Name of Georgia

History of Georgia
Prehistoric Georgia Shulaveri-Shomu culture Kura–Araxes culture Kartlos Trialeti culture Colchian culture Kingdom of Diauehi
Ancient history Colchis Kingdom of Iberia Roman Georgia Lazica-Egrisi Christianization
Middle Ages Bagrationi dynasty Principality of Iberia Arab rule in Georgia Emirate of Tbilisi Kingdom of Abkhazia Kingdom of Tao-Klarjeti Duchy of Kldekari Kingdom of Hereti United Kingdom of Georgia Mongol / Timur / Turkmen invasions Duchies of Racha / Ksani / Aragvi
Early modern history Kingdom of Kartli Kingdom of Kakheti Kingdom of Imereti Principalities of Guria / Svaneti / Meskheti / Samegrelo / Abkhazeti Kingdom of Kartli and Kakheti
Modern history Georgia within the Russian Empire Democratic Republic of Georgia Red Army invasion of Georgia Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic Georgia since 1991
History by topic Name Monarchs States Tbilisi Military history Wars Battles Chronology
History of Georgia

Georgia ⁱ/ˈdʒɔrdʒə/ is an exonym for the nation in the Caucasus whose self-designation (autonym) is Sakartvelo (Georgian: საქართველო, [sakʰartʰvɛlɔ]). The exonym has been variously explained as being derived from the Greek: γεωργός ("tiller of the land"), the name of St. George, and from ancient Persian designations of the Georgians. The native name is derived from the core central Georgian region of Kartli – Iberia of the Classical and Byzantine sources – around which the early medieval cultural and political unity of the Georgians was formed.

Autonym

The native Georgian name for the country is Sakartvelo (საქართველო). The word consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i (ქართველ-ი), originally referred to an inhabitant of the core central Georgian region of Kartli – Iberia of the Classical and Byzantine sources. By the early 9th century, the meaning of "Kartli" was expanded to other areas of medieval Georgia held together by religion, culture, and language. The Georgian circumfix sa-X-o is a standard geographic construction designating "the area where X dwell", where X is an ethnonym.^[1]

The earliest reference to "Sakartvelo" occurs in the c. 800 Georgian chronicle by Pseudo-Juansher. Within the next 200 years, this designation was reconfigured so that it came to signify the all-Georgian realm which came into existence with the political unification of Kartli/Iberia and Apkhazeti under Bagrat III in 1008. However, it was not until the early 13th century that the term fully entered regular official usage.^[1]

The memory and dream of a united Georgia – Sakartvelo – persisted even after the political catastrophe of the 15th century when the Georgian kingdom fell apart to form three separate kingdoms: Kartli, Kakheti, and Imereti, and five principalities: Samtskhe-Saatabago, Mingrelia, Guria, Svaneti, and Abkhazia. Thus, the later kings of Kartli did not relinquish the titles of the all-Georgian monarchs whose legitimate successors they claimed to be. The idea of all-Georgian unity also dominated history-writing of the early 18th-century Georgian scholar and a member of the royal family, Prince Vakhushti, whose Description of the Kingdom of Georgia (agtsera sameposa sakartvelosa) had a noticeable influence on the latter-day conception of Sakartvelo. Although Georgia was politically divided among competing kingdoms and principalities during Vakhushti’s lifetime, the scholar viewed the past and present of these breakaway polities as parts of the history of a single nation.^[1]

After more than a century of the Imperial Russian rule, on May 26, 1918, the country was reincarnated as საქართველოს დემოკრატიული რესპუბლიკა sakartvelos demokratiuli respublika – the Democratic Republic of Georgia. It became საქართველოს საბჭოთა სოციალისტური რესპუბლიკა sakartvelos sabchota socialisturi respublika – the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic – on February 25, 1921, and საქართველოს რესპუბლიკა sakartvelos respublika – the Republic of Georgia – on November 14, 1990. According to the 1995 constitution, the nation's official name is Sakartvelo, with "Georgia" as its English equivalent.^[2]

Exonym

The European "Georgia" probably stems from the Persian designation of the Georgians – gurğ, ğurğ – which reached the Western European crusaders and pilgrims in the Holy Land who rendered the name as Georgia (also Jorgania, Giorginia, etc.) and explained its origin by the popularity of St. George among the Georgians. This explanation is offered, among others, by Jacques de Vitry and Franz Ferdinand von Troilo.^[3] Another theory, popularized by the likes of Jean Chardin, semantically linked "Georgia" to Greek and Latin roots, respectively, γεωργός ("tiller of the land") and georgicus ("agricultural"). The supporters of this explanation sometimes referred to classical authors, in particular Pliny and Pomponius Mela. The "Georgi" mentioned by these authors (Pliny, IV.26, VI.14; Mela, De Sita Orb. i.2, &50; ii.1, & 44, 102.) were merely agricultural tribes, so named to distinguish them from their unsettled and pastoral neighbors on the other side of the river Panticapea (in Taurica).^[4]

In the 19th century, scholars first put the popular European etymologies in question. Marie-Félicité Brosset favored the derivation of the name Georgia from that of the river Mtkvari via Kuros-Cyrus-Kura-Djurzan.^[5]

According to several modern scholars, "Georgia" seems to have been borrowed in the 11th or 12th centuries from the Syriac gurz-ān/gurz-iyān and Arabic ĵurĵan/ĵurzan, derived from the New Persian gurğ/gurğān, itself stemming from the Ancient Iranian and Middle Persian vrkān/waručān of unclear origin, but resembling the eastern trans-Caspian toponym Gorgan, which comes from the Middle Persian varkâna, "land of the wolves". This might have been of the same etymology as the Armenian Virk' (Վիրք) and a source of the Greco-Roman rendition Iberi (Ἴβηρες), the ethnonym already known to them as a designation of the Iberian peoples of the Iberian Peninsula.^[6][7]

The Russian exonym Gruziya (Грузия ['gruzʲɪjə]) is also of Perso-Arabic origin. It first occurs in the travel records of Ignatiy Smolnyanin as gurzi (гурзи) (1389) and Afanasy Nikitin as gurzynskaya zemlya (Гурзыньская земля, "Gurzin land") (1466–72).^[8] The Russian name was brought into several other languages, such as Bulgarian, Belarusian, Chinese, Croatian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Hebrew, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Kyrgyz, Polish, Czech, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Macedonian, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Uyghur, Yiddish and others.^[9] It also entered the contemporary Hebrew as גרוזיה ("Gruz-ia"). It coexisted with the names גאורגיה ("Gheorghia" with two hard g's) and גורג'יה (Gurjia), when "Gruzia" took over in the 1970s, probably due to a massive immigration of bilingual Georgian-Russian Jews to Israel at that time. In August 2005 the Georgian ambassador to Israel Lasha Zhvania asked that the Hebrew speakers refer to his country as "Georgia" גאורגיה and abandon the name "Gruzia".^[10] A similar request was issued by Georgia, in December 2009, to Lithuania, asking to be called "Georgija" instead of "Gruzija"; the request was forwarded to the Commission of the Lithuanian Language.^[11]

In June 2011, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia said South Korea had agreed to refer to the country as “Georgia” instead of the Russian-influenced “Gruzya” and the government of Georgia was continuing talks with other countries on the issue.^[9]

References

Bibliography

• (Georgian) Paichadze, Giorgi (ed., 1993), საქართველოსა და ქართველების აღმნიშვნელი უცხოური და ქართული ტერმინოლოგია (Foreign and Georgian designations for Georgia and Georgians). Metsniereba, ISBN 5-520-01504-X