Georgians

Georgians
ქართველები
Kartvelebi

Ilia Chavchavadze David IV of Georgia Vazha-Pshavela Tamar of Georgia Shota Rustaveli Iakob Gogebashvili Ekvtime Takaishvili George V of Georgia
Total population
c. 7.5-8 million
Regions with significant populations
Georgia 3,906,000[1]  Iran 1,500,000  Turkey 1,000,000  Israel 200,000  Russia 197,000[2]  United States 200,000 European Union 150,000  Ukraine 35,200  Brazil 20,750  Azerbaijan 14,900  Japan 12,000  Spain 20,868  Singapore 3,500  France 2,500  Canada 2,500  Armenia 1,100  Argentina 1,050  Mexico 1,000  United Kingdom 900  India 850
Languages
Georgian (including Mingrelian and Svan)
Religion
Mainly Christianity of the Eastern Orthodox tradition of the Georgian Apostolic Autocephalous Orthodox Church (83.9%) also some Georgiano-Latin, Greek, and Armenian rites of the Roman Catholic Church (0.8%). Muslim minority (9.9%), chiefly Sunnis of the Hanafi school.[3] In diaspora (Chveneburis, Saingilo and Fereydanians) mainly Islam
Related ethnic groups
Laz

Part of a series on
Georgians ქართველები
By country or region
Georgia Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia Autonomous Republic of Adjara
Subgroups
Adjarians · Mingrelians · Svans
Culture
Architecture · Art · Cinema · Cuisine Dance · Dress · Literature · Music Media · Religion · Sport
Religion
Georgian Orthodox Georgian Catholic Islam(Sunni and Shiite)
Languages and dialects
Georgian language Dialects · Alphabet
History of Georgia

The Georgians (Georgian: ქართველები, kartvelebi) are a South Caucasian people and nation mainly centered in Georgia. They also live in Turkey, Russia, the United States, Iran, and other countries.

The absolute majority of Georgians are Christian and mostly adhere to their national autocephalous Georgian Orthodox Church, which originated in the 4th century. Muslim Georgian communities reside in Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan and few in Georgia’s autonomous republic of Adjara.

Descending from some of the earliest settlers in the south of Caucasus, the Georgian people went through a complex process of ethnic consolidation and nation-making. It currently comprises a diverse set of local sub-ethnic communities, each with its characteristic traditions, manners and dialect or—in the case of Mingrelians, Lazes and Svans—language. The Georgian language, with its own alphabet and long written tradition going back to the 5th century, is the language of literacy and education of all Georgians living in Georgia as well as the official language of that country. Georgian, Mingrelian and Svan, together with Laz spoken by the related Laz people chiefly in Turkey, form the South Caucasian or Kartvelian family.

Strategically located on the crossroads between Europe and Asia, the Georgian people have been influenced by many civilizations throughout history. They absorbed features of other cultures and married them to indigenous traditions to produce a vibrant culture which reached its high point of development in the Middle Ages. With their roots in the ancient tribal federations, the Georgians evolved into a highly structured feudal nation and by the early 11th century formed a unified kingdom which emerged as a dominant power in the Caucasus until the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. Threatened by rivaling regional empires and plagued by incessant internal unrest, the Georgians remained more or less independent until the Russian annexation of Georgian polities in the 19th century. They regained national independence—briefly from 1918 to 1921—and finally, from the Soviet Union, in 1991.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Origins 3 Appearance 4 Short history 4.1 Ancient Georgia 4.2 Medieval Georgia 4.3 Modern history 5 Population and geographical spread 6 Ethnographic subdivisions 7 Gallery of Georgian people 8 Notes 9 See also 10 External links

Etymology

Georgians call themselves Kartvelebi (ქართველები), their land Sakartvelo (საქართველო), and their language Kartuli (ქართული). According to The Georgian Chronicles, the ancestor of the Kartvelian people was Kartlos, the great grandson of the Biblical Japheth. Ancient Greeks (Strabo, Herodotus, Plutarch, Homer, etc.) and Romans (Titus Livius, Cornelius Tacitus, etc.) referred to early eastern Georgians as Iberians (Iberoi in some Greek sources) and Mingrelians-Lazes as Colchians.^[4]

Origins

Most historians and scholars of Georgia as well as anthropologists, archaeologists and linguists tend to agree that the ancestors of modern Georgians inhabited the southern Caucasus and northern Asia Minor since the Neolithic period.^[5] Scholars usually refer to them as Proto-Kartvelian (Proto-Georgians such as Colchians and Iberians) tribes.^[6] Even the Bible makes mention of Tubal-cain, who is associated with proto-Georgian tribes;^[7] or Togarmah who according to the native Armenian and Georgian sources was the great patriarch and founder of both nations.^[8][9]

Some European historians of the 19th century (for example, Wilhelm von Humboldt and Paul Kretschmer) as well as Georgian scholars (R. Gordeziani, S. Kaukhchishvili and Z. Gamsakhurdia) came to the conclusion that Proto-Kartvelians might be related linguistically and culturally to the indigenous (pre-Indo-European) peoples of ancient Europe including the Etruscans, Pelasgians and Proto-Basques.

The Georgian people in antiquity have been known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as Colchians and Iberians.^[10][11] East Georgian tribes of Tibarenians-Iberians formed their kingdom in 7th century BCE. However, western Georgian tribes (Moschians, Suanians, Mingrelians and others) established the first Georgian state of Colchis before the foundation of the Iberian Kingdom in the east.^[12] According to the numerous scholars of Georgia, the formations of these two early Georgian kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia, resulted in the consolidation and uniformity of the Georgian nation.^[13]

Proto-Georgian tribes:

• The ancient Jewish chronicle by Josephus mentions Georgians as Iberes who were also called Thobel (Tubal).^[14]

• Daiaeni in Assyrian sources and Taokhoi in Greek, lived in the northeastern part of Anatolia, a region that once was part of Georgia. This ancient tribe is considered by many scholars as ancestors of Georgians. The Georgians of today still refer to this region, which now belongs to present-day Turkey, as Tao-Klarjeti. Some people there still speak Georgian.^[15]

• Colchians in the ancient western Georgian (Mingrelian-Laz) Kingdom of Colchis. First mentioned in the Assyrian annals of Tiglath-Pileser I and in the annals of Urartian king Sarduri II. Also included western proto-Georgian tribe of the Meskhetians^[12][16]. However, in the case of many tribes, this is often disputed among scholars, as many claim that many Colchian tribes were ancestors of the modern Abkhaz and Abaza, especially the Abasgoi, and assert that Colchis was an ethnically heterogeneous nation.

• Iberians also known as Tiberians or Tiberanians, in the eastern Georgian Kingdom of Iberia.^[12]

Both Colchians and Iberians played an important role in the ethnic and cultural formation of the modern Georgian nation.^[17][18]

According to the scholar of the Caucasian studies Cyril Toumanoff:

“

Colchis appears as the first Caucasian State to have achieved the coalescence of the newcomer, Colchis can be justly regarded as not a proto-Georgian, but a Georgian (West Georgian) kingdom....It would seem natural to seek the beginnings of Georgian social history in Colchis, the earliest Georgian formation.[19]

”

Appearance

Georgians are classified as Caucasoids, and are often slender with dark brown hair, brown eyes, and beige skin.^[20] although many other groups of Georgians except Mediterranean have much lighter features, especially in mountainous regions where Alpine types of Georgians with blond hair and light blue eyes are represented.

Scientific studies of human genetics have suggested that Georgian Y-DNA typically belongs to Haplogroup G.^{[21][22][23][24]}

Short history

Ancient Georgia

A second Georgian tribal union emerged in the 13th century BC on the Black Sea coast, creating the Kingdom of Colchis in the western Georgia.^[25] The ancient Greeks knew western Georgia as Colchis, and it featured in the Greek legend of Jason and the Argonauts, who travelled there in search of the Golden Fleece. Since 2000 BC, north-western Colchis was inhabited by the Svan and Zan peoples of the Georgian tribes. In the eastern part of Georgia, there was a struggle for the leadership among the various Georgian confederations during the 6th–4th centuries BC which was finally won by the Kartlian tribes from the region of Mtskheta in Iberia. According to The Georgian Chronicles, the Kingdom of Kartli (known as Iberia in the Greek-Roman literature) was founded around 300 BC by Parnavaz I, the first ruler of the Parnavazid dynasty. Between 653 and 333 BC, both Colchis and Iberia were successfully surviving in fight against Median and later Persian Empire. At the end of the 3rd century BC, southern Iberia saw the armies of Alexander the Great who established a vast Greco-Macedonian empire to the south of the Caucasus.

Between the early 2nd century BC and the late 2nd century AD, both Colchis and Iberia, together with the neighbor countries, became an arena of long and devastating conflicts between major local powers Rome, Armenia, and the short-lived Kingdom of Pontus. As a result of the brilliant Roman campaigns of Pompey and Lucullus, the Georgian kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia came under direct Roman rule. However, during the reign of the Emperor Trajan, Caucasian Iberia became a long lasting ally of the Roman Empire. The former Kingdom of Colchis was re-organized by the Romans into the province of Lazicum ruled by Roman legati.

Eastern Georgian Kingdom of Iberia became one of the first states in the world to convert to Christianity in 327 AD, when King of Iberia Mirian II established it as the official state religion. In the middle of the 4th century, both Lazica (former Kingdom of Colchis), and Iberia, adopted Christianity as their official religion. At the end of the 5th century, Prince Vakhtang I Gorgasali orchestrated an anti-Persian uprising and restored Iberian statehood proclaiming himself the King. The armies of Vakhtang launched several campaigns against both Persia and the Byzantine Empire.

Medieval Georgia

The first decades of the 9th century saw the rise of a new Georgian state in Tao-Klarjeti. Ashot Courapalate, of the royal family of Bagrationi, liberated from the Arabs the territories of former southern Iberia. The first united Georgian monarchy was formed at the end of the 10th century when Curopalate David invaded the Earldom of Kartli-Iberia. Three years later, after the death of his uncle Theodosius the Blind, King of Egrisi-Abkhazia, Bagrat III inherited the Abkhazian throne. In 1001, Bagrat also included Tao-Klarjeti (Curopalatinate of Iberia) into his domain as a result of David’s death. In 1008-1010, Bagrat King of the Abkhazes and Tao-Klarjeti annexed Kakheti and Hereti thus becoming the first King of the united Georgia both eastern and western. In 1008 all Georgian principalities were united into the unified Kingdom of Georgia (1008-1466) under the Bagrationi dynasty. This dynasty was established by Ashot I (Ashot the Great) in the end of the 8th century.

The struggle against the Seljuk invaders in Georgia was led by the young King David IV of the Bagrationi royal family who inherited the throne in 1089 at the age of 16 after the abdication of his father George II Bagrationi. In 1121, Seljuk Sultan Mahmud declared Jihad on Georgia and sent a strong army under one of his famous generals Al-Ghazee to fight the Georgians. Although significantly outnumbered by the Turks, Georgians managed to defeat the invaders at Didgori battle and in 1122 took over Tbilisi to make it Georgia’s capital. As a result, mostly Christian-populated Ghishi-Kabala area in western Shirvan (relic of once prosperous Albanian Kingdom) was annexed by Georgia while the rest of already Islamized Shirvan became Georgia’s client-state. That same year a big portion of Armenia was liberated by David’s troops and fell into Georgian hands as well. Thus, in 1124, David also became the King of Armenians incorporating Northern Armenia into Georgian Crown lands. In King David died leaving Georgia with the status of a strong regional power. In Georgia, King David is called agmashenebeli (English: the builder).

However, the most glorious sovereign of Georgia of that period was definitely Queen Tamar (David’s great-granddaughter). The reign of Queen Tamar was the peak of Georgia’s might in the whole history of the nation.

The Empire of Trebizond was heavily dependent of Georgia for more than two hundred years. In 1210, Georgian armies invaded northern Persia (modern day Iranian Azerbaijan) putting part of the conquered territory under Georgian protectorate. That was the maximal extent of Georgia throughout her history. Queen Tamar was addressed as "The Queen of Abkhazians, Kartvels, Rans, Kakhs and Armenians, Shirvan-Shakhine and Shakh-in-Shakhine, The Sovereign of the East and West." Georgian historians often refer to her as "Queen Tamar the Great." The period between the early 12th and the early 13th centuries and especially, the era of Tamar the Great, can truly be considered as the golden age of Georgia. Besides the political and military achievements, it was marked by the development of Georgian culture including the architecture, literature, philosophy and sciences. The Golden age of Georgia left a magnificent legacy of great cathedrals, brilliant romantic poetry and literature, and the epic poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin"—revered by all Georgians since its creation for its artistic and philosophical virtue, the glorification of the Christian Orthodox values as well as chivalry, honor, compassion and romantic love. This Golden Age was interrupted at its peak by the Mongol Invasion in the 13th century AD. After that time, the Georgian feudal state entered an era of decline punctuated by short-lived ascents.

Modern history

In the 19th century, Georgia, on the verge of annihilation by its powerful southern rivals, was annexed by the Russian Empire. A few decades later, Georgian society produced a modernist nationalistic elite under the guidance of Ilia Chavchavadze, which united Georgian society around the dream of the restoration of their once glorious state. In 1918, this dream was fulfilled and the Democratic Republic of Georgia was established. This democratic experiment was short-lived, as in 1921 a Bolshevik government was installed with the support of the invaded Red Army. The first years of independence after the dissolution of the USSR were characterized by political instability and civil conflicts. The first wave of reforms initiated in 1995 was only partially successful. Political corruption resulted in economic decline and institutional inefficiency, which led to grave political crisis. In November 2003, the "Rose Revolution - a mass non-violent public disobedience campaign - forced the government, which had tried to falsify elections, to resign. A new wave of systemic reforms started after the election of the new Government.

Population and geographical spread

The total population of Georgians in the world is estimated to be around 8,000,000.

• Around three million Georgians live in Georgia (where they comprise 83% of the population),
• In Turkey, Georgians form the majority in parts of Artvin Province east of the Çoruh River in Shavsheti (შავშეთი) region (Upper Machakheli in the north of Borçka district, Imerkhevi in the north of Şavşat district and Murgul district and in individual villages along the Çoruh valley of Livana (ლივანა) vicinity in the territory of the ancient Georgian regions of Tao-Klarjeti (Klarjeti (კლარჯეთი) is presently a village renamed officially as Bereket in Ardanuç district), southwards to the district of Yusufeli (Kiskim) in Amier-Tao (ამიერტაო) subregion. They also live as Chveneburi (ჩვენებური) muhajirs in various provinces. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the prime minister of Turkey, pronounced his Georgian origins during a visit to Georgia in 2004.^[26] The total population of people of Georgian descent in Turkey is estimated to be from 500,000 to 3,500,000.
• Today, thousands of Georgian Iranians (ფერეიდნელი) live in the twin cities of Fereydan and Fereydoon Shahr where most of them were forcibly moved by Shah Abbas I after his invasions of Georgia. Georgian Dialect is still spoken in these regions. Other towns such as Najaf Abad, as well as in many other larger Iranian cities, especially Esfahan, Tehran, Shiraz, and Karajalso have some Georgian population.
• 14,900 in Azerbaijan, according to official numbers.^[27] Most Georgians (known as Ingilos) in Azerbaijan reside in the Kakhi, Belokani and Zakatala districts, which had been known as Hereti until the 15th century and administered by the Georgian kings until the 17th century. These rayons were once part of the Democratic Republic of Georgia and part of Georgia under the Transcaucasian SFSR until 1931 when they were transferred to Azerbaijan.^[28] Georgia maintains no claims against Azerbaijan over these territories as of present.
• Around 1,000,000 in Russia and another 200,000 throughout the former Soviet Union republics in Europe and Asia.
• 200,000 in other countries, including the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and France.
• There are some 1,000 Georgians in Argentina, in the provinces of Mendoza and Río Negro. In Río Negro, Georgian people and their descendants are at the "hippietown" of El Bolsón and in the Andes valleys zone (Colonia Rusa in the Alto Valle).
• Other countries: Over 18,000 Georgians in Brazil, over 12,000 in Japan, 3,500 in Singapore, an estimated 1,000 in Mexico.

Ethnographic subdivisions

The largest ethnic group within the broader Georgian ethnicity is the ქართველი (transliterated kartveli, plural: ქართველები, kartvelebi), which comprises the majority of the population of Georgia. The other major subdivisions within the Georgian ethnicity include: the Mingrelians (მეგრელი), who live predominantly in northwestern Georgia (Samegrelo); and the Svans (სვანი) of the Svaneti region of Georgia. These four ethnic groups within the greater Georgian ethnicity are differentiated by language. The Kartveli speak Kartuli (what the English speaking world calls Georgian), the Mingrelians speak Megrelian, the Laz speak Laz, and the Svans speak Svan. These four related languages comprise the entirety of the South Caucasian language group. The majority of Mingrelians and Svans are bilingual in their native language and in Kartuli, while the majority of the Laz are bilingual in their native language and either Kartuli or Turkish.

Within the group called Kartveli, Georgians further distinguish themselves into regional ethnographic subgroups:

• The Megrelians (მეგრელი)
• The Laz people (ლაზი)
• The Svans (სვანი)
• The Imeretians (იმერელი)
• The Gurians (გურული)
• The Ajarians (აჭარელი)
• The Meskhetians (მესხი)
• The Lechkhumeli (ლეჩხუმელი)
• The Rachveli (რაჭველი)
• The Kartlians (ქართლელი)
• The Kakhetians (კახელი)
• The Khevsuretians (ხევსური)
• The Tushi (თუში)
• The Pshaveli (ფშაველი)
• The Mokhevians (მოხევე)
• The Ingilo (ინგილო)
• The Fereydanians (ფერეიდნელი)

These subgroups, however, exist for historical and geographical reasons; each would consider itself to be Kartveli, the ethnic group which gives the country, Sakartvelo, its name, and would speak the same language.

Gallery of Georgian people

Ilia Chavchavadze, writer, poet, journalist and lawyer.	General Petre Bagrationi	Regent Prince Simon Bagrationi	Georgian Prince Iakob Chavchavadze and Prince Bagrationi-Mukhraneli
Countess Catherine Dadiani	19th century Georgian writer Alexander Kazbegi	General Kote Abkhazi	Politician Joseph Stalin
Sopho Khalvashi, the first artist to represent Georgia at the Eurovision Song Contest.	General John Shalikashvili, retired general who served as US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1993 to 1997	Katie Melua, highest selling European female artist in 2006.

Notes

See also

• Chveneburi - Georgians in Turkey
• Culture of Georgia
• Demographics of Georgia
• Demographics of Turkey
• Demographics of Russia
• European American
• Georgian language
• Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic Church
• Georgians in Iran
• History of Georgia
• Georgian American
• List of Georgians
• Peoples of the Caucasus
• Peoples of the Caucasus in Turkey
• Republic of Georgia

External links

• Ali Attār, Georgians in Iran, in Persian, Jadid Online, 2008, [3].
  A Slide Show of Georgians in Iran by Ali Attār, Jadid Online, 2008, [4] (5 min 31 sec).