic minorities in Georgia’s parliament.
The relations between the central and autonomous authorities were soon clouded by the abortive landing, on June 27, 1918, of a Turkish force supported by the Abkhaz nobles, J. Marghan and A. Shervashidze. Georgia responded with the arrest of several Abkhaz leaders and the limitation of the autonomous powers of the APC that precipitated some sympathies from the Abkhaz to the Russian White forces which engaged in the sporadic fighting with the Georgians in the north of Abkhazia. The reaction was even harsher when the Abkhaz officers of the Georgian army, Commissar Marghania and Colonel Chkhotua, staged a failed coup in October 1918. On October 10, the APC was disbanded and Abkhazia's autonomy was abrogated for six months. A new Abkhaz People's Council, elected on March 20, 1919, adopted an act of Abkhazia's autonomy within the framework of the DRG, the status confirmed in the Constitution of Georgia adopted on February 21, 1921, on the eve of the Soviet invasion.
[edit] Soviet Abkhazia
Despite the 1920 treaty of non-aggression, Soviet Russia’s 11th Red Army invaded Georgia on February 11 1921, and marched on Tbilisi. Almost simultaneously, 9th (Kuban) Army entered Abkhazia on February 19. Supported by the local pro-Bolshevik guerillas, the Soviet troops took control of most of Abkhazia in a series of battles from February 23 to March 7, and proceeded into the neighboring region of Mingrelia.
On March 4, Soviet power was established in Sukhumi, with the formation of the Abkhazian Soviet Socialist Republic (Abkhazian SSR), subsequently recognized by the newly established puppet Communist regime of the Georgian SSR on May 21. On December 16, however, Abkhazia signed a special "union treaty" delegating some of its sovereign powers to Soviet Georgia. Abkhazia and Georgia together entered the Transcaucasian SFSR on December 13 1922 and on 30 December joined the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Abkhazia's ambiguous status of Union Republic was written into that republic's April 1, 1925 constitution. Paradoxically, an earlier reference to Abkhazia as an autonomous republic in the 1924 Soviet Constitution[1] remained unratified until 1931 when Abkhazia's status was reduced to an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) within the Georgian SSR.
During the Stalin years, a purge was carried out against Communist Party officials and intelligentsia of Abkhaz provenance on the orders of Lavrenty Beria, then-the Party Secretary in Transcaucasus and himself a native of Abkhazia, in order to break a resistance to forced collectivization of land. The Abkhaz party leader Lakoba suddenly died shortly after his visit to Beria in Tbilisi in December 1936. There was a strong suspicion that he was poisoned by Beria who declared Lakoba an "enemy of the people" posthumously. These repressions against the Abkhaz native Communist leadership were very similar to the 1922 Georgian Affair and 1951-2 Mingrelian Case, the series of measures organized in order to eradicate putative “nationalist rings” in the Communist Party of Georgia. The purges in Abkhazia were accompanied by the suppression of Abkhaz ethnic culture: the Latin-based Abkhaz alphabet was changed into Georgian and all the native language schools were closed. Stalin’s five-year plans also resulted in the resettlement of many Russians, Armenians, Georgians, and Greeks into Abkhazia to work in the growing agricultural sector.
The repression of the Abkhaz was ended after Stalin's death and Beria's execution (1953), and Abkhaz were given a greater role in the governance of the republic. As in most of the smaller autonomous republics, the Soviet government encouraged the development of culture and particularly of literature. A new script, based on Cyrillic, was devised for Abkhaz, Abkhaz schools reopened; and administration put largely in the Abkhaz hands. Ethnic quotas were established for certain bureaucratic posts, giving the Abkhaz a degree of political power that was disproportionate to their minority status in the republic. This was interpreted by some as a "divide and rule" policy whereby local elites were given a share in power in exchange for support for the Soviet regime. In Abkhazia as elsewhere, it led to other ethnic groups — in this case, the Georgians — resenting what they saw as unfair discrimination and disregard of the rights of majority, thereby stoking ethnic discord in the republic.
The following three decades were marked by attempts of the Abkhaz Communist elite to make the autonomous structures more Abkhaz, but their efforts constantly met resistance from the Georgians. Abkhaz nationalists attempted on several occasions, most notably in 1978, to convince Moscow the autonomous republic to be transferred from Georgia to the Russian SFSR. That year, the Abkhaz organized a series of indoor and outdoor rallies in response to the mass demonstrations of Georgians who succeeded in winning for their language a constitutional status of the official language of the Georgian SSR. Although the Abkhaz request of the secession from Georgia was rejected Moscow and Tbilisi responded with serious economic and cultural concessions, appropriating an extra 500 millions rubles over seven years for the development of infrastructure, and cultural projects such as the foundation of the Abkhaz State University (with Abkhaz, Georgian, and Russian sectors), a State Folk Ensemble in Sukhumi, and Abkhaz-language television broadcasting. Even though these concessions eased tensions only partially, they made Abkhazia one of the most prosperous regions of Georgia, the wealthiest Soviet republic of that time. The favorable geographic and climatic conditions were successfully exploited to make Abkhazia a destination for hundreds of thousands of tourists, gaining for the region a reputation of "Soviet Riviera."
[edit] Georgian-Abkhaz conflict
[edit] Rise of the tensions
With the downfall of the Soviet Union, ethnic tensions came to a head during the late 1980s, Abkhazia becoming one of the most volatile areas in the USSR. An increasingly active and irrepressible movement for Georgia's independence was interpreted by Abkhaz leadership as a threat to their political privileges of a "titular minority" and the status of autonomous republic in which the Abkhaz made up only 17.8 percent of the population compared with 44 percent Georgians and 16 percent Russians (1989 Soviet census). Abkhaz elites and politicians renewed their secession campaign, culminating on March 18 1989, when some 30,000 people, mostly ethnic Abkhaz, signed a petition to Moscow at a mass meeting at Lykhny, Abkhazia, demanding the rights to secede from Georgia. The letter was seen as a provocation which triggered a series of Georgian protest manifestations and Abkhaz counter-rallies. Early in April 1989, tens of thousands of Georgians came out in protest in Tbilisi condemning Abkhaz secessionism and demanding for ethnic Georgians an equal access to leadership of the autonomous republic. The demonstrations quickly developed into a major anti-Soviet rally concluded with a bloody crackdown, known as April 9 tragedy or Tbilisi Massacre, by the Soviet troops on April 9 1989. The event backfired and radicalized Georgian opposition to the Soviet regime. The subsequent reciprocal upsurges of nationalism among Georgian and Abkhaz populations evolved into major ethnic clashes from July 16 to July 17 1989, when the Abkhaz activists from the nationalistic organization, Aydgylara, attempted to prevent the Georgians from opening a branch of Tbilisi State University in Sukhumi. The resulting civil unrest resulted in 16 deaths and about 140 wounded, mostly Georgians. To quench the unrest, the army was invoked. Thousands of Georgians from the neighboring Georgian regions marched to Abkhazia to take revenge for the pogroms. Stopped by the Soviet forces at the administrative border of the Abkhazian ASSR on the Inguri River, the demonstrators were finally demobilized at the request of both the central Georgian government and opposition leadership.
[edit] "War of laws"
In 1990, the Georgian-Abkhaz antagonism had largely moved to the legislatures, and the street fights and violent demonstrations were replaced by the “war of laws.” After Georgia declared, in August 1990, Georgian the only language spoken in the Georgian Supreme Soviet (parliament), the Abkhazian Supreme Soviet, in the absence of its Georgian delegation, adopted, on August 25, a decree of the “state sovereignty of the Abkhazian SSR,” a decision which was claimed by Georgians to be a result of violations of procedure, adopted in the absence of the necessary quorum. The next day, the Georgian parliament annulled the decision. The Georgian deputies of the Abkhazian Supreme Soviet convened on August 31, 1990, and at an extraordinary session they rescinded all the enactments passed by their Abkhaz colleagues, declaring them contrary to the constitutions of the Abkhazian ASSR and the Georgian SSR. Amid the political disputes, the Abkhaz leaders continued their quest for allies. On their initiative, a second Congress of Peoples of the Caucasus, consisting of the representatives of Russia’s North Caucasian republics, was convened in Sukhumi in October 1990.
On October 28, 1990, the Georgian SSR held the first multiparty elections which brought the bloc of political parties, Roundtable – Free Georgia, led by the Soviet-era dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia to power. In December 1990, the Abkhazian Supreme Soviet elected a new chairman, Vladislav Ardzinba, who led the non-Georgian part of the Abkhazian legislature to adopt a series of acts which further deepened the division between the Abkhaz and Georgian lawmakers.
Meanwhile, Georgia continued its movement towards independence, and boycotted the March 17, 1991 all-Union referendum on the renewal of the Soviet Union proposed by Mikhail Gorbachev. The non-Georgian population of Abkhazia, however, took part in the referendum and voted by an overwhelming majority in favor of preserving the Union. Furthermore, most of ethnic Abkhaz population declined to participate in the March 31 referendum on Georgia’s independence, which was supported by a huge majority of the population of Georgia. Independence was declared on April 9, 1991, and Gamsakhurdia was elected president on May 26, with over 86 per cent of the vote. In Abkhazia, the Supreme Council and all major public institutions became paralyzed by the division of two blocks along the ethnic lines. However, Georgia’s preoccupation in South Ossetia, a former autonomous oblast in the northeast of the country, where the separatist movement had already escalated into a war, and the Abkhaz fears that Gamsakhurdia’s government would use military to reinforce its control over Abkhazia, made the both sides to work towards an agreement on reforming the Abkhazian autonomous structures. On July 9 1991, Abkhazia passed a new election law based upon the concept proposed by the Georgian expert, Professor Levan Aleksidze. According to the new scheme, ethnic Abkhaz were granted overrepresentation in the Supreme Council of Abkhazia, with 28 seats; Georgians received 26, and other ethnic groups 11. A two-third majority was to be required to pass a legislation, thus guarantying both Abkhaz and Georgian factions veto power over key decisions. The eleven “others” could choose either to side with the Georgians or with the Abkhaz. The chairman of the Supreme Council was to be ethnic Abkhaz, with two deputies, one from a Georgian delegation, and the other from other ethnic faction. Vladislav Ardzinba was reelected a chairman of the Supreme Council.
This compromise solution failed, however, to resolve the conflict between the two main communities in Abkhazia, and the Abkhaz leaders became increasingly involved in the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, a political organization which succeeded the Congress of Peoples of the Caucasus. The Confederation accepted Abkhazia as a member on its 3rd congress in Sukhumi on November 10, 1991, and later established its own military forces.
[edit] From the Georgian coup d'etat to the Abkhazian war
A violent coup in Tbilisi, which ousted President Gamsakhurdia in favor of the interim Military Council from December 20, 1991 to January 6, 1992, marked the start of the civil war in Georgia. Gamsakhurdia fled Georgia, but his armed supporters continued their resistance to the new regime, especially in Mingrelia (Samegrelo), and enjoyed significant support among the Georgian population in Abkhazia. In March 1992, the Military Council was transformed into the State Council of the Republic of Georgia led by the ethnic Georgian ex-Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, Eduard Shevardnadze.
The same month, the State Council abolished the still functioning 1978 Georgian Constitution and replaced it by the pre-Soviet 1921 Constitution, which did mention Abkhazia’s autonomous status, but did not clearly specify its exact legal powers within the framework of the Georgian state. At the same time, on March 25, the State Council adopted a law recognizing Abkhaz as a state language equal to Georgian in Abkhazia.
Once again, tensions began to fuel in Abkhazia. The Abkhaz separatist politicians led by Ardzinba were determined to use the opportunity of the unrest in Georgia to reinforce their power in the region and not to allow either of the conflicting Georgian parties to gain a foothold in Abkhazia. In violation of the previous power-sharing agreement, the Abkhaz team gradually began to take control of all major posts in the autonomous structures. An internal division within the Georgian faction did not allow the Georgians to effectively counter these moves. By summer 1992, the split-up in the local authorities and public institutions of Abkhazia into ethnic Georgian and ethnic Abkhaz groups created a kind of dual authority in the autonomous republic. The predominantly ethnic Georgian members of the Supreme Council – the “Democratic Abkhazia” faction headed by Tamaz Nadareishvili – blamed Ardzinba and his team for raising ethnic tensions in the region and boycotted the Council’s sessions. In the aftermath, a number of Georgian laws were nullified in Abkhazia and a paramilitary force, the Abkhaz National Guard, was created and placed directly under the command of the Presidium of the Abkhazian Supreme Council. The ethnic Georgians responded to these measures by requesting from the central Georgian government to take additional measures for their defense. Soon a Georgian National Guard detachment under the command of Colonel Giorgi Karkarashvili entered Abkhazia and proceeded to the northern border with Russia, but the unprepared Abkhaz militias avoided offering any resistance and the Georgian force left the region. This demonstration of force proved to be ineffective, however. In a counter-move, on June 24, 1992, the Abkhaz National Guard, under orders from Ardzinba, stormed the Abkhazian Interior Ministry office, which was headed by ethnic Georgians, and took control of local police and security units. At the same time, the Abkhaz separatists secured the assistance from the Confederation in the case of an armed conflict, and intensified their contacts with the Russian military leaders and hardliner politicians. Prior to that, Ardzinba had arranged for the redeployment of a Russian airborne battalion from the Baltic States to Sukhumi. According to the Russian historian Svetlana Chervonnaya, a number of Russian security servicemen arrived in Abkhazia as "tourists" during that summer:
| The main load in the preparation of Abkhazian events was given to staff of the former KGB. Almost all of them go appointments in Abkhazia under cover of neutral establishments which had nothing to do with their real activities. To distract attention, various ruses were resorted to, such as the private exchange of apartments, or the necessity of moving one’s place of work to Abkhazia due to a sudden deterioration of health. |
According to another Russian expert, Evgeni Kozhokin, director of the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, prior to the outbreak of hostilities, Abkhaz guardsmen had been supplied with weaponry by Russia’s 643rd anti-aircraft missile regiment and a military unit stationed in Gudauta, Abkhazia. Ardzinba had major supporters in Moscow as well, including Vice President Alexander Rutskoy and the Chechen speaker of the Russian parliament, Ruslan Khasbulatov. It should also be noted, that just before the conflict, Georgia also received its limited share of the heritage of the former Soviet military under the Tashkent Agreement of May 15 1992.
On July 23, 1992, the ethnic Abkhaz members of the Supreme Council - thirty-five of the sixty-five deputies - abrogated Abkhazia's functioning constitution and restored the 1925 constitution of the Abkhazian SSR. Abkhazia proclaimed itself a sovereign state, the Republic of Abkhazia, and declared its intention to conduct its relations with Georgia on the parity basis. The Georgian government condemned the decision and Abkhazia's Georgian population went on strike. The region was on the verge of the war.
[edit] Abkhazian War
On August 14, 1992, some 3,000 Georgian National Guard troops and police forces under Tengiz Kitovani entered Abkhazia, their official purpose being the protection of rail communications from Gamsakhurdia’s supporters operating in the region and gain the release of several Georgian governmental officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Kavsadze, who had been detained by the deposed president’s forces. Abkhaz leaders claimed this was in violation of the agreement of April 1992 whereby Georgian troops could enter Abkhazia with the permission of the Abkhazian government. The central Georgian government insisted that although the local Abkhazian authorities had already disintegrated, Shevardnadze informed Ardzinba about the forthcoming "anti-terrorist operation." Either way, the Abkhaz National Guards offered resistance, firing on the Georgian echelons at Ochamchire and Sukhumi. The Abkhaz militias were defeated and they engaged into a scattered guerilla actions. The Georgian forces entered Sukhumi and marched up to the Russian border, forcing the separatist government to leave, on August 18, Sukhumi for Gudauta, which was a home to the Soviet-era Russian military base. Ardzinba declared Gudauta Abkhazia's "temporary capital" and called in the North Caucasian Confederates to interfere.
