Saingilo

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Saingilo (Georgian: საინგილო) is a 19th-century term that is used to indicate the eastern part of the historic region of Hereti.

Initially this territory was a province of Caucasian Albania, until it ended its existence. After that, the region was a separate kingdom within Georgian cultural and political influnce, wich took part in establishing united Georgian Kingdom after it was incorporated into Georgia in the 8th century. For ages, the territory now called Saingilo has been a historic part of Georgia. During the medieval era what later became known as Saingilo was mostly controlled by the kingdom of Georgia. In the early 17th century, Shah Abbas I of Safavid of Persia took these lands from the king of Kakheti and granted them to the Dagestani feudal clans who enjoyed a degree of autonomy (Djar-Beylakan society, the sultanate of Ilisu) until being conquered by Imperial Russia in 1803. From 1918 to 1920 both Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG) and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) claimed its territory as theirs, but the dispute never led to an armed confrontation. After the fall of the ADR in 1920, Soviet Russia and Azerbaijan SSR recognized it part of Georgia whose government granted these lands a degree of internal autonomy. Following the Sovietization of Georgia in 1921, the area officially became part of Azerbaijan as it was put under Azerbaijan SSR by the central communist government in Moscow.Nowadays there are Georgians - Ingilos (ინგილოები in Georgian, Ingiloylar in Azeri) living in this region of Azerbaijan (districts of Qax, Balakan and Zaqatala). Ingilos (more than 50 000 as of 1999) are an ethnographic group of Georgian people. Some part of Ingilos managed not to lose their original religion - Goergian Orthodox Christianity, but part of them became Muslims.

[edit] See also

• History of Georgia

	Historical regions of Georgia
Abkhazia | Adjara | Guria | Hereti | Imereti | Javakheti | Kartli | Kakheti | Khevsureti | Lechkhumi | Mtiuleti | Meskheti | Pshavi | Racha | Samegrelo | Tao-Klarjeti | Tusheti