A little over a year, on the morning of 8 August 2008, those of us in Abkhazia who had not stayed up to watch the late-night news awoke to reports of the Georgian military assault on the centre and the environs of Tskhinval (Tskhinvali), the capital of South Osssetia. It was not entirely unexpected: there had been reports of Georgian plans to attack Abkhazia itself in spring 2009, and overall tensions had been high. But it was still a shock, and we speculated on the consequences for Abkhazia and the region if Russia did not swiftly move to repel the Georgian advance across the demilitarised zone around South Ossetia.
George Hewitt is professor of Caucasian languages and linguistics at London's School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS). Among his many works is (as editor) The Abkhazians: A Handbook
Also by George Hewitt in (Routledge, 1998) on openDemocracy:
"Sakartvelo, roots of turmoil" (27 November 2003)
"Abkhazia: land in limbo" (10 October 2006)
"Abkhazia and South Ossetia: heart of conflict, key to solution" (18 August 2008) The sense of Abkhazia's potential vulnerability was increased by awareness that the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, had in 2006 broken the terms of the Moscow accords of 1994, which formalised the ceasefire in Abkhazia after the brutal war of 1992-93 that had ended in a shattered Abkhazia securing its freedom from Georgian rule. Saakashvili had done this by introducing a contingent of military personnel into the one part of Abkhazia (the upper Kodor [Kodori] valley) that had remained under Georgian control after the war. This illegal act - which Georgia's western partners all too typically chose to ignore - was accompanied and followed by frequent boasts that Tbilisi would soon "recover" South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The outcome, in what turned out to be five days of intense combat on 8-12 August 2008, was very different. The Russian military responded to the Georgians' initial assault with overwhelming force of its own, including the destruction of Saakashvili's arsenal stored at the military base in Gori (thus ensuring no further Georgian military advances in that area for the foreseeable future).
In Abkhazia itself, the authorities both forestalled any possible action from Georgia and took advantage of the situation by launching an operation in the Kodor valley; this was retaken over two days, with no loss of life on the Georgian side or amongst the local Svan population. The Georgian troops stationed there duly fled without offering any resistance, abandoning their equipment in the process. Indeed, a staggering amount of weaponry and munitions were uncovered in the aftermath; Mikheil Saakashvili's hubris was reflected in the presence in the Kodor of a "NATO Information Centre". The operation extended to military stores in Senaki and the port of Poti (both in neighbouring Mingrelia), thus protecting Abkhazia from future land-incursion or seaborne-assault.
The cost of misreading
The decision by Mikheil Saakasvhili to activate his battle-plans against South Ossetia on the night of 7-8 August 2008 was extraordinarily stupid - so much so, that it is hardly surprising if many in the west instantly embraced Tbilisi's charge that Russia must have made the first move. This rush to judgment regrettably skewed reporting of the entire war by many western news-media outlets, including the BBC (thus continuing a long record of journalistic failure in the region).
This is far more than a jibe, for the misreading of events in and around Abkhazia and South Ossetia - by western media, but more widely by the west's diplomats and politicians - has played and continues to play a role in clouding the actual circumstances of the region. The implication is that to understand the conflicts surrounding these territories (in the early 1990s, as well as 2008) and to draw relevant lessons involves also criticising how these conflicts have been misconstrued at the highest policy levels.
After all, the outcome of the west's policy choices over these years has been to produce the direct opposite of what its consistent support for Georgia has been meant to achieve: namely, the ever-closer ties of Abkhazia and South Ossetia with Russia. This process culminated in Moscow's recognition of them as independent states on 26 August 2008, and all that will flow from the subsequent agreements being signed with Russia in terms of security, transport, trade and investment.
The realistic option
The most important conclusion of the August 2008 war, now shared even by hawkish commentators in the United States who have been vocal advocates for a hardline Georgian stance, is that both South Ossetia and Abkhazia are permanently lost to Georgia (see "Abkhazia and South Ossetia: heart of conflict, key to solution", 18 August 2008). This conclusion seemed obvious to informed observers at the end of their wars (in, respectively, June 1992 and September 1993); but the cataclysmic events of August 2008 seems at last to have convinced many who had been in denial.
But even many of those who have come round to this view resist its self-evident consequence: namely, that the two republics should be promptly and universally recognised de jure as well as de facto. If this policy was followed, it would have at least three positive consequences.
First, it would be good for Georgia. The country would be faced with a realistic if doubtless difficult option: to discard any remaining fantasy of Tbilisi's re-establishing its control, and to focus on building normal, good-neighbourly relations with these political entities.
Second, it would be good for the republics. They would be opened to all the regular advantages enjoyed by fully recognised states; among them unrestricted and universal travel-rights for their citizens, inward investment, and the free flow of ideas that accompanies contacts between nations. All of these would balance the dominant influence of Russia, which otherwise - under conditions of continuing western boycotts - can only strengthen. At the same time, it is unrealistic to expect Russia to withdraw altogether, for two reasons: Russia has legitimate interests of her own in the region, and the Abkhazians (in view of the west's longstanding support for Georgia) would not wish this to happen.
Third, it would be good for the inhabitants of the region, on all sides. The guarantee of the security of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the improving economy and infrastructure that would follow, would have beneficial knock-on effects. The eastern part of Abkhazia around Ochamchira is an example: here, the war damage from 1992-93 is still everywhere visible, with residents left to survive as best they can amid the ruined houses (only in 2007 was the Halo Trust able to finish clearing the region of thousands of mines that had rendered whole tracts of fertile land too dangerous to risk being farmed). A process of reconstruction could revivify the area, and make it possible that in time more of the refugees who fled from Abkhazia to Georgia in autumn 1993 will finally be able to resume life in their former homeland.
The wasted support
Some analysts offer a very different set of recommendations. Spencer B Meredith advocates severing all links with the "separatists"; he suggests that, if Russia does not make the necessary investments in Abkkhazia and South Ossetia, the result will be two failed states (see "Restoring Georgia's Sovereignty, Redux", Foreign Policy Journal, 5 August 2009).
This is wrong. Russians' affection for Abkhazia's Black Sea coast, and the fact that most Ossetians live in Russia's north Caucasus (where for centuries they have been Russia's closest allies), ensure Moscow's continual engagement. In questioning where the two republics would be without Moscow's support, Meredith neglects Georgia's dependence since 2003 on huge subventions from Washington; in lamenting Georgia's lack of funds to spend on the thousands of refugees living within its reduced frontiers, he overlooks that much more could have been done if funds spent on Georgia's military had been devoted to humanitarian projects (Tbilisi's defence budget increased from $36 million to $990 million in 2003-08).
Such "support" for Georgia is part of the same pattern that led to the disaster of 2008 (see Vicken Cheterian, "Georgia's arms race", 4 July 2007). It is a long way from the true support that Georgia needs, which would enable it to accept what happened in the war and begin to move on.
There is a danger that without a decisive step forward, there will be merely a continuation of more of the same failed policies that since the early 1990s have led to the present impasse.
Indeed, after almost two decades of wasted and counterproductive efforts, it is time for a radical reassessment. If this is to happen, it will do well to look again at the events of the early 1990s; in particular at the way that high political calculation in the west reacted to and helped to shape events on the ground in this period, with disastrous results.
The rush to judgment
The west could probably have done little to prevent the Georgian-South Ossetian war of 1990-92, imposed by Georgia's first post-communist leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia on the then autonomous district of South Ossetia. This is because at the start of the war both parties to the conflict were integral parts of the still-existing Soviet Union. But the same most assuredly cannot be said of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict (see "Sakartvelo, roots of turmoil", 27 November 2003).
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was ousted in a coup in January 1992. The war in South Ossetia was still in progress, and a new (truly civil) war broke out in Gamsakhurdia's home province of Mingrelia (western Georgia) between his supporters and those of the junta that ousted him. Amid this chaos, the coup-leaders invited the Soviet Union's former foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze out of his Moscow retirement to provide still-unrecognised Georgia with a standard-bearer who would appeal to the west.
The ploy worked brilliantly: the west was eager to reward the man it regarded as a heroic architect from within of the dissolution of the Soviet system. But why was there such a rush? A clue lies in the internal politics of Britain at the time.
A general election was due in Britain on 9 April 1992. The Conservative prime minister John Major had inherited office from Margaret Thatcher after her forced retirement in November 1990; a colourless figure whom most opinion-polls suggested would lose to a Labour opposition emerging from long retreat. Major and his foreign secretary Douglas Hurd believed they had every reason to look on Eduard Shevardnadze with favour; the idea that (as a former British ambassador to the USSR told me) "we in the west owe Shevardnadze a huge debt of gratitude" was widespread in establishment circles. (A one-time speaker of the Abkhazian parliament, Sokrat Dzhindzholia, offered me the very different view in during a London taxi-ride that "Shevardnadze is a fine executor of other people's decisions, but he is not a person to be head of state himself", though few western governments of the time would have listened to such views).
In any event, two weeks before the election, the John Major government recognised Georgia and established diplomatic relations with it. Britain was due to assume the six-month presidency of the European Union in July 1992; the country continued to - in Douglas Hurd's deathless phrase - "punch above its weight", as all the major European countries and the United States matched the British policy in reaching out to Tbilisi.
It was a fateful step - for it locked the recognising states into the position of support for the territorial integrity of the recognised entity, however questionable or indeed illegitimate that "integrity" (in the case of Abkhazia, it reflected Stalin's subordination of Abkhazia to his native Georgia in 1931). But what was to follow was worse. Georgia at the time had no government with a democratic mandate; the state was in internal chaos, the civil war was still in progress in Mingrelia, and tensions in Abkhazia (where there had been fatal clashes in July 1989) were rising.
A wise policy at this point would have offered Eduard Shevardnadze and his military- (later state-council) colleagues the conditional enticements of membership of (for example) the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and United Nations membership - to be granted once his government had earned democratic legitimacy in the elections planned for autumn 1992, ended the ongoing internal conflicts, and reached a peaceful resolution of the crisis in Abkhazia (see "Post-war Developments in the Georgian-Abkhazian Dispute", Parliamentary Human Rights Group, June 1996).
Instead, the rush to embrace Tbilisi was heedless. True, the war in South Ossetia was ended with the Dagomys agreement in June 1992, mediated by Boris Yeltsin; but the Georgian government and its militia supporters "celebrated" its acceptance by the United Nations with an assault on Abkhazia - reflecting (in my interpretation of events) Shevardnadze's (mis)calculation that Gamsakhurdia's Mingrelian supporters would rally round the national flag in the face of a common foe.
What happened instead was tragedy all round: widespread bloodshed, the loss of Abkhazia to Georgian control, a once relatively prosperous economy in ruins, almost a generation of blighted lives on both sides. The particular disaster from the Georgian point of view was that Abkhazia was lost to Georgia's control as of 30 September 1993.
The last war
The precise sequence of events suggests that the west in general, and Britain in particular, bears a grievous responsibility for the tribulations suffered by many of the region's peoples in the early 1990s and subsequently: the Abkhazians, more latterly the South Ossetians, and those Kartvelians (viz. Mingrelians, Georgians and Svans) whose lives were lost or livelihoods permanently disrupted in the immediate or longer-term wake of the woeful decisions of 1992. This should be publicly acknowledged and a suitable recompense paid, specifically through the recognition of the two states that acquired a de jure status on 26 August 2008.
This would be a precondition for serious thought about how the Transcaucasus region can be taken forward to the secure and prosperous future its peoples surely deserve. Such a settlement, apart from being the only realistic solution to two decades of failure, would be the best way to redress the mistakes committed since 1992. The anniversary of Mikheil Saakashvili's crassness in 2008, as of two decades of misguided and self-damaging Georgian policies, would be a good time to move towards it (see Donald Rayfield, "The Georgia-Russia war, a year on", 6 August 2009).
The precipitateness of the British decision to recognise Georgia was underlined when, contrary to expectations, the party of John Major won the British general election of April 1992. His and Douglas Hurd's misjudged policies in ex-Yugoslavia were to be responsible for huge damage there too. It is very late in the day, but these statesmen's contemporary European Union and American successors need to learn the lessons of the last two decades, and come to decisions that will ensure that the war of August 2008 proves to be the region's last.
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Among openDemocracy's articles on Georgian politics and the region, including the war of August 2008: Neal Ascherson, "Tbilisi, Georgia: the rose revolution's rocky road" (15 July 2005) Donald Rayfield, "Georgia and Russia: with you, without you" (3 October 2006) Robert Parsons, "Russia and Georgia: a lover's revenge" (6 October 2006) Vicken Cheterian, "Georgia's arms race" (4 July 2007) Donald Rayfield, "Russia vs Georgia: a war of perceptions" (24 August 2007) Alexander Rondeli, "Georgia: politics after revolution" (14 November 2007) Robert Parsons, "Georgia's race to the summit" (4 January 2008) Robert Parsons, "Mikheil Saakashvili's bitter victory" (11 January 2008) Jonathan Wheatley, "Georgia's democratic stalemate" (14 April 2008) Robert Parsons, "Georgia, Abkhazia, Russia: the war option" (13 May 2008) Thomas de Waal, "The Russia-Georgia tinderbox" (16 May 2008) Alexander Rondeli, "Georgia's search for itself" (8 July 2008) Thomas de Waal, "South Ossetia: the avoidable tragedy" (11 August 2008) Ghia Nodia, "The war for Georgia: Russia, the west, the future" (12 August 2008) Donald Rayfield, "The Georgia-Russia conflict: lost territory, found nation" (13 August 2008) Neal Ascherson, "After the war: recognising reality in Abkhazia and Georgia" (15 August 2008) Paul Rogers, "Russia and Iran: crisis of the west, rise of the rest" (21 August 2008) Ghia Nodia, "Russian war and Georgian democracy" (22 August 2008) Robert Parsons, "Georgia after war: the political landscape" (26 August 2008) Vicken Cheterian, "Georgia's forgotten legacy" (3 September 2008) Rein Müllerson, "The world after the Russia-Georgia war" (5 September 2008) Martin Shaw, "After the Georgia war: the challenge to citizen action" (22 September 2008) Katinka Barysch, "Europe and the Georgia-Russia conflict" (30 September 2008) Robert Parsons, "Georgia: the politics of recovery" (24 October 2008) Donald Rayfield, "Georgia and Russia: the aftermath" (16 November 2008) Thomas de Waal, "The Caucasus: a region in pieces" (8 January 2009)
Thomas de Waal, "Georgia and Russia, again" (30 January 2009) Donald Rayfield, "The Georgia-Russia war, a year on" (6 August 2009) Plus: openDemocracy's Russia section reports and analyses |
Comments
Manfred Ostrowski
George Hewitt himself gives the pre-war number of ethnic
Abkhazians (or Abkhaz) as 95.853 for all of Georgia
and as 93.267 for the then Abkhazian Republic as of 1989.
He estimates the number of Mingrelians to be roughly a million, which seems to me a rather low guess, but it still shows Abkhazians lived long among relatives of Georgians.
So Abkhazians were a minority in the region of Georgia
which came under Russian control.
George Hewitt says the Abkhazians represented 17.8%
of the total population of the Abkhazian Republic. See
George Hewitt 2004, Introduction to the Study of the Languages of the Caucasus, Muenchen : Lincom,
page 19 ff. Given the small number of Abkhazians
possibly opposed to Tbilisi's rule,
I see no point in pushing for Abkhazian nationalism
as the ethnic argument for a defendible independent statehood "Abkhazia". I wonder whether George Hewitt
would discuss in similar ethnic lines concerning Circassians,
Chechens, or Avars (who are all living under Russian control)
as he does for the Georgian region of Abkhazia. I think
George Hewitt further disregards the rights of ethnic
Mingrelians and Georgians which are now under Russian
rule in so-called "Abkhazia", and he does not mention
that the Abkhaz language was completely neglected in
Soviet times due to Russian minority politics. He puts the blame entirely on Tbilisi where Russia was (and is) the main "player". Mshwidoba q'welas
Biased assessment like this hardly comes as a suprise to those who are familiar with Mr. Hewitt's politicized grammar handbooks. This scholar has been expoloiting any opportunity to attack Georgia. His one-sided and not infrequently overtly Georgianophobic attitudes have long compromised Mr. Hewitt's credibility as an expert on the Caucasus.
George, you just don't give a damn about 350,000 Georgians forced to flee their homes in both historic regions of Georgia just for the reason of being simply Georgians by blood. You just don’t give a damn about the fact that only 17% of population in the pre-war Abkhaz region are now proclaimed to be the dominant nationality (numbered 50,000) in the “independent and free Republic of Abkhazia” ethnically cleansed to set example for similar actions being conducted in another region of Georgia- South Ossetia. You just don't give a damn about Georgians trying to wrestle out their country from Moscow’s grab in order to re-establish the Georgian state for the third time over the past two centuries after it was abolished twice by Russia known for its “peaceful” manner of conducting foreign policies in neighbourhoods. You just don't give a damn about Russians trying to re-establish some jungle law in the post-war Europe in order to tailor state borders and spheres of influence according to whims of some Russian generals and KGB officers operating in Moscow. You just don't give a damn that nobody in the sane world (to which you obviously don't belong) will never recognize those "new states" idiotically conceived and invented in the minds of Kremlin ideologists that you so adamantly defend. You just don’t give a damn that Mr. Putin is trying to revive some kind of KGB-styled newly revanchist Russian imperialism already tested in Chechnya (neighbours of Georgians and Ossetians) that sacrificed about 120,000 Chechen lives in the two recent bloody wars initiated and conducted by Kremlin. You just don’t give a damn about concerns of European peoples (especially in the east) getting sick and tired of the medieval-styled Russian imperialism. George, you still love your Abkhaz wife so much that you just don't give a damn about anything else in the entire world at all... George, with your ideas if they are sincere you can compliment and rewrite “Mein Kampf” or better, go and see a doctor!
to Arthur George Chkhubianishvili
After I have read your comment , though I am not so much astonished of it because as I see nothing could change you , neither years, not all those tragical things which had happenned in my dearest motherland , called Abkhazia.
But I am astonished how so much quickly you forgot about all Caucasian traditions and noblesnesswhen you permit yourself to talk in such a way. Do you want to say the the laws of Caucasian knights are buried deeply in the country you are writing from ?
You could have to obtain a right to mention the Russian Empire and its intentions and all what had happened with Abkhaz people if not what you were doing your best to succeed in in 1992-93.
You were supposing to annihilate the people who by chance were not expelled entirely and appearing in 17% of us stick in your throat so much that you , Georgians, started the war against those whom you (I did almost believe in it ) called your " brothers "?
I am sorry to read all these histerical answers to proffessor Hewitte, and mentioning his wife , in regards with this article , it really sounds so strange from you if you are really Caucasian .
Such facts you are talking . comparing to the Russian - Chechen war , tell me , why did you follow then them if you think that the Russians were wrong ?
If someone has an opinion that Abkhazia has to be recognised by other countries and if you do not really want it to be just in the embraces of Russia , why not to be prudent , to sit and to think and to recogniseAbkhazia and to show to this world that not all what is human in you was burst in the nationalistic fire once ?Especially now - understanding and realizing that Abkhazia and SO will never be the part of Georgia ?
Where to start huh?
Where does mister Hewitt leave the Russian factor. What is Russia's active and passive role in his story?
Whereever it is possible Hewitt shows the guilt of Georgians, and whereever possible he neglects to mention the other side(s), for very obvious reasons when you start counting and debunking what he writes. A manipulative piece of writing - what is an opinion worth if it is written presented as history? It is trying to rewrite history. Propaganda and manipulation minded people have that tendency.
Some commentators gives some numbers above. One of them saying '' 350,000 Georgians forced to flee..''
First of all according to the 1989 census there were only 239,872 "Georgians" living in Abkhazia.
In 1992 - 1993 war, some of them NEVER left Abkhazia and some of them FOUGHT against to Abkhazia in Georgian side.
Refugees is always a big problem and it was NOT Abkhazia who bare responsibility for them - it is Georgia that STARTED the war and created huge humanitarian catastrophy. By the way Georgian population fled before Abkhaz Army entered the occupied territories. Look at the UNPO's report: http://www.unpo.org/downloads/Abkhazia_Georgia_report_1992.pdf [from the report: THE MAJORITY OF GEORGIANS, HOWEVER, FLED BEFORE ABKHAZIAN AND NORTHERN CAUCASUS TROOPS ARRIVED.]
By the way, according to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, those who use arms in an armed struggle and then flee do not fall under the international definition of refugees. The responsibility for these people fell and falls solely on the Georgian authorities. It is important to note here that a great many of those who fled from Abkhazia were recent immigrants. They were partly victims of the compulsory resettlement organized by Stalin and his Abkhazian-born Mingrelian lieutenant Lavrenti Beria. I will also explain about it.
Abkhazian society can allow the return only of those Kartvelians who did not fight on the Georgian side and only after they recognize Abkhazia as an independent state. She also says that the same right for return should be given also to descendants of Abkhazian refugees from the Caucasian War of the XIX century, who live mostly in Turkey.
Last commentators mention about the demographia. Let's see Conciliation Resources' useful graphic: Demographic change in Abkhazia 1897–1989 http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/georgia-abkhazia/graph2.php
When most of Abkhazia was denuded of its native population in the wake of (a) the end of the Great Caucasian War in 1864 and (b) the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, the question arose as to who would make the most appropriate substitute-population. One of the leading Georgian intellectuals of the time, the educationalist Iakob Gogebashvili, wrote an interesting article in Tiflisskij Vestnik in 1877 entitled /vin unda iknes dasaxlebuli apxazetshi?/ (Who should be settled in Abkhazia?). In this article he argued that the neighbouring Mingrelians would make the best /kolonizatorebi/ (colonisers)... And this is precisely what they subsequently became.
It was no accident that the Georgian newspaper ‘Shroma’ considered Georgian acquisition of the land in Abkhazia and Circassia as ‘one of the most wonderful events’ in the life of the Georgian nation ['Shroma', 1882, №15 (in Georgian)]. On 4 February 1879 another newspaper, the ‘Droeba’, urged its readers: ‘Let us expand while there is still time to do it, before other peoples come and settle the empty spaces of our Caucasus.’ While the aforementioned issue of ‘Shroma’ pleaded with its readers: ‘Send us lots of Rachintsy, Lechkhumtsians, Upper Imeretians and Mingrelians from our mountainous regions!’ ['Shroma', 1882, №15 (in Georgian)].
The mass-immigration of Kartvelians (mostly Mingrelians) goes back to the late 1930s. Abkhaz's script was then altered from a roman to a Georgian base. Abkhaz-language schools were summarily closed in 1945-6, following by a ban on broadcasting and publications. The Abkhazians as a nation were due to face transportation (like the numerous other peoples transported by Stalin from the Koreans in the late 1930s through to Abkhazia's Greeks in the late 1940s), and, as a 'scholarly' justification for that, the literary-historian Pavle Ingoroqva was commissioned to argue in print that the Abkhazians only arrived in Abkhazia in the 17th century, conquering the 'original' Abkhazians of history, who were thus a 'Georgian' tribe. This calumny was revived in the heady days of Georgian nationalism from 1988 AND IS WIDELY BELIEVED BY MANY ORDINARY KARTVELIANS, who for this reason still regard the Abkhazians as unentitled to be living in Abkhazia.
Why commentators don't want to see this FACTS?
Dear Matteo, first and foremost please stop joining the one-sided "liturgy". When you state that Georgia started the war, you ignore the details of how the war started. The devil is in details Mr Cimino. The war did not start out of the blue like that. You know one day georgians woke up and attacked Abkhazia. This war was latent during entire last century. Certainly due to bad soviet-georgia politics in the region also. We do not deny that fact. Indeed, Mr Cimino, you have a wrong image of Georgians. We know perfectly our wrong and we are not looking to prove we have been angels. But please remember that the 1988-89 was not only nationalistic in Georgia but all over USSR. Abkhaz also were victims of that syndrom, and if Georgia bares larger respoinsibility it is only by the fact that Georgians are 4 mln and Abkhaz 90 000. If the number was switched, I doubt you would have a different picture. If there were articles published in Georgia of "doubtful Abkhaz origins" there were the same published in Sukhumi about Georgians. V.Smir wrote in Komsomolskata Pravda that "georgians can not live in abkhazia anymore, they can only die there". So were some georgian nationalists calling for "georgia for georgians" as was Ardzinba calling for "abkhazia for abkhaz". It is deeply saddening fact but the disease was in Abkhazia as much as in Georgia or South Ossetia. If Georgia had "round table" Abkhazia had "Aydgilara" and SO had "Adymon Nikhas". During this period, USSR was coming to an end and the prison cells where people lived and did not even know each other were exploding. All the frustration of the sad life and the legends created by soviet ideologists went into a mass psychose. And Mr Hewitt remembers that himself very well. The only problem is, he only blames Georgians and that is his problem, as well as yours. We georgians do not deny our responsibility. But ABkhaz do not even want to admit they played it bad. Therefore on the comapraison scale, if Georgia is a caricature of democracy, Abkhazia is caricature of a caricature. So please next time when you come up with your wide knowledge of Caucasus, try to apply same rules to everyone. Not just Georgians. As for Iakob Gogebashvili's article in Shroma, pay attention to what he says exactly: mengrelians, rachians, lechxumians... he does not say Georgians. The reason is, he considers abkhaz as one of the georgian tribes as mingrelians or rachians. He speaks about one tribe leaving, and another coming of the same family. He says: isn't Caucasus our home? "our" means everyone. Why would he say so, if he did not consider Abkhazia as part of entire Georgia ? Закрепив за собой внутреннюю торговлю, мингрельцы перенесли коммерческую деятельность за пределы Мингрелии в Имеретию, Гурию, Абхазию и отчасти в Карталинию, покрыв эти страны своими лавками. Doesn't this listing show that these are provinces of Georgia and not one country colonizing another ?It's all about reading right Mr Cimino.As for refugees, I can not refrain to express my disgust to your cynical manner of stating the UN convention while you accuse all 239.872 of using arms and fleeing, so they are not IDP's anymore. I mean Matteo Cimino, you deserve a slap in your face for that one. Have you seen the movies of those kids and women crossing mountains and freezing to death on their way ? do these kids, women and elderly also count for army ?Get some moral code. Intelligence does not help anything if one has no rightful mind.
Manfred Ostrowski
I agree with the comment of G. Koberidse concerning George
Hewitt´s anti-Georgian bias. I have had the opportunity to read
Hewitt´s books for most of my life as a linguist, and I have
heard from fellow-linguists about complaints of Georgian
scholars that he tried to push his own work at their expense.
As far as I know, he insisted to get his linguistic contributions
published, even as he produced no userfriendly or helpful
works on Georgian or Abkhazian but rather inconsiderate
compilations of data. As a student of Caucasian languages,
all I kept in mind about his book "Abkhaz" was the disgustingly high price for a rather short booklet, and his
works on Georgian for me express no love for this language,
but rather the disgust of a linguist who had just the luck
to be at the right place at the right time to gain some
importance without really bothering about ordinary people or
trying to tell openmindedly about the languages he claims
some expertise of. History will judge his "conrtibutions".
Dr Hewitt, You wrote an article called "georgian apologists" as if you weren't one of these apologists of abkhazian nazi pseudo-state.
I won't push on the issue that your wife is an ethnic Abkhaz, as it is not relevant to this conversation. "president" Bagapshes wife is Georgian and it does not make him pro-georgian.
Your ideas are founded as always and your english, much better then mine. You certainly are one of the most highly esteemed professors Caucaso-logists. But unfortunately very often You overlook some facts, ignore others and make very unilateral conclusions, which do not suit a scientist of such a high rank.
Dr Hewitt, as a relative to abkhaz nation you should be aware of the historic role Russia has played in one of the largest crimes against humanity of 19th century. Did your doctoral excellency forget that entire Abkhaz ethnicity was targeted to be deported by the Tsarist Russia, to clean the seashore of their presence. Back then, many Georgians were hiding fleeing Abkhaz in their homes, some re-converting them to Orthodoxy in order to save them from deportation.
My great-grand father was the priest of Ilori church near Ochamchira. He was an autochtonous Abkhaz mingrelian, born in Sokhumi in 19th century. My family remembers that. My family has a house there and we can not go to our own home, because your angelic Abkhazian State has instaured an appartheid law. Backed by Russian occupational forces, they did the same to more then 70 000 other families, under some baloney pretext that these people were taking part in military action against "Abkhazian state".
That pseudo state which is based on the rule of "love it or leave it" or even better "do not be georgian if you want to live".
The idea of independence, Dr Hewitt is sacred. Every nation has the right to self determination, but no nation has right to self determine at the extent of another. There are many examples of succesful multiethnic states in Europe: Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg. Even France, Spain, your homeland GREAT BRITAIN. Which one of these states is based on discrimination of one ethnicity to the benefit of another ? Abkhazia is not idependent Dr Hewitt. It went from relative dependency in Georgian SSR to a complete slavery and uncertainty under Russia. It is a military base with a clown government, absolute lawlessness where everyone who did not agree to those Russian bases are simply killed or expelled.
That is the idea of your independence Dr Hewitt.
I would stick to linguistics, if I were you.
Having read some of the comments, I feel it is a shame that some people choose this forum to attack the writer personally, rather than actually read the article thoroughly and argue thoughtfully the points with which they disagree .
Firstly, to Manfred Ostrowski: You say that Prof. Hewitt puts the blame entirely on Georgia for the neglect of the Abkhaz language, but how was Russia 'the main player' in disregarding the linguistic rights of Abkhazians during Soviet times when it was the Stalinist policy for school children to be forcibly taught Georgian (not Russian), rather than their ethnic Abkhazian (a memory which still haunts those who were punished for not being able to speak any Georgian). The Soviet policy before and after this period was to encourage Abkhaz as an ethnic language.
Secondly, you also say that Prof. Hewitt disregards the rights of Mingrelians when what he actually says is, "reconstruction could revivify the area...make it possible that in time more refugees...will be able to resume life in their former homeland". Who else does he have in mind if not the Mingrelian and Georgian population, some of whom have been living in atrocious conditions in Georgia with minimal assistance.?
Thirdly, one commentator says that Prof. Hewitt does not analyse sufficiently the influence of Russia. Unfortunately, it is the ONLY influence in Abkhazia: Georgia has simply not made itself an attractive friend to Abkhazia, while the West has been happy to ignore it. The article does not hide the fact that Russia has its own interests in Abkhazia, and, more importantly, many Abkhazians know this, but what alternative do they have?
Fourthly, someone wrote that Abkhazia was Russia-controlled. Anyone who followed elections in Abkhazia 4 years ago will know that, were that the case, surely the Russia-backed candidate would have won, or been seen to have won, the election. This did not happen.
Fifthly, this is not the medium in which to attack the author of this piece because of the price of his books. Undoubtedly, if Georgian were as widely studied as, say, Italian, the publishing company would not feel it necessary to attach such price tags to the books.
Dear Tania, first and foremost the site is called open democracy, and noone attacks the writer but his rather one-sided "propos".Some of your remarks are right. Mainly the fact that in 1930s Beria commited crimes against Abkhaz, as himself was from Abkhazia and had some personnal issues with them. But let me remind you that Beria was not a pro-georgian politician. He was a bolshevik who deported and killed more georgians then any other ethnicity. Let me also remind you that the definitive version of the Abkhaz alphabet did not even exist till late 1954. Before that several attempts were made to create one. Some of them by prominent Georgian scientists, Chochua and Marr (of scottish decent). The problem of "georgianization" certainly belongs to a short period of 1938 to 1954 a Stalinist era. For at least 10 centuries before most of Abkhazian population, especially those areas close to rest of Georgia, spoke and wrote Georgian as their own language. It did certainly not apply to peasant population but to nobility, as they were the ones with literary skills. Pitsunda was the seat of Tskhum-Abkhazeti catholicate of the entire Georgia. So the question is, where do we start the history. In 963 when Georgians and Abkhaz united in one Kingdom ? Or in 1938 ? I let you decide. As for Georgians they consider Abkhazia as their home and with arguable strong reasons.Now about Russian influence in Abkhazia. Let me remind you Mrs Stone that in 19th century the comparably "loyal" population to Russia was Georgian, not Abkhaz. It was a forced loyalty, as the hostility of Persia and need for survival pushed Georgians into Russian hands (very similar story to what now happened to Abkhazia now). Through Georgian "loyalty", Russians conquered the Caucasus and Abkhazia too. Shortly after 1810 incorporating Abkhazia into Russian Empire, the Tsarist forces began cleaning the Abkhazian seashores from Abkhaz population (mostly muslim back then due to Ottoman influence which had replaced the Georgian influence of earlier times in 16-17 centuries). That produced what is not in historic annals called "MOHAJEERS" the expelled population of Abkhazia to Turkey and Middle East. Russian Empire made Abkhaz leave their homes and if not some megrel migration, it would have been entirely taken and assimilated by Russia. Let me also remind you that for more then 10 centuries Abkhaz identified themselves to a wider "georgian" family. The letter sent by abkhaz nobility in 1872 to Russian emissary in Tiflis proves it (can be provided upon request). They clearly state that "from oldest times Abkhazia belonged to Georgia" Letter signed by Marshania, Emukhvari, Shervashidze, Inal-Ipa. On the other hand, one of Russias administratores sent a letter to St Petersbourg in same period, asking "to clean Sukhumi from undesired Georgian influence and replace it with Russian by weakening the need of Abkhaz to speak Georgian as their second language". So the need was there, as in fact, most of Abkhazians spoke a little georgian. Not unlike Scots or Irish, speaking english. Or brittons speaking French. The lastnames of most Abkhaz were Georgianized through centuries of common living and not because of Beria and Stalin as some ignorants would like to make it look. Most of monuments in Abkhazia are built by Georgian kings and architects and since the antiquity Georgians (mostly megrel) alongside with Abkhaz and Greek lived in Abkhazia as Abkhazia was "Georgia" or maybe better ways to say (Abkhaz-Kartvel Kingdom). The toponym of Abkhazia is Georgian, APKHAZETI as they call themselves Apsua and maybe Abkhaz are the only ones who call Georgians by their own name "kirtuilla" (kartvel) because of the century long proximity and common life. The reason why Kartvel were dominant is their number and historic development, due to the alphabet and clerical influence. Not unlike Franks having given the name to France, although France was populated by germans, brittons, normands, basques and other ethnicities. To understand Georgias statehood, you have to look deep into classic european statehood foundation, as they also belong to the similar world.Now the question is not wheter Abkhaz have right to self-determination or not. They certainly do have, like any other people does. But this self-determination can not occur at the expense of another AUTOCHTONOUS ethinicity living on the same soil. I have said it many times, Abkhazia was a province, not unlike many multiethnic European modern coutnries (Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland) inhabitated by different ethnicities: Greeks, Georgians, Megrel, Svan, Abkhaz of course. However, todays picture is an ethnical cleansing based apartheid zone of lawlessness. Where by decision on Kremlins strategists, a Nation (abkhaz) has been cleaned from its georgian element to be replaced by a Russian one. This can not be even considered as an argument for an independent state. Therefore, the international community and civilized world will be and are right to condemn the creation of an apartheid regime which in fact is a Russian Military base in the South Caucasus.
It were STALIN and BERIA who embrained the system that shocked the world. It is yet attested to the Soviets /Russians. However this system still exists in Georgia. The west will probably understand it a century later taking in mind their inhibited thinking.
Dear Valina, I have to apologize but you really are something. You say Stalinism still exists in Georgia ? And you say it doesn't exist in Russia ? Should I laugh ?Even if Georgia, like any other ex-soviet "hole" still keeps some "vestiges de Stalinisme", Russia on that scale is the world champion. It is just the image itself of Stalinism. Putin considers the biggest tragedy of last century is not holocaust but the fall of USSR. Give us a break. It is like a deja vu. For everyone else it is a struggle. Yes in Georgia, between new and old. Same in Ukraine. The limping baby democracies trying to override the past. But Russia ? RUSSIA RIDES THAT SOVIET PAST.As for embraining the system. Russians love to blame the atrocities commited by a country of 200 million on two Georgian men. That is how Russia always was. First it was Jews during Tsar and pogroms, now it's Georgians or Chechens that are the "illness" of the Saint Mother Russia. As if Stalin was single handedly deporting people and killing them ? How about all the Russians who did it with their own hands ? Soviet people bare responsibility for all of them. Lenins, Trotskys, Mikoyans, Stalins, Berias, Jdanov, Jukov and Brezhnevs. And Mr Putin should thank Stalin that thanks to his politics his midget excellency could inheritate a superpower armed with nuclear weapons (stolen on Berias command of NKVD) and threatening everyone around.
To Mr. Avaliani
I read you reply to Valina and just would like to add some thoughts to it.
The view which exists in Abkhazia , as in Stalin time and his best friend Beria - almost all Abkhaz families were touched by their blackest hand of repressions and killings and disapearings of people , just so, , you can say that they do it all over the Soviet Union, but for the small nations living in the former USSR that affected much moreseverely as it turned to the deformation of demography and just can be called simply - a genocide on the state level.
USSR was not then just a Russian state , and very interestingly , even as you would like to show that it had been Russian, the main ruler was a Georgian terrible guy- Koba Dzhugashvili, whose museum is still under the proper guard of Gory town administration, who is still buried at the Kremlin wall , which is another shameful consequence in fact.
But time will do its corrections once all depends on the human concience and human security. .
I do not disagreee with your thought Mr Independent Abkhazia. Stalin has to be brought to justice by Georgian Nation and until that happens, it will be very hard to make the right line between past and future. Stalins cult remains well in Gori, as maybe he is the only "important" thing that had ever happened to this little town. However Stalins cult, is much stronger in Russia. In one of the latest polls he still topped the list of the brightest rulers of Russia. You certainly know, Soviet passports had a line "NATIONALITY" it meant in fact ethnicity. Well in that line, Stalins Passport said "RUSSIAN". And as for his adventurous "genocidal" games with small nations, I can tell you that Ingush and Chechen have been entirely deported by Stalin, neverthless they do not blame Georgians for it.So there is a more complex line to seek in that attempt by Abkhazias government to describe Stalin and Beria as "pro-georgian" politicians to their own benefit. It is a wrong path.
do not disagreee with your thought Mr Independent Abkhazia. Stalin has to be brought to justice by Georgian Nation and until that happens, it will be very hard to make the right line between past and future.
=================
I think if exactly as you say your nation will brought Stalin to justice, however it is hard to be done, it will be the rightest path you would ever take and it will open the gate to the other important things to be doen in your country.
------------------------------------
Stalins cult remains well in Gori, as maybe he is the only "important" thing that had ever happened to this little town. However Stalins cult, is much stronger in Russia. In one of the latest polls he still topped the list of the brightest rulers of Russia.
You certainly know, Soviet passports had a line "NATIONALITY" it meant in fact ethnicity. Well in that line, Stalins Passport said "RUSSIAN".
==============================
Why do you talk about Russia in this regard?
Stalin museum is not in Russia and if he had in his passport that nationality of Russian , so if it true, then if I were you I would send all the museum belongings to Russia and stop immortalizing his bloody personality in the ages in Georgia.
And by the way in Georgia in such polls the majority of votes were given to Zviad - one of the odious and utmost brightest nationalistic political figures in the recent history of your country.
-------------------------------------------------
And as for his adventurous "genocidal" games with small nations, I can tell you that Ingush and Chechen have been entirely deported by Stalin, neverthless they do not blame Georgians for it.
==============================
Who told you that the Chechens do not remember it and that the do not blame Stalin , maybe they have just had no proper time to sit and to write to you about it in the opendemocracy site? ?
Just they cope with the reality today and they have occupied your Pankissi Valley and they say they have many offices in Tbilisi and maybe soon you will be a minority in the prospekt of Rustaveli ?
--------------------------------------------------
So there is a more complex line to seek in that attempt by Abkhazias government to describe Stalin and Beria as "pro-georgian" politicians to their own benefit.
It is a wrong path.
==========================
It was in Stalin and Beria black time of ruling when Abkhazian state status was descriminated severely and illegaly and it became autonomous republic from the Union one and it was the time when Beria organised
" Abkhazpereselenstroj" which even did not stop working during the hardest times of the Second World War just for the distortion of the demographical situation of Abkhazia to the benefit of Georgian nation .
I am so sorry to remind you this.
Dear Independent Abkhazia, Stalin museum is not in Russia and if he had in his passport that nationality of Russian , so if it true, then if I were you I would send all the museum belongings to Russia and stop immortalizing his bloody personality in the ages in Georgia.And by the way in Georgia in such polls the majority of votes were given to Zviad - one of the odious and utmost brightest nationalistic political figures in the recent history of your country. No problem with your statement overall. I agree. Many georgians agree too. Couple of days ago Stalins monument was assaulted in Gori. Evolution needs time. And Stalins museum is not in Tbilisi. It is in Gori. That is a big difference Mr Abkhazia. In time it will be gone too. People don't change in 10 years. It needs generations. With your fingers pointed to Georgians as always, you forget what society lives in Russia or in Abkhazia, no better (we come from the same immoral place).As for Zviad, you deliberately distort the facts. In todays polls he is quite low. If Zviad is odious, which I agree with, what of Putin who ordered the killing of 100 000 chechens for the same reason he pretends to defend small nations. Dear Independent Abkhazia, I do not deny Georgians can be bad. What amazes me is your and your kinds attempt to persuade the world Abkhaz and Russians are angels. Now do me a favor and apply same standards of good moral and behavior to Georgians and all other nations, no matter their size or belonging. Abkhazians are no less nationalistic then Georgians, and if you read Russian forums, You have much bigger admiration for Stalin and his times then in Georgia. Russian public opinion, still blames Jews for everything and call for new era soviet revenge on all "independents".----------------------------------------------------------------Who told you that the Chechens do not remember it and that the do not blame Stalin , maybe they have just had no proper time to sit and to write to you about it in the opendemocracy site? ? Mr Independent Abkhazia, READ my posts. They are not difficult, It's simple english, I am no Shakespeare. I said, even though they have been Affected by Stalins politics - THEY DO NOT BLAME GEORGIANS (AS A NATION) for it. They blame Stalin, yes. On the contrary Russian driven Propaganda in Abkhazia puts in the same line Stalin and Georgia, which is again as I told you wrong Statement. STALIN = SOVIET UNION = more RUSSIA then GEORGIA. as = Jukov, Jdanov, Mykoian, Trotsky, Lenin, Khrushtshev e.t.c. Maybe in Abkhazia being a relatively small place it is hard to see beyond Georgia. I encourage you to have a wider look. Just they cope with the reality today and they have occupied your Pankissi Valley and they say they have many offices in Tbilisi and maybe soon you will be a minority in the prospekt of Rustaveli ?I don;t know where you read that but most of Pankisi valley has returned to Chechnya. Kists live in Pankisi for centuries and hopefully will live there for more. Chechens live happily in Georgia, despite the fact that some of their sons have fought against Georgia in Abkhazia. We at least know how to make the difference between individuals and entire Nations. Something, one can not tell about you, Abkhazians. Where was your caucasian solidarity to Chechens when they were overran by Russia ? It was quickly forgotten. ___________________ It was in Stalin and Beria black time of ruling when Abkhazian state status was descriminated severely and illegaly and it became autonomous republic from the Union one and it was the time when Beria organised" Abkhazpereselenstroj" which even did not stop working during the hardest times of the Second World War just for the distortion of the demographical situation of Abkhazia to the benefit of Georgian nation .I am so sorry to remind you this.Why are you sorry? Some of it are true facts. But they do not change the overall picture of situation at all.Abkhazpereselenstroi - a true fact. An idiotic aggressive anti-abkhaz move from Beria. AGREE. (reminding you Beria was born in Merkheuli, in Saberio, Sukhumski Raion, Abkhazia) I don't know what personal issues he had. He was a bolshevi.As for the benefit of Abkhazpereselenstroi to the Georgian Nation, Wrong statement. As it obviously stirred anti georgian feelings amongst the Abkhaz. Judge by yourself. I can even twist your argument if I change the date: During Soviet times Georgia had lost more territories then gained. in 1921 Georgia had 3 regions in Turkey + Saingilo (and Abkhazia was part of Georgian Democratic Republic too). In 1921 Georgia lost Saingilo to Azerbaijan and the Artvin region to Turkey. That was bolshevik gift to them. As for Abkhazias status, it has changed many times since antiquity. It went from a province of Egrisi, to an independent Kingdom with capital in Kutaisi (strange isn't it ?) to a Province of United Georgian Kingdom in 963. It broke independent principalty in 14th century. It went from Georgian control to Turkish and Back 3 times within 400 years. It was occupied by Russia then went back to Georgia in 1917. Then in 1925 had a brief status of SSR. Went back as autonomy in 1931... that's a lot of twists. Now it is a Russian Military base, based on ethnic cleansing and apartheid rule with no prospect of recognition until a last decent human being lives on this planet.
Mr. Avaliani,
It is nice that you are not a stailinst, at least this speaks well of you.
And your self criticism to.
No nation is perfect or super, as they say “ Net plokhih narodov , est plokhie ludi”
Just the procenatge of those is bigger the bigger the nation is or maybe I am mistaken /
As for Chchens , you as very often I notice , as other too, swithch to them to justify the deeds of your government , but this is not the right path.
When the fisrt Chechen war started m the very first days Vladislav Ardzinba sent a letter to Eltsin to stop it as he mentioned the case of Abkhazia and Georgia and that the result would very bad. That day the Abkhaz people had a demonstration in the centre of Sukhum and people expressed their negative attitude to it.
That same week Shevarnadze starting accusing Russia that the Abkhaz are preparing battalions of fighters to be sent to Chehenya fir the support of Chechens and the Abkhaz- Russian birder was strictly closed for been crossed by men from 16 till 60 years old.
I would like to ask you what kind of solidarity, when and where did you perform through out the history of Georgia especially regarding any Caucasian peple ??
So you sarcasm is not to be addressed to us in this regard.
The answer maybe short; look in the mirror.
If you think that Chechen left Pankissi , but I doubt , so it is nice for you , less problem you will have there.
To deal with Ruslan Gelayev after he was fighting against of you here as his brither , is just strange , but for some money is fisrt then an honor.
As for you consideration Abkhazia as a Russian base is something beyond understanding and description , then what can be said about yours ?
American 0 backed with salaries from the State Department of the USA,I wonder if they pay to the cleaner in the Ministries too ? Or just the Ministers ?
As for the recognition – you can negatively react as you want , but the main thing is Abkhazia is not the province of Georgia or autonomous republic.
Any more and for ever.
The highest justice prevailed in this planet always.
To Mr. Avaliani
I read you reply to Valina and just would like to add some thoughts to it.
The view which exists in Abkhazia , as in Stalin time and his best friend Beria - almost all Abkhaz families were touched by their blackest hand of repressions and killings and disapearings of people , just so, , you can say that they do it all over the Soviet Union, but for the small nations living in the former USSR that affected much moreseverely as it turned to the deformation of demography and just can be called simply - a genocide on the state level.
USSR was not then just a Russian state , and very interestingly , even as you would like to show that it had been Russian, the main ruler was a Georgian terrible guy- Koba Dzhugashvili, whose museum is still under the proper guard of Gory town administration, who is still buried at the Kremlin wall , which is another shameful consequence in fact.
But time will do its corrections once all depends on the human concience and human security. .
Manfred Ostrowski
Dear Tania Stone,
I would like to answer your objections as best as I can due to
limited space. For more information, just call (+49 221 342395) or send an e-mail to manfredostrowski@yahoo.de.
Personally, I was part of the German peace movement
from its beginning and studied Russian linguistic and ethnological literature about the many languages and
peoples of the Soviet Union 1979-2009, that is, for 30 years.
I have been collecting and studying the relevant literature
not just on Abkhaz and Georgian, but on most languages
of the Soviet Union so far as it was possible for me, so I
have more than 1000 relevant Russian books about
minority peoples and languages at home.
I would like to stress three points here:
1. As I have learned from my communist friends in the
peace movement, the Soviet political system worked
entirely from "top" to "bottom", so the promotion of a
language to the detriment of a different one in Georgia
must have been the official Russian policy.
2. As a matter of fact, most young people in Soviet
Northern Eurasia and other parts of the Soviet Empire
did NOT get a chance to learn their native language in
school, but were urged to switch to Russian,
so most minority languages are now endangered in the Russian sphere.
3. According to my records about linguistic research
in Russia, there was no comprehensive work on Abkhaz published in Leningrad or Moscow, neither a dictionary
nor a grammar, which could find its way to linguists or
to the Abkhaz people, 1960-1990. Work on Abkhaz syntax
was mainly conducted by Georgian scholars which of
course had no influence on NAUKA publication policies.
I am holding now this wonderful Abkhazko-Russkiy slovar'
(Sukhum 2005) in my hands, valuable to me as a linguist,
but possibly coming to late 40 years for Abkhazians to
keep their language alive. A Russko-Abkhazkiy slovar'
with grammatical overview might have had a chance to
enchant young Abkhazians so they would try to study
their heritage..
Dear Manfred, I would like to also add to your very rightful comment. In 1978 Soviet Supreme Council had decided to amend the constitution of USSR and change the status of Georgian language in Georgia from official to secondary after Russian. As you know only three republics, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan had their titular languages as official ones on their territory. On April 14th huge demonstration broke up in Georgia to defend the official status in article 75. While threatened of dissolution by use of military force, Shevardnadze back then the supremo in Georgian SSR, made an absolutely crazy move and called Brejnev asking him to leave the languages where they are. After seeing Georgians win over the supreme soviet, emboldened Abkhaz nationalists back then had signed a letter in Lykhny to be transfered to RSFSR (Russia) as autonomous republic. While the secession was refused, it was agreed that a particular attention had to be brought to minority languages. As a result The first Abkhaz University was created on direct order of Georgian SSR Supreme Council on february 13 1979.
to Avaliani
The first Abkhaz State University was created on the basis of Sukhum Pedagogical Institute nad it was done just after the events of 1978 when the Abkhaz people raised this question and not because Georgian SSR Supreme Council wanted it so mush as you are mentioning it in your comment.
To Manfred Osrowski
In the Soviet era , during staln time , the Abkhaz schools were closed and to every village and town Georgian teachers were brought to teach Abkgazjust in Georgian.
My mother finished the Georgian school in the Abkhaz village. Was not it a true and real violation of human rights when a whole nation was forbidden to speak there native language and study in their native schools?
It was done in the Soviet time , but this was the time of Stalin and Beria (both Georgians by origin)who as all over the USSR repressed and killed the majority of the Abkhaz intelligentsia - maybe even almost all. This , without any doubt affected the future of the education in Abkhaz language.
Children could learn in their native language just in the primary schools and then to have Abkhaz language and literature.
In the time of Perestroika , when many things started changing and scholars started working at the translation of other subjects into Abkhaz , though there were many obstacles in the part of Tbilisi , as far as you know the collapse of the USSR affected the economical life and then the Georgian Gossovet troops invaded Abkhazia , and the war started against the Abkhaz language speakers.
Losmira,There is no denial of the fact that Beria forced during 1938-1953 Abkhaz people to learn georgian at school. That is certainly true.But What Abkhaz language and litterature are you talking about ? no offense to Abkhaz but do you realize that the final version of Abkhaz alphabet was made in 1954 ? What literature can one talk ? Fazil Iskander writes in Russian. The attempts to create the alphabet started by Uslar in 1862 and were modified several times. Latin or Georgian based. Then Russian Based. Mostly by Georgian scholars Marr and Chochua. As for killing "abkhaz intelligentsia", Lenin, Stalin, Beria, Trotsky, Jukov killed all intelligentsia in USSR. And it was not because georgians were killing abkhaz, it was because BOLSHEVIKS were killing INTELLIGENT people. So once for all stop this Abkhaz Urban Legend because it is ridiculous. Where is your memory of Mohajirstvo ? How about the ENTIRE ABKHAZ NATION BEING WIPED OUT OF ABKHAZIA by RUSSIAN EMPIRE ? Do you remember that one ? Want an article, books ? Ask Mr Hewitt ? He knows.I just don't understand this short memory thing. Georgians are the bad guys who forced you to read Georgian during 20 years (it was USSR) while you did not have an alphabet. And Russians are angels, while they wiped you of the surface of the planet by deportation of your entire kind.
Mr. Avaliani ,
I really do appreciate that you are so much concerned about our memory.
But there is such a precipice between us , and as you compleained in one of your long posts to me , that the Russians did nit allow us to talk , which was a bit surprising , why always you mention or remind them , maybe the problem nowadays is not in them just ?
Who , for example , does not let you say what you think , even in this format? In this site ?
Have a look how long I am writing to you but instead of deeply thinking of what am I writing ,you continuously utter your nonsense.
You know, this is irritating ?
So , you want to say that before the Georgian alphabet into which the Latin was altered , was the only cultural way out for the Abkhaz literature and language development ?
If you are so much eager to know the history of the Abkhazian alphabet you can search a lot of information in the internet and I do hope it will clear many thigs for you/
By the way do you know when , for example ,Estonians got their alphabet?
I an sorry to disturb you so much/
But I wonder really where do you get all this information about Abkhazia and maybe it is better for you to learn more how Geogians got their alphabet and what was their literature like and who is the prominent your write instead of biting me with such of your sentences about the Abkhaz literature and language and alphabet which as I did see became as a bone in the throat of so many Georian opponentsin the virtual arguments existing in the internet?
Why in you responses to me you refer me in a neglective way to Professor Hewitt?
Do you really tink that all these things you are asking me to ask him no one knows in Abkhazia ?
Mybe on the contrary!
Maybe it is the highest time for you to start reading him thoroughly and taking into consideration what is he expaining to this English - speaking world in order not to make things worse?
As for the memory you think we lost, I answered to you above in the other comments, but what will you say that in the parade of the Russian tsarist army which took place in the Krasnaya Poliyana, the Georgian polk was participating as a winner with the Russian Cossacks hand in hand?
Read at least the Polish Theofil Lapinsky who had perfectly described all what was going at the Caucasus those sad times of my Motherland,and remember for ever how many Georgian batallions were involved into the expatriation of the majority of the Abkhaz people to to Turkey?
I am so sorry to tell you about it.
But it is you who made me remind this nasty fact and the famous of yours Gogebashvili who was prognosticating who would be the best one to settle in the devastated and ruined at that time Abkhaz soil ?
Dear Losmira, You are not disturbing me a bit. I am very happy to talk to you. I feel you are a little angry about our conversation because it makes you think a little more about Abkhaz responsibility. It's like you are growing up a little. You wrongly believe that I only blame Russia. I said it many times Losmira, and please pay attention. I am not seeking to take blame away from one and put on another. I am simply stating facts that allocate shares of responsibility on all parties of the current situation. But I wonder really where do you get all this information about Abkhazia and maybe it is better for you to learn more how Geogians got their alphabet and what was their literature like and who is the prominent your write instead of biting me with such of your sentences about the Abkhaz literature and language and alphabet which as I did see became as a bone in the throat of so many Georian opponentsin the virtual arguments existing in the internet? Dearest Losmira. Why do we Georgians raise the question of alphabet? To simply question the logical inevitable truth. Abkhaz nationalists have their own genius version of history which does not make any sense. They say, Abkhazia has nothing to do with Georgia and was only incorporated there by Stalin. Naturally every straight minded person will ask. In what language then did Abkhaz build their statehood ? The first attempt to create Abkhaz alphabet was in 1881 by Uslar, then Georgians, Marr and Chochua tried their own versions, final version was made in 1954. Georgian Alphabet counts about 1700 years to the Iakob Tsurtaveli book which I can read even now and fully understand, and is a practical success when it comes to one-to-one phonetic adaptation of sounds. The first man who tried to invent Abkhaz alphabet was Uslar. He wrote the following in 1881: "Georgian alphabet can be considered as the most perfect of existing alphabets. Every sound is written with one corresponding sign, and every sign only represents one sound. In all european languages there is a hard stone, the orthography. For Georgians, due to the perfection of their alphabet this problem is inexistent. (..) Georgian would be ideal base to the creation of alphabets of all caucasian languages as they are not written. But if we borrow from Georgians not only their sound structure but also the design of letters, then we will automatically create problems for Russian to spread easily throughout Caucasus." This is what the inventor of Abkhaz wrote. Now obvious questions arise. If Abkhaz spoke only Apsua and did not know a word of Georgian, then how come their state had a georgian language based church (common with other Georgia)? How can, a christian country (or a muslim one) have had an illiterate statehood for 13 centuries ? A state with capital in Kutaisi :) (you know that Abkhazeti was the name for the entire western Georgia at some point, anything west from Kura river) due to the expansion by Abkhaz eristav Leon. A king who built churches with Georgian inscriptions still standing on many of them. Is it also Stalin who wrote them on Bedia monastery in 10th century? (bedia in georgian means fate). How come we have georgian toponyms like Mzymta (mzemta - mze=sun, mta=mountain), Ilori, Bichvinta, Tskhumi. These terms are mentioned in historic Georgian documents, conserved in WRITING. The issue of written language is key. In ancient Georgian Kingdom, local languages were everywhere. Svans spoke their own, Megrel their own. Tushins - are in fact Ingush. Ossetians spoke Iron. Some say Khevsur are welsh crusadors who stayed in mounrtains. Kakhetians who formed as Georgians much later, spoke caucasian albanian before switching to Georgian. Abkhaz, spoke Abkhaz. But their noblemen and clergy all spoke the state language - Georgian. The situation in Georgia was one of the classic european feudal christian country. Not unlike Spain, where all different regions spoke their own languages, not only dialects, but FULL LANGUAGES. This is how Nations were back then. There was no internet. Schools were for nobles only. They were the ones who knew how to read and write. Church had the knowledge. Not ordinary people. Therefore the knowledge was concentrated in the hands of those who ruled, nobility and clergy. Therefore all noble abkhaz names were Georgianized so it was adapted to the rest of the Nation. Achba was Anchabadze, Amarshan - was Marshania, Chachba was Shervashidze, Inal-Ipa - Inalishvili. And this was more then 1000 years ago, not in 1931 like Dr Hewitts book say. Queens Tamars son's name was Lasha. A pure Abkhaz name. Lasha-Giorgi. Why was that ? Because it was to reflect his descendance of both Abkhaz and Kartlian Origins. In general a very good example of similar ethno-geographic pattern can be Luxembourg or Belgium. On the closer end to France, live french speaking people. French influence is bigger. On the other Flemish end, there is a bigger Dutch influence. It is normal, that East to Sokhumi, people were closer to Georgian culture. West, closer to Circassian. With arrival of Islam, Georgian element (christian element) was more pushed down. So Abkhaz were more and more assimilated to their cousins, Cherkess. But still, in Eastern parts around Ochamchira and Samurzakano, Georgian element remained stronger. You can see that in Castellis description of Georgia and its principalties. As for mr Hewitt:The english speaking world had chance to read mr Hewitt's work. It had mixed critiques. It is respectable work, has many interesting points which have to be taken in consideration. But it is not exclusive truth. Nothing is exclusive truth Losmira and sooner you learn that in "your Abkhazia" better it will be to everyone.Abkhaz, Georgian, English or Mesopotamian. I wish you all the best
To Avaliani once again
“Dear Losmira, You are not disturbing me a bit. I am very happy to talk to you. I feel you are a little angry about our conversation because it makes you think a little more about Abkhaz responsibility. It's like you are growing up a little.”
Your feelings and your perception regarding my anger is wrong, and the thing is I could be emotional , as I lived a life here , in the country , which your government did not want to leave in peace, and when I read all that nonsense, of course I am not an idiot to be happy of it.
Tell me truly are you so much happy to read all I write to you ?
If you agree with every word of mine, then, congratulations!
“You wrongly believe that I only blame Russia. I said it many times Losmira, and please pay attention. I am not seeking to take blame away from one and put on another. I am simply stating facts that allocate shares of responsibility on all parties of the current situation.”
But this is so obvious that you are accusing Russia calling it as tretia sila , as if you are really innocent and so infantine that all you committed bad to others , someone from outside must take the responsibility?
------------------------------------------------------------
But I wonder really where do you get all this information about Abkhazia and maybe it is better for you to learn more how Geogians got their alphabet and what was their literature like and who is the prominent your write instead of biting me with such of your sentences about the Abkhaz literature and language and alphabet which as I did see became as a bone in the throat of so many Georian opponentsin the virtual arguments existing in the internet?
“Why do we Georgians raise the question of alphabet? To simply question the logical inevitable truth.
Abkhaz nationalists have their own genius version of history which does not make any sense.”
Tell me kindly which logics of you so simply and inevitably is truth to you?
To raise a discussion about the Abkhaz alphabet and its creation, forgetting the one of yours is logical and so fair from your side?
The word nationalist which you try to portray Abkhazians in a negative light, is just strange as as far as I remember the Georgian scholars in their famous loving all nations equally articles at the period of Gamsakhurdia time flourishing with so called makhrovyj nationalism, you called Abkhazians – extremists or separatists.
Shevarnadze used the word which corresponds to his nature, fascist and the President of Georgia nowadays allowed to his” honor “to call Abkhazians – “cannibals” a pair of years ago.
So I am not so strongly surprised at you too as you are the part of them and even , who knows , maybe the victim of the propaganda nationalistic and jingoistic spread through out of Georgia since the time Carl Berghover wrote once and I had to mention it but you left that of his notes without any response.
“They say, Abkhazia has nothing to do with Georgia and was only incorporated there by Stalin. “
Did you want them to to start saying about the Abkhaz statehood history from the earliest beginning?
Falling into the ancient time history in order people will even stop listening and will thinki that we are crazy ?
Abkhazia was forcely incorporated into Georgia – by STALIN and by his personal will , and being as you mentioned a Russian in his passport he brought Abkhazia as well as SO on the plate to Georgia in Bolshevik times as it was done by the Mensheviks of Georgia when they invaded Abkhazia and shed our blood all over the country just for the egoistic aim of yours ?
“Naturally every straight minded person will ask. In what language then did Abkhaz build their statehood ?”
To this person if is so much interested in it I can mention this and many other internet resourses or just would like to invite him to Abkhazia ;
www.regels.org/Alphabet.htm,X. С. Бгажба. Из истории письменности в Абхазии. — Труды АИЯЛИ, т. XXX, Сухуми, 1959, с. 253—254
“Самый древний письменный язык, возраст которого исчисляется обычно несколькими тысячелетиями, лишь молокосос по сравнению с действительной древностью бесписьменных языков.”
Nico Marr. www.philology.ru/linguistics1/marr-33.htm
www.abkhazia.ru/religion
You do not know the History of Abkhazia that’s why you ask and talk about the alphabet used by the Abkhaz state in ancient times.
I would kindly advise you to learn more about the origin of the alphabet and written languaue in the history of mankind as well . Probably then , I do hope you will understand and logically will not then ask such questions and will not even mention about it especially having lots of hypothesis about the Georgian alphabet?
“ If Abkhaz spoke only Apsua and did not know a word of Georgian, then how come their state had a georgian language based church (common with other Georgia)?”
A lot of Abkhaz did not know a word of Georgian, but in this Apsua language, (the word “Apsua” you like to use in a insultive way as usual and this is another crucial mistake of you, I would like you to remember it ) we kept Kart , Akyrtua , and many things you transformed into another name , we say Kart for Tbilisi , you lost that but then shall I say that it was not Kart (Tbilisi) before?
If the Abkhaz elite leakned and knew Georgian , nothing astonishing in it , now , Georgians rushed to learn English but it does not mean they are English by their nationality ?
Christianity came from Ancient Greece and the language which was used in those times as the writings on the Abkhaz Churches were written in Greek but Abkhazia did not belong to Greece at all.
About the vandal way of abolishing of the Greek manuscripts on the Abkhaz Churches frescos, is another story of discussion.
But as far as I heard the moment Georgian priests started reading prayers in their language, not in the Abkhaz, Abkhazians did not visit churches regularly, and thus is the story.
“Therefore all noble abkhaz names were Georgianized so it was adapted to the rest of the Nation. Achba was Anchabadze, Amarshan - was Marshania, Chachba was Shervashidze, Inal-Ipa - Inalishvili. And this was more then 1000 years ago, not in 1931 like Dr Hewitts book say. “
No one denies that fact that once the Abkhaz king united Abkhazia and Georgia on the purposes of a defense and security from invaders , who usually and mostly had invaded Abkhazia , through weak Kartvelian state, but then as you know it perfectly, it collapsed , why do not you learn your history well enough not to ask me stupid questions?
“Queens Tamars son's name was Lasha. A pure Abkhaz name.
Lasha-Giorgi. Why was that ? Because it was to reflect his descendance of both Abkhaz and Kartlian Origins.”
Why did Tamar, who first married the Russian prince then OSSETIAN (But not any Georgian) ,who deeply respected Abkhazians, and just them were her bodyguards, gave the name of Lasha – ALASHARA , Lasharela , to her son ?
Because when Kart was under siege and she was pregnant and in danger , it was a group of Abkhazians who came secretly and took her and hid her in Abkhazia and here , not far from MY native town of Sukhum , she delivered a boy , whose father was OSSETIAN , and in her gratitude gave name of LASHA , meaning Light IN the Abkhaz language , whose speakers in all the periods of its history has to fight , fight and fight and did not want to live under anybody , and had no time to leave, as you are speculating now , masterpieces in writing , but do not forget the famous one , the Nart Epos, which came through ancient centuries by a word of mouth in its perfect fascinating beauty , glory, fame and pride, this singing ancient poetry , which survived in these Abkhaz souls and was brought to the world intact and bright ?
“As for mr Hewitt:
The english speaking world had chance to read mr Hewitt's work. It had mixed critiques. It is respectable work, has many interesting points which have to be taken in consideration. But it is not exclusive truth. Nothing is exclusive truth Losmira and sooner you learn that in "your Abkhazia" better it will be to everyone.
Abkhaz, Georgian, English or Mesopotamian.”
I see how not in an usual decent Caucasian tradition you talk about Mr. Hewitt.
I am really sorry for you.
I would just kindly like to introduce to you some of his works and articles dedicated to Georgian language ,Megrelian and SVAN also.
You might not know it , but from now you can learn it :
Georgian: An Essential Grammar - George Hewitt
“ Georgian Reader”
or'Similarities and Differences: some verbal contrasts between Georgian and Mingrelian.; 'Towards a comparative syntax of the Kartvelian languages. , etc.
I 'Convergence in language-change: morpho-syntactic in Mingrelian (& Laz).
'Caucasian Languages, and Georgian, and Abkhaz, and Georgia: the language-situation.'
I think reading these of his works you will not say that this was not an exclusive truth ?
The exclusive truth is that Abkhazia will never be a part of Georgia.
Please accept this truth as a Caucasian, if you are the true one , who usually knows how to behave winning or losing the war, what is decency, civility and intelligence .
With kindest regards.
No one denies that fact that once the Abkhaz king united Abkhazia and Georgia on the purposes of a defense and security from invaders , who usually and mostly had invaded Abkhazia , through weak Kartvelian state, but then as you know it perfectly, it collapsed , why do not you learn your history well enough not to ask me stupid questions? There was a time when Henri the IV th of Navarre was crowned King of France. Navarre was the Basque country, the relatively small kingdom in the south. You know Basques spoke basque, a language completely unrelated to French. Fact is, he inheritated the throne through marriage to Margot de Valois, as all the Valois heirs were dead, he got the entire France. French was the written official state language and France was probably 7 times as big as Navarre. If we make an analogy, the "weak" French state still stayed France and did not become Navarre. But Navarre did indeed become part of french Kingdom.600 years earlier Bagrat, whom you wrongly (and rightly) call Abkhaz king, was a Bagration king of Kartli, son of Gurgen Kartlis mepe Bagrationi. His mother Gurundukht (if I am not mistaken) was Abkhaz and his uncle was Ashot Kouropalates of Tao Klarjeti. Theodosi the Blind, his abkhaz uncle was indeed blind and weak. Therefore, Marushidze a nobleman from Abkhazia (with Georgian name: scary!!!!), forced Theodosi to abdicate and gave the throne to Bagrat. Since he became King of Abkhaz, King of Kings of All Georgians.He is burried in Bedia monastery.Honestly, to me it does not matter if the King was Abkhaz or Georgian or Ossetian. What matters that he was king of United Kingdom where all our peoples lived in one Nation with one religion and similar traditions, each rich with its own "privkus". Why did Tamar, who first married the Russian prince then OSSETIAN (But not any Georgian) ,who deeply respected Abkhazians, and just them were her bodyguards, gave the name of Lasha – ALASHARA , Lasharela , to her son ?Because when Kart was under siege and she was pregnant and in danger , it was a group of Abkhazians who came secretly and took her and hid her in Abkhazia and here , not far from MY native town of Sukhum , she delivered a boy , whose father was OSSETIAN , and in her gratitude gave name of LASHA , meaning Light IN the Abkhaz language , whose speakers in all the periods of its history has to fight , fight and fight and did not want to live under anybody , and had no time to leave, as you are speculating now , masterpieces in writing , but do not forget the famous one , the Nart Epos, which came through ancient centuries by a word of mouth in its perfect fascinating beauty , glory, fame and pride, this singing ancient poetry , which survived in these Abkhaz souls and was brought to the world intact and bright ? Of course Losmira. That is absolutely right and wonderful. Kart means fortress in mengrelian. A circled place. As you see Abkhaz call georgians the right name. The only ones in the world to know the real name of their brother :). Why do you think Tamara should not marry an Ossetian Prince ? He was a great guy with great military skills and a superb general to the Georgian Army. The Abkhaz, Ossetians, Georgian and everyone together contributed what we call Golden Age in our history. As for your story with Abkhaz guards, it is a fabulous proof of how much we are related to each-other. Abkhaz men were the guarantee of security of Georgian Kingdom. You said it yourself. As for Nart Epos, poetry it is a fantastic heritage of Abkhaz people conserved in oral manner and I wish there was more exposure to Abkhaz culture in our country. About the vandal way of abolishing of the Greek manuscripts on the Abkhaz Churches frescos, is another story of discussion.Losmira, it is an Urban Legend. Georgian frescoes in Georgia have greek insriptions intact. Why would they attack them in Abkhazia, makes no sense. On the contrary you can see many churches in Tbilisi, vandalized to Russian. Practically all the temples in Abkhazia are built in Georgian tradition. When you claim the reading was greek in Abkhaz churches, it is wrong too. It was Georgian, as Dranda, Moqvi and Bedia were parts of Tskhum-Apxazeti Eparchy of Georgian Church and there could not be any other official language in church then georgian and the feudal system did not allow it. Bichvinta was the seat of the Catholicos. Maybe indeed in first few centuries of Christianity greek was a dominant language in Abkhaz churches, but it was already not the case by 972. The reason why Abkhaz stopped mostly going to church is that they started to become partly muslim, not because they were hearing georgian. And back then, religious belonging was bigger than nationality. If the Abkhaz elite leakned and knew Georgian , nothing astonishing in it , now , Georgians rushed to learn English but it does not mean they are English by their nationality ?What you are saying is funny but an aberration. Georgians do learn english but do not have lastnames like Hewitt or Warnock. Abkhazian nobles all had georgian lastnames (alongside abkhaz transcripts).The ruler Shervashidze was descendant of Shirvan-Shakh. He was appointed in Abkhazia by Tamar - the ending of that last name is enough to know what language the name was pronounced in (there is not much difference between Shervashidze and Shevardnadze ). Just wondering why ? Did you want them to to start saying about the Abkhaz statehood history from the earliest beginning?Falling into the ancient time history in order people will even stop listening and will thinki that we are crazy ?They already think we are crazy. The website director was so impressed by our commenting that he requested another article from Dr Hewitt to respond to my(and other) arguments. But he will get an answer to his pamphlets.The exclusive truth is that Abkhazia will never be a part of Georgia. Please accept this truth as a Caucasian, if you are the true one , who usually knows how to behave winning or losing the war, what is decency, civility and intelligence . Are you sure you don;'t have any megrels in your blood ? because it is totally mengrelian thing to say In any case. Only god knows what will be part of what and using word never, will hurt only your expectations. I am not concerned about Abkhazia being part of Georgia. I know it is, part of all Georgians hearts and it is no different of Jerusalem for Jews. It took them 20 centuries to get back. The problem for me is not status of Abkhazia. It is the fact that people who are supposed to live their are not able to go home. I am glad you read the article about the Abkhaz woman who can't return home. Each time your reactions to my posts are very reactive. But I hope with time you will have the ability to accept the simple truth: Georgians have right to return to their homes like any other human being.It is the question of Caucasian dignity, decency, civility and intelligence You suggested so well. With much kinder regards then yours
"With much kinder regards then yours"
What do you want to say ? “There was a time when Henri the IV th of Navarre was crowned King of France. Navarre was the Basque country, the relatively small kingdom in the south. You know Basques spoke basque, a language completely unrelated to French. Fact is, he inheritated the throne through marriage to Margot de Valois, as all the Valois heirs were dead, he got the entire France. French was the written official state language and France was probably 7 times as big as Navarre.
If we make an analogy, the "weak" French state still stayed France and did not become Navarre. But Navarre did indeed become part of french Kingdom.
Why are you every minute refer to the history of European countries , Georgia as far as I know is not yet the part of the Europen Union. 9AGAIN YOU WANT TO BE THE PART OF ANOTHER UNION , AS EVER ?)
“600 years earlier Bagrat, whom you wrongly (and rightly) call Abkhaz king, was a Bagration king of Kartli, son of Gurgen Kartlis mepe Bagrationi. His mother Gurundukht (if I am not mistaken) was Abkhaz and his uncle was Ashot Kouropalates of Tao Klarjeti. Theodosi the Blind, his abkhaz uncle was indeed blind and weak. Therefore, Marushidze a nobleman from Abkhazia (with Georgian name: scary!!!!), forced Theodosi to abdicate and gave the throne to Bagrat. Since he became King of Abkhaz, King of Kings of All Georgians.
He is burried in Bedia monastery.”
Irakly , if you do not know the history of the Abkhaz and Kartvel state which was united once in the old history, – well and who was Bagrat the second , and how he inherited Abkhaz Kingdom and how it is perfectly written in the historical documents and if you wish to know it , I do not mind, but if you want me to retell all this here in this format, the owners of the site will not think of you as a knowledgeable person.
But when I was talking about that King I had in mind the King Leon , the second, in whose ruling time the capital of Abkhazia was settled in Kutesh, (Kutais: and many things done at that time by him was domne for the STRENGTHENING OF THE Abkhaz Kingdom and its borders.
“Honestly, to me it does not matter if the King was Abkhaz or Georgian or Ossetian. What matters that he was king of United Kingdom where all our peoples lived in one Nation with one religion and similar traditions, each rich with its own "privkus". “
This is your view, and you have the right to think so , but do not think , that this is absolutely true.
What is true , that at that time the Abkhazians played a very important positive role in the united Abkhaz – Kartvelian Kingdom, and they were presented at all levels and the Georgian elite knew the Abkhaz language , the queen Tamar, was as it usually written , the queen of Abkhaz , and just then Kartvelians were mentioned as well as Bagrat, whose mother Gurandukht , was Abkhazian.
I am more then sure that if she could see all that you did with Abkhazians 17 years ago as well with Ossetians, she would just damn you , no more. While the Abkhaz and Ossetians were with you, as the history showed you, Georgia was a state and that’s why those sinful things you committed at the rule of your three crazy presidents just cause grief
‘Why did Tamar, who first married the Russian prince then OSSETIAN (But not any Georgian) ,who deeply respected Abkhazians, and just them were her bodyguards, gave the name of Lasha – ALASHARA , Lasharela , to her son ?
Because when Kart was under siege and she was pregnant and in danger , it was a group of Abkhazians who came secretly and took her and hid her in Abkhazia and here , not far from MY native town of Sukhum , she delivered a boy , whose father was OSSETIAN , and in her gratitude gave name of LASHA , meaning Light IN the Abkhaz language , whose speakers in all the periods of its history has to fight , fight and fight and did not want to live under anybody , and had no time to leave, as you are speculating now , masterpieces in writing , but do not forget the famous one , the Nart Epos, which came through ancient centuries by a word of mouth in its perfect fascinating beauty , glory, fame and pride, this singing ancient poetry , which survived in these Abkhaz souls and was brought to the world intact and bright ?
Of course Losmira. That is absolutely right and wonderful. Kart means fortress in mengrelian. A circled place. As you see Abkhaz call georgians the right name. The only ones in the world to know the real name of their brother :).”
These words of you sound cynical , they could be wonderful if not the war you brought to my motherland .
-------------------------------------------
“ Why do you think Tamara should not marry an Ossetian Prince ? He was a great guy with great military skills and a superb general to the Georgian Army. The Abkhaz, Ossetians, Georgian and everyone together
contributed what we call Golden Age in our history. As for your story with Abkhaz guards, it is a fabulous proof of how much we are related to each-other. Abkhaz men were the guarantee of security of Georgian Kingdom. You said it yourself. As for Nart Epos, poetry it is a fantastic heritage of Abkhaz people conserved in oral manner and I wish there was more exposure to Abkhaz culture in our country.”
But before Tamar married the Russian Prince Bogolubsky, and after she divorced with him , though as they say never sharing with him a bedroom, she married David Soslan, the Ossetian , as no GEORGIAN WAS WORTH OF HER AND THE Abkhaz she just considered her relatives . The story about the birth of her son is a legend or a Georgian song on which the Gossovet Georgian guys just split and destroyed for ever all those historical ties established in those ancient times , so please forget us if possible by now.
Manfred, thank you very much.
Tania, you are deeply confused about Soviet language policy. You must be influenced by famous Russian /KGB propaganda, as is Mr.
Hewitt, who has not been in Georgia since 1989. Instead of reading his tales, read on this site other articles by serious scholars.
This is quite an astonishing manner instead of making agruments to remind about KGB or not in a polite manner to mention other scholars instead of giving one strong point to represent if in any of his views Professor Hewitte was wrong ,
To Tanya Stone
read your reply and I do appreciate it very much and I am glad that you do know the situation in Abkhazia so well as I could guess by all details and facts you have been operating and I wishh you truly success in your life/
Why I say it ?
Because Abkhaz government never was intending to open any kind of department which as far as I see now exist in the opposite country, to make such a huge propaganda against the truth and represent the world their innocent behavior.
You did it perfectly and politely , not insulting anyone or pinning a label to somebody and in a decent way.
Thank you, many things I was supposing to say you have said to these opponents and I will not repeat them again. I hope the opponents have enough patience to read you and the article especially once again to realize who brought the tragedy to this blessed land of Abkhazia and especially why?
Dear Elmarlosmira, who brought the tragedy to this blessed land of Abkhazia ? Don't you feel it is a little odd to think there is one "bad" side and the other "innocent" when we clearly have facts of abuses on both sides ?You know I always thought there wasn't too much difference between the sides, abkhaz and georgian because they were both narrow minded to blame each-other but never looked at their own faults. Now in Georgia opinions have evolved. Not in Abkhazia though, and they can not be blamed, people remain isolated and only read Russian news and listen to the ethnocentric abkhaz rethoric. As for Abkhaz government innocent behavior I will remind you Ardzinbas quote "if they (georgians) do not leave themselves, we will drive them out". And we all know how innocent they are repressing georgian population by taking away their fundamental rights to return to their homes. No need to recite scholars for that.I have no idea what you call polite Elmarlosmira. But I think I was polite enough and my arguments, if you can read my postings, were pretty much founded on real facts. best wishes
to Avaliani
First of all I would like to say that you can post piles of comments and trying to blem both sides as ever you want , but the one who started the fight first is the guilty , and not the one who was defending his nation and his homeland .
Iam living in Abkhazia and eeven in the worst time of occupation in 1992-93 I didn’t leave it , though like you I could do it perfectly.
Whatever you are wrongly repeating what Ardzinba told you and when did he do it , you know as you made it up , but he never asked you to invade Abkhazia with one hundred tanks and gossovet troops to start that most tragical war which ever happened here after the Russian- Caucasian war when the Abkhaz poepel as their brothers from the Northern Caucasus had to fleed from in th 19 century and after that Bleck Terror implemented bt Stalin which swallowed so many of the best Abkhaz intelligentsia – repressing the language and nation.
I know whatever I write here you will not appreciate, but be sure. that I would have been more then happy if not all this had happened in my beautiful Abkhazia, and we could just discuss peacefully all things.
Do you know that after the Abkhaz Parliament decided to discuss with Tbilisi in 1992 the issue of the federalization of Georgia – Shevarnadze sent troops to us and plunged my country into disaster? So to talk about your innocence today especially after the events which took place last August is just nonsense.
To talk after all this about the fundamental rights when your people invaded Abkhazia or as last year SO to deprive people of our right to LIFE from your side is strange .
But as I wrote before, nothing changed your nation , your point of view and intentions, I am sorry to see it.
In the 21 century , or at the end of the 20 –th to behave in such way , agree , that it is not so nice and prudent. Now I see losing the real war you are trying to win it virtually?
But there are other opinions and not all people think as you do it.
I advice you to see the film of Kuparadze “ The Absence of Will “ and first to pay attention to the words of Gamsahurdia at the meeting once.
Elmarlosmira.I do not deny Gamsakhurdias guilt. Or any other fact indeed raised against Georgian government. But you and many in Abkhazia still believe Ardzinba was any better then Gamsakhurdia at nationalistic rethoric. You accused me of making up Ardzinbas quote. Be my guest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Ardzinbawritten black on white. Another quote : Georgians can't live here anymore, in Abkhazia they can only die. V. Smir, newspaper "Komsomolskaya pravda" Just look what is happened right now, at this date. Bagapsh under pressure by some forces is denying Georgians in Gali the rights to citizenship saying that they are "side in the conflict". Before they were calling them "neutral Georgians". I mean you live in an apartheid regime. Do not deny it Elmarlosmira. I am very sympathetic of Abkhaz nation and even your aspirations to independence (if you read correctly my postings which you obviously don't). But it is scary how narrow minded your opinion is about us and this war. I understand it is hard to make any other conclusion when all you read is Russian news and local nonsense about "the great patriotic war abkhaz nation lead for its freedom". freedom from what ? having georgian neighbors ? because that is all you achieved. Kicking people out of their homes. Please read my comments again. I have not denied any of the following:1) yes Gamsakhurdia was a nationalist and has made many mistakes (although if you read his address to abkhaz people you will understand that he did respect Abkhaz very much - paradoxally). I hate Gamsakhurdia and I consider him as the biggest problem Georgia has had since very long.2) yes Stalin terrorized the Abkhaz intelligentsia (but please stop accusing georgian people for it, because Stalin killed twice as many of Georgian intelligentsia, Stalin was soviet dictator not georgian politician)3) yes Shevardnadze sent troops to Abkhazia, totally agreed.but please again, do not deform the truth - You said it was in response to Abkhazias request of federalization.FALSE !!! There was indeed a request of federalization (which I agree Georgia should have accepted), yes, but sending troops to Abkhazia has nothing to do with it. It was a provocation Dear Elmarlosmira, the true facts are much more complex then your simplistic view of the subject. it is hard to outline everything in one posting (if you want we can discuss this in more depth, I will be more then happy to share with you my view of the facts and details and then you share with me yours)But the war itself started in very strange circumstancesRussians themselves call Shevardnadze and ask him to pull in the armed forces to protect railway that was constantly looted on Ochamchira Sukhumi line. And you know what Dear Elmarlosmira, Ardzinba said "yes" to Shevardnadze. Be suprised but this is a fact: Ardzinba agreed to it. Because it was under his consent that could only happen. You could not do anything back then without the consent of autonomous structures. But I gues we both got fooled huh ? And guess what's next? Georgian National Guard rides its way through Abkhazia and suddenly Abkhaz militias (armed illegally by the way) open fire on Georgian National Guard.What happened after the first shot was fired, is another question. There were clear abuses on both sides and believe me Abkhaz can not be proud of any of it, as much as Georgians. Please understand one thing: I am not blaming Abkhaz for starting the war. I in fact blame Georgians much more. But I want you to understand the complexity of the situation when you say "Georgia Started War". It is exactly what Russians want you to believe. It is NOT TRUE - there is a very difficult situation involving a triangle - from big to small :Russia - Georgia - Abkhazia AGAIN TO RESUME: I am not denying Georgian responsibility ELmarlosmira, But if you keep going the way you go with your one-sided auto-persuasion ( i think that is what happens to an isolated country like yours) that we are evil and you guys have been angels, it will lead nowhere. Please open your mind a little.With all my respect
To Avaliani
I am not so much surprised at all you are writing , I could say to you that I even expect such a way of your discussion, to show that you , Georgians were not so much guilty starting the war , and its consequences which were so much unexpectable for you.
Russia in that period was with you, not with us, and you know it perfectly, Russian leader Eltsin was the best friend of your Shevarnadze and the dirty play they organized here as he was sure that you bandits Mkhedrioni would take the whole Abkhazia under their control and the world would have forgotten whom did belong this tiny paradise , my Abkhazia.
Yes , it is very easy and so common to put all responsibility to some other force as you usually say to the world , just Russians made you take the arm and come here to guard the railway , especially with one hundred tanks ?With Grad systems and many other things which , you know perfectly , that brothers real ones do not use it against his own brother.
I have a brother and if needed I will give my life to God to save him and keep him alive , so let us not intrude into such questions better , who is guilty , I mean , as you put blame on somebody and not on yourself.
I know how it is hard to recognize your guilt and to bear the responsibility of all those atrocities into which my small nation and my people you plunged in.
Concerning the leader of Abkhazia , Ardzinba Vladislav, all you say against him just says about you , it is the way you try to open our eyes and to blame the person who didn’t leave his people and was a true Abkhaz son with whose people Shevarnadze gossovet , Kitovani army came here to annihilate from the human land?
Please do not pretend to be naïve , you perfectly know that that we didn’t have anything to resist you properly, and yet you tink that someone was fighting here but not the Abkhaz ones ?
I am sorry to read all you are writing , even trying to be polite you say to me things which are impossible.
If you would like to say that Russians provocated you to invade Abkhazia , and last year shamefully Putin asked you t bombard sleeping Tskhinval – tell me WHY DID YOU PLAY WITH THIS GAME , WHY HE DID IT THIS SAAKASHVILI and why all of you were so glad when your tanks “gloriously” entered Tskhinval ?As for Gal population – do not try again to make a mistake , as you make them so often and then all you do against us turn against you in fact.
Gal pople problem is not yours – they are our people and the citizenship will be given to all who are considered to be respectable and honest to the Abkhaz state which you are not able to recognize today , yet , but this is also the problem of yours not ours.
Today , as all previous years, your government is doing its huge and immesurable best to push Abkhazia into the embraces of Russia , as Professor Hewitt did mention not once , but you , insdead of seeing the facts with your open eyes still dream of what has disappeared in the centuries, the Georgian territorial integrityin the borders of Georgian Soviet Republic.
When you say about apartejd to the people who suffered from your fascjist Farfarashvili , maybe you would like me to remind his statement made by him in the occupied Sukhum TV in September 1992 or maybe the famous receipt of Goga Khaindrava how easily you could to kill 15000 young Abkhaz guys and our nation would never raise its head?He said to the journalist of “ Le Mond Diplomatique” and yet we didn’t here any kind of his or another apology .
We do not need it , by the way , it is you who need it .
From my side I can tell you that , as I see now , you have never understood us , we were extremists and separatists for you, but on the human part , even after stalin period , after all that measures he undertook to georginize our nation , closing the schools , and etc. and etc. we lived with you and shared all that soviet time , and Abkhaz ladies never married Russians , but Georgians , so inside , ithe heart of the nation there was no historical hatred in my dear nation .
But you didn’t understand it , your people came here, and fired ALL that was between us , and just spit on all the ties and everything which existed between us.
But now , If you really want our nations ,even after such a bad time of the last August , to come to the slightest road of reconciliation – you have the chance to do it as I said it before , RECOGNISE THE INDEPENDENCE of ABKHAZIA and believe me the world will be then yours.
As for the isolation - maybe you were right , as you know how you are trying to isolate us from the other world (and this another shame of you )but you could not isolate our souls and our freedom innerly - this is not in your strength at all.
Elmarlosmira, I am glad you could speak up all your anger here. You are right coming from your perspective of the facts. You know honestly I have said many times to my Abkhaz friends (I have a few really good ones), that I am sorry for what happened. I do not deny our responsibility as a Georgian, having raised our guns at Abkhaz. I do not deny wrongdoings of Karkarashvili and co. I know that address on TV. It was in the middle of the war. The same day, chechens wand abkhaz were raping georgian girls in village Ordzonikidze. I am just saying, abuse was everywhere, from every side.Now please take time and turn your position in my way. Just imagine you are not Abkhaz, but Georgian. For 30 minutes. Keep your anger. Keep saying what you were saying about Ardzinba "being on the side of his nation". Imagine now you are Georgian what would you say ? You would be right fighting for your territorial integrity, when some Russian Bums take on your land ? wouldn't you ?Because Elmarlosmira, what you do not understand is, when you say "my Abkhazia" "my Paradise".. you are just telling me, it is "yours" not "mine". How come ? My great-grandfather was the priest in Ilori monastery and generations of my family were raised in Ochamchira. I had a house there. Yes I am georgian so what ? Isn't Abkhazia mine as much as yours ? So you are a nationalistic ethnocentric person. I hope not.I told you, I have nothing against Abkhazian State, but BE A STATE, not an apartheid Regime under Russias control. Make the right choices (but I doubt you make any choices). Bring back the population who belongs there, give them rights. Look at Belgium, Switzerland. These are states, they respect everyone. They do not make 1st class citizens and 3d class citizens like in South Africa a while ago. Gali residents ? Please don't make me started. They are abused, beaten, they have no right to their own language. How about other Abkhazia Georgians ? 239 000 ? You said yourself, only those who plead allegeance to our state will get citizenship. What is that supposed to mean ? Love it or leave it ? Do you know how this is called in international law ? Discrimination on ethnical ground. (Btw quote of Ardzinba was litterly the paraphrase of what you said)Dear Lady, with all my respect, I love Abkhaz people. I feel close to you culturally. We have same traditions, same legends, same dances. Georgia has evolved you know. There has been long time people ask questions, go back in the past, regret things and believe me, there is a good assessment of our end of mistakes made in the last century. Georgian society has made progress. But they do not let us talk to you. Russians simply do not want us to talk.A relationship between peoples is like any other relationship. It has ups and downs. The fact that we are so much love and hate, proves that we are terribly similar and we have very much to gain from common future, if we do it wisely in the interests of both. What happened is bad, it already has happened and there is no return to it. Now we have to live together anyways. Do you like being Russias military base ? What has changed for you ? Only thing has changed you have less Georgian boys and girls to marry. That's it. Wouldn't you prefer have common projects with Georgia and integrate to Europe rather then being swallowed by Russia ? Inner freedom is good, but is it real freedom ? I mean freedom in sense of human rights ?Why should we recognize your independence ? Is it for kicking georgians out of their homes ? As I said earlier. Bring back the people. Start being a civilized Nation (a Nation, not a tribe with apartheid rules). Give people basic rights in their own home. Then we can speak of independence recognition.For now, you are on a Russian occupied territory, cleansed ethnically of Georgian element, which is served as military base to control Georgia and it's aspirations to join NATO. Turn it every way you like, the legal truth is what I told you."You have no rights as a state because You give no rights a state should provide to its people". I think this sentence resumes it clearly.Thanks for taking time to read and write here. I am very happy I can talk to a genuine Abkhaz lady who finally came out of isolation
Elmarlosmira, I am glad you could speak up all your anger here. You are right coming from your perspective of the facts. You know honestly I have said many times to my Abkhaz friends (I have a few really good ones), that I am sorry for what happened.
==============================
By the way , I am not angry especially with you , because as I see you just read me so blindly and I can be just sorry for you .
I am glad you have Abkhaz friends, but I wonder if they share your opinion on the war which Shevarnadze military junta started once against the people of Abkhazia.
You can say millions of times that you are sorry, but all your thoughts and statements say the contrary.
You could not overtop yourself and that is a pity.
I do not deny our responsibility as a Georgian, having raised our guns at Abkhaz. I do not deny wrongdoings of Karkarashvili and co. I know that address on TV. It was in the middle of the war.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It was said by kARKARASHVILI in September and the aggression started in 14 of August.
I do know know any Abkhaz who said the same in the part of your nation. I am not going to repeat his words here , but I am sorry for you that this man is still living with you in Tbilisi and has not been brought to account yet
-----------------------------------------
The same day, chechens wand abkhaz were raping georgian girls in village Ordzonikidze. I am just saying, abuse was everywhere, from every side.
Who told this and how can you talk without adducing any talk?
Do you know how many young women were raped in the occupied Ochamchira town , but Abkhaz women did not say a lot about it , because it was a shame for them , but frankly talking it was a shame of your brave guys.
---------------------------------------------------
Now please take time and turn your position in my way. Just imagine you are not Abkhaz, but Georgian. For 30 minutes.
This is not easy to imagine that I am Abkhaz , but if I were as you , a Georgian , I would just try to pull myself together and start thinking , what the Abkhaz want and why they do not want us, why Georgians, as if my people , could follow once Zviad and then Eduard and his junta , why to elect Saakashvili and why to allow him to militarize Georgia , instead of making it flourishing socially and nice as Switzerland?
To take all that claims of Abkhaz and why not to think that they are human beings as Georgians and to leave them in peace if they do not want to live with us in the same state?
I could Write to you a lot what I would do if I were a Georgian , but this does not matter for you , absolutely.
Keep your anger. Keep saying what you were saying about Ardzinba "being on the side of his nation". Imagine now you are Georgian what would you say ? You would be right fighting for your territorial integrity, when some Russian Bums take on your land ? wouldn't you ?
Because Elmarlosmira, what you do not understand is, when you say "my Abkhazia" "my Paradise".. you are just telling me, it is "yours" not "mine".
---------------------------------------------------------------------Yes I say I will say it for ever that it is my homeland , my Abkhazia , and you have done all for it not to become a real paradise.
--------------------------------------------------------------
How come ? My great-grandfather was the priest in Ilori monastery and generations of my family were raised in Ochamchira. I had a house there.
---------------------------------------------------
I am sorry for you, I can understand you as a human being , but better to lose a house then to see your son or you brother or your close friend killed and never alive .
==================
Yes I am georgian so what ? Isn't Abkhazia mine as much as yours ? So you are a nationalistic ethnocentric person. I hope not.
---------------------------------------------------
I am not nationalistic, you hoped rightly, but if you have any kind of claims – you had better to direct them to Shevarnadze who is alive and lives in Krtsanisi street.
I told you, I have nothing against Abkhazian State, but BE A STATE, not an apartheid Regime under Russias control.
This is your recent and old propaganda, no one is controlled by anyone , we are satellites with Russia and you know it perfectly how it happened. we will be with all people of good will.
I can say to you also that you are under US control and this is much more obvious as ever.
Make the right choices (but I doubt you make any choices). Bring back the population who belongs there, give them rights. Look at Belgium, Switzerland. These are states, they respect everyone. They do not make 1st class citizens and 3d class citizens like in South Africa a while ago. Gali residents ? Please don't make me started. They are abused, beaten, they have no right to their own language. How about other Abkhazia Georgians ? 239 000 ? You said yourself, only those who plead allegeance to our state will get citizenship. What is that supposed to mean ? Love it or leave it ? Do you know how this is called in international law ? Discrimination on ethnical ground. (Btw quote of Ardzinba was litterly the paraphrase of what you said)
===============================
What population we must bring back?
You know that in the time of Vladislav Ardzinba residents of Gal obtained the right to return back. . And this your rhetoric – about apartheid , or comparisons to African regimes is pure nonsense, and the problem of our Gal people citizenship is not the matter of yours, we will take the decision as they are our people and not yours . Do not forget the Stalin and Beria black terror time when the Abkhaz people with the real and ancient Abkhaz names were written as Georgians in the Gal district during one – two days under the threat of being killed and how will you call this disgustive act if it had been done to your nation??
-------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Lady, with all my respect, I love Abkhaz people. I feel close to you culturally. We have same traditions, same legends, same dances. Georgia has evolved you know. There has been long time people ask questions, go back in the past, regret things and believe me, there is a good assessment of our end of mistakes made in the last century. Georgian society has made progress. But they do not let us talk to you. Russians simply do not want us to talk.
This is your right to love or not to love and respect.
-------------------------------------------------------
But this talk of you sounds strange on the whole, why then if we are so close why did you start the war , and after you tried to make it in May 1998 and in October 2001and, why did Saakashvili deployed his military forces in the Codor Valley in July 2006 why did you do it last August in South Ossetia?
A relationship between peoples is like any other relationship. It has ups and downs. The fact that we are so much love and hate, proves that we are terribly similar and we have very much to gain from common future, if we do it wisely in the interests of both.
Your words make me sad as I see again that you do not understand many things and you look just your way.
We are not terribly similar, as we never betrayed anyone in the history of the Caucasus.
What happened is bad, it already has happened and there is no return to it. Now we have to live together anyways. Do you like being Russias military base ?
-----------------------------------------------
No one likes military bases, but they are now the guaranty of our security , from such as your Karkarashvili or Khaindrava or Jakobashvili guys.
------------- What has changed for you ? Only thing has changed you have less Georgian boys and girls to marry. That's it. Wouldn't you prefer have common projects with Georgia and integrate to Europe rather then being swallowed by Russia ? Inner freedom is good, but is it real freedom ? I mean freedom in sense of human rights ?
--------------------------------------------------
All these questions must not
touch you so much as the hope that Abkhazia and SO will join Georgia seems more then fantastic and better not to talk about it at all.
--------------------------------------------------
Why should we recognize your independence ?
Ok , do no do it , look how others do it.
=============================
Is it for kicking georgians out of their homes ? As I said earlier. Bring back the people.
-----------------
aas I have said above discuss this with Shevarnadze, please.
-------------------------------------
Start being a civilized Nation
I WISH YOU THE SAME
----------------------------------
(Thanks for taking time to read and write here. I am very happy I can talk to a genuine Abkhaz lady who finally came out of isolation
---------------------------------
Bye, laugh , he laughs best who laughs last.
Elmarlosmira, I am glad you could speak up all your anger here. You are right coming from your perspective of the facts. You know honestly I have said many times to my Abkhaz friends (I have a few really good ones), that I am sorry for what happened.
By the way , I am not angry especially with you , because as I see you just read me so blindly and I can be just sorry for you .
I am glad you have Abkhaz friends, but I wonder if they share your opinion on the war which Shevarnadze military junta started once against the people of Abkhazia.
You can say millions of times that you are sorry, but all your thoughts and statements say the contrary.
You could not overtop yourself and that is a pity.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I do not deny our responsibility as a Georgian, having raised our guns at Abkhaz. I do not deny wrongdoings of Karkarashvili and co. I know that address on TV. It was in the middle of the war.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It was said by him in September and the aggression started in 14 of August.
I do know know any Abkhaz who said the same in the part of your nation. I am not going to repeat his words here , but I am sorry for you that this man is still living with you in Tbilisi and has not been brought to account yet
The same day, chechens wand abkhaz were raping georgian girls in village Ordzonikidze. I am just saying, abuse was everywhere, from every side.
Who told this and how can you talk without adducing any talk?
Do you know how many young women were raped in the occupied Ochamchira town, but Abkhaz women did not say a lot about it , because it was a shame for them , but frankly talking it was a shame of your brave guys.
=============================
Now please take time and turn your position in my way. Just imagine you are not Abkhaz, but Georgian. For 30 minutes.
This is not easy to imagine that I am not Abkhaz , but if I were as you , a Georgian , I would just try to pull myself together and start thinking , what the Abkhaz want and why they do not want us, why Georgians, as if my people , could follow once Zviad and then Eduard and his junta , why to elect Saakashvili and why to allow him to militarize Georgia , instead of making it flourishing socially and nice as Switzerland?
To take all that claims of Abkhaz and why not to think that they are human beings as Georgians and to leave them in peace if they do not want to live with us in the same state?
I could rite to you a lot what I would do if I were a Georgian , but this does not matter for you , absolutely.
Keep your anger. Keep saying what you were saying about Ardzinba "being on the side of his nation". Imagine now you are Georgian what would you say ? You would be right fighting for your territorial integrity, when some Russian Bums take on your land ? wouldn't you ?
Because Elmarlosmira, what you do not understand is, when you say "my Abkhazia" "my Paradise".. you are just telling me, it is "yours" not "mine".
---------------------------------------------------------------------Yes I say I will say it for ever that it is my homeland , my Abkhazia , and you have done all for it not to become a real paradise.
--------------------------------------------------------------
How come ? My great-grandfather was the priest in Ilori monastery and generations of my family were raised in Ochamchira. I had a house there.
---------------------------------------------------
I am sorry for you, I can understand you as a human being , but better to lose a house then to see your son or you brother or your close friend killed and never alive .
Yes I am georgian so what ? Isn't Abkhazia mine as much as yours ? So you are a nationalistic ethnocentric person. I hope not.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I am not nationalistic, you hoped rightly, but if you have any kind of claims – you had better to direct them to Shevarnadze who is alive and lives in Krtsanisi street.
----------------------------------------
I told you, I have nothing against Abkhazian State, but BE A STATE, not an apartheid Regime under Russias control.
----------------------------------------
This is your recent and old propaganda, no one is controlled by anyone , we are satellites with Russia and you know it perfectly how it happened. we will be with all people of good will.
I can say to you also that you are under US control and this is much more obvious as ever.
=====================
Make the right choices (but I doubt you make any choices). Bring back the population who belongs there, give them rights. Look at Belgium, Switzerland. These are states, they respect everyone. They do not make 1st class citizens and 3d class citizens like in South Africa a while ago. Gali residents ? Please don't make me started. They are abused, beaten, they have no right to their own language. How about other Abkhazia Georgians ? 239 000 ? You said yourself, only those who plead allegeance to our state will get citizenship. What is that supposed to mean ? Love it or leave it ? Do you know how this is called in international law ? Discrimination on ethnical ground. (Btw quote of Ardzinba was litterly the paraphrase of what you said)
=======================
What population we must bring back?
You know that in the time of Vladislav Ardzinba residents of Gal obtained the right to return back. . And this your rhetoric – about apartheid , or comparisons to African regimes is pure nonsense, and the problem of our Gal people citizenship is not the matter of yours, we will take the decision as they are our people and not yours . Do not forget the Stalin and Beria black terror time when the Abkhaz people with the real and ancient Abkhaz names were written as Georgians in the Gal district during one – two days under the threat of being killed and how will you call this disgustive act if it had been done to your nation??
-------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Lady, with all my respect, I love Abkhaz people. I feel close to you culturally. We have same traditions, same legends, same dances. Georgia has evolved you know. There has been long time people ask questions, go back in the past, regret things and believe me, there is a good assessment of our end of mistakes made in the last century. Georgian society has made progress. But they do not let us talk to you. Russians simply do not want us to talk.
------------------------------------------
This is your right to love or not to love and respect.
But this talk of you sounds strange on the whole, why then if we are so close why did you start the war , and after you tried to make it in May 1998 and in October 2001and, why did Saakashvili deployed his military forces in the Codor Valley in July 2006 why did you do it last August in South Ossetia?
A relationship between peoples is like any other relationship. It has ups and downs. The fact that we are so much love and hate, proves that we are terribly similar and we have very much to gain from common future, if we do it wisely in the interests of both.
===================
Your words make me sad as I see again that you do not understand many things and you look just your way.
We are not terribly similar, as we never betrayed anyone in the history of the Caucasus.
========================
What happened is bad, it already has happened and there is no return to it. Now we have to live together anyways. Do you like being Russias military base ?
-----------------------------------------------
No one likes military bases, but they are now the guaranty of our security , from such as your Karkarashvili or Khaindrava or Jakobashvili guys. What has changed for you ? Only thing has changed you have less Georgian boys and girls to marry. That's it. Wouldn't you prefer have common projects with Georgia and integrate to Europe rather then being swallowed by Russia ? Inner freedom is good, but is it real freedom ? I mean freedom in sense of human rights ?
--------------------------------------------------
All these questions must not
touch you so much as the hope that Abkhazia and SO will join Georgia seems more then fantastic and better not to talk about it at all.
Why should we recognize your independence?
Do not do it if you can not
------------------------------------------------
Is it for kicking georgians out of their homes ? As I said earlier. Bring back the people
Start being a civilized Nation (a Nation, not a tribe with apartheid rules). Give people basic rights in their own home.
-------------
I do wish you the same
----------------------------
Then we can speak of independence recognition.
For now, you are on a Russian occupied territory, cleansed ethnically of Georgian element, which is served as military base to control Georgia and it's aspirations to join NATO. Turn it every way you like, the legal truth is what I told you.
"You have no rights as a state because You give no rights a state should provide to its people". I think this sentence resumes it clearly.
Thanks for taking time to read and write here. I am very happy I can talk to a genuine Abkhaz lady who finally came out of isolation
==================
Bye, laugh, he laughs best who laughs last.
....I am glad you have Abkhaz friends, but I wonder if they share your opinion on the war which Shevarnadze military junta started once against the people of Abkhazia....Dear Losmira, my Abkhaz friends are all for independent Abkhazia, I never said they were pro-georgian. But they are also much less radical and angry then you. For example they do not see a problem, in the wider future about common life with Georgians and they mostly agree about Georgian peoples rights to return to their homes. .....Do you know how many young women were raped in the occupied Ochamchira town, but Abkhaz women did not say a lot about it , because it was a shame for them , but frankly talking it was a shame of your brave guys.... I did not understand the meaning of your sentence in response to mine. All I said, is stating a fact, of abuses on both sides confirmed by the UN. The war crimes have been committed on both sides. .... It was said by him in September and the aggression started in 14 of August.I do know know any Abkhaz who said the same in the part of your nation. I am not going to repeat his words here , but I am sorry for you that this man is still living with you in Tbilisi...Dear Losmira, Karkarashvili is in wheel-chair, he was victim of a killing attempt. Kitovani is in Moscow, why don't feel sorry for Russians he lives there? But again you are distorting facts when you say there was no abkhaz threatening Georgians. I already gave you the link to Ardzinbas wikipedia page where he says : he will drive them out. And this is an excerpt of Komsomolskaya Pravda: "грузинам здесь уже не жить, в Абхазии они могут только умирать" (В. Смыр, газета "Комсомольская правда" 19 декабря 1992г.). Translatio: Georgians can not live here (in Abkhazia) anymore, they can only die" (V.Smir, paper Komsomolskaya Pravda 1992) As much as I accept Georgias responsibility based on facts you provide, I call you to accept your share of responsibility, it will be more constructive to our dialogue. This is not easy to imagine that I am not Abkhaz , but if I were as you , a Georgian , I would just try to pull myself together and start thinking , what the Abkhaz want and why they do not want us, why Georgians, as if my people , could follow once Zviad and then Eduard and his junta , why to elect Saakashvili and why to allow him to militarize Georgia , instead of making it flourishing socially and nice as Switzerland? Dear Losmira, You have the point. This is exactly what I have been doing for years now, asking myself, what Abkhaz want and why they do not want us. Why my people followed Zviad and why we are not Switzerland ? This is why, after asking you what you and many other Abkhaz about what they want, I agree with you on many points. After analyzing the situation, I agree there have been many mistakes made by several Georgian governments (won't go into details you have enough information). But (spravedlivosti radi) for fairness, I want to bring an objective analyzis, involving all parties of the conflict. Conflict is a latin word where the prefix "Con-" suggest two parties at least. Therefore it is key to analyze everyones role in that situation. Therefore I call you Losmira, to accept several of facts I state (as much as I accept yours when they are founded and true). So it is true that Abkhaz were as much nationalistic as Georgians and that the problem of Switzerland is not only Georgian, it is of common unwillingness and unintelligence to deal with problems. Of course, Georgians due to their larger number have to accept bigger share of responsibilities. But there is NOT an innocent Abkhaz side and there will never be. And you abkhaz, have to come out of the soviet psychology illusion of your innocence. Only soviets were analyzing things that way, where everyone was guilty and only they were "saints". Accept your share of responsibilities. That is the least a grown-up can do while facing facts. Do not forget the Stalin and Beria black terror time when the Abkhaz people with the real and ancient Abkhaz names were written as Georgians in the Gal district during one – two days under the threat of being killed and how will you call this disgustive act if it had been done to your nation??Dear Losmira, Gali is what one calls ancient Samurzakano (you abkhaz call it Samyrzakan thinking maybe it is an abkhaz word). Sa-Murzakan-o is in fact a Georgian toponym (Dr Hewitt himself can explain to you how the linguisic prefix SA- and the suffix O- are absolute Georgian toponyms like Sa-Kartvel-o, Sa-franget-i, Sa-machabl-o, Sa-Somxet-i e.t.c), meaning Land of Murzakan, namely Murzakan Shervashidze, an Abkhaz prince whom the land belonged. All the Abkhaz living in that part of Abkhazia were more Georgian because of the proximity to the rest of Georgia. A child can tell why closer regions to a certain culture get more of local influence. Example, why in Gudauta there is a bigger Circassian (Adyghe influence) and why in Ochamchira or Gali there is bigger Georgian (more correctly Mingrelian influence). Its just geography. Dear Losmira, I have here a book written by Cristoforo de Castelli in 17th century (Stalin and Beria were not born then ) It mentions the name of Shervashidze as SHARASHIA. So you understand why names like Ketsba, Tsanba, Chachba, Amarshan, Amargan, Ezuxba are mostly pronounced in Mengrelia as KetsbaIA, TsanbaIA, ChachIBAIA, Marshania, Margania, EzugbAYA. And this has nothing to to with Beria and Stalin, it is the Georgian feudal history where Abkhazia was one of its provinces and where a clear name like Shervashidze ( a clearly GEORGIAN NAME on -DZE) was the ruler of Abkhazia. My great grandfathers last name is ABKHAZI Losmira. Have you heard of a name like this ? It is a Georgian lasname. So is INALISHVILI (Inal-Ipa in Abkhaz). All I want to tell you is that You have to be little more constructive in analysis before going angry. I know no-one likes to hear the truth as very often it is uncomfortable. This is your right to love or not to love and respect. But this talk of you sounds strange on the whole, why then if we are so close why did you start the war , and after you tried to make it in May 1998 and in October 2001and, why did Saakashvili deployed his military forces in the Codor Valley in July 2006 why did you do it last August in South Ossetia?I - did not start the war Losmira. May 98 it was Gelayev, not me. Kodori ? There was always Georgians in Kodori. I am svan myself, read my lastname and Kodori valley has always been a Svanetian Land. It was under georgian control until recently and there was only police there when they ousted Kvitsiani someone had to be there correct ?South Ossetia, is a different subject. I did not do it either. But I can certainly document it that Russia started that intervention and not Georgia. No one likes military bases, but they are now the guaranty of our security , from such as your Karkarashvili or Khaindrava or Jakobashvili guys.I understand your sarcasm but just for precision: Karkarashvili is a former military commander, now in wheel chair. Khaindrava, a common filmmaker (was a minister of conflict resolution once), Jakobashvili (non military, a negotiator). I doubt any of them can harm you. This is your recent and old propaganda, no one is controlled by anyone , we are satellites with Russia and you know it perfectly how it happened. we will be with all people of good will. I can say to you also that you are under US control and this is much more obvious as ever. Well you know they say there is as many opinions as people. But let's face the official, legal and practical facts. Abkhazia is under Russias military control (by international law it is considered an occupied territory), no legal government (as half of the population has not voted to elect it), Russian ruble is the currency, Abkhazian passport is same as my notebook here. Abkhazia has no recognition besides Russia (the occupant), Nicaragua (I won't comment on that state), Hamas (not a country, but an Islamic Resistance Movement considered by many as a terrorist organization). On the contrary, Georgia is a state with international recognition, a multi-ethnic country where no citizen is excluded to vote because of his ethnical background. There is NO american military base in Georgia (no matter what you can say) contrary to Abkhazia where Russian army rules. Bye, laugh, he laughs best who laughs last.Dear Losmira, I laughed only by sympathy to you. Please do not take it as an offense. I am really glad to speak to a genuine Abkhaz.
Another for Avaliani
I understand you got a nice chance to utter all you have been keeping inside so many years, and though, you boast that you have Abkhaz friends- to another one , and in this format, and to make the discussion of the article of Professor Hewitt as a platform to express all these tendentious views of yours and though I expected them , as I know you better then you think, I just do not stop surprising at that deep influence of propaganda and it is strange for me, your ideology and assuredness that all you do and think is right. Even if you sometimes say that you recognize mistakes made by the Georgian side.
First of all, and especially about that doctrine of you about our soviet thinking and etc.
You know that perfectly that after Stalin death , every ten years, from 1956 , it was the Abkhaz people which every time made meetings and mass protests and claims about their rights and their problems in that Soviet time, Galina Starovoitova , a well –known strong defender on ethnic minorities, mentioned about in her researches. And this was done on the contrary to the Soviet mentality.
But many things started much more earlier , and I will offer you some things to think thoroughly about. At least sometimes.
What about the educationalist Iakob Gogebashvili, who wrote an article in Tiflisskij Vestnik in 1877 entitled Who should be settled in Abkhazia?. In this article he argued that the neighbouring Mingrelians would make the best /kolonizatorebi/ (colonisers)...
Or this one :
On 4 February 1879 ‘Droeba’, the newspaper,urged its readers: ‘Let us expand while there is still time to do it, before other peoples come and settle the empty spaces of our Caucasus.’ While the aforementioned issue of ‘Shroma’ pleaded with its readers: ‘Send us lots of Rachintsy, Lechkhumtsians, Upper Imeretians and Mingrelians from our mountainous regions!’ ['Shroma', 1882, №15 (in Georgian)].???
The Englishman Carl Eric Bechhofer wrote of the Georgian Menshevik government's nationalism as follows: 'The free and independent Social-Democratic government of Georgia will ever remain in my memory as a classical example of an imperialistic minor nationality both in relation to its seizure of territory to within its own borders and in relation to the bureaucratic tyranny inside the state. Its chauvinism exceeds the highest limits' ('In Denikin's Russia and the Caucasus, 1919-1920', London 1921).
Maybe to mention to you what Sakharov said and why did he say about Georgia’s Empire??
The Georgian general leading the invading forces in September of 1992, Gia Karkarashvili, stated on TV that he would sacrifice 100,000 Georgians to kill all 97,000 Abkhazians, if that is what it took to keep Georgia's borders inviolate???
Giorgi Khaindrava, on the pages of Le Monde Diplomatique in April 1993. "there are only 80,000 Abkhazians, which means that we can easily and completely destroy the genetic stock of their nation by killing 15,000 of their youth. And we are perfectly capable of doing this."???
Gelayev was not in May of 1998 but in October 2001 – sent by Shevarnadze from Pankissi who paid him money.
Sorry for that Chechen, but what can we say , just that people are different , there are some who very greedy and when they see money , dollars for example, they can sell their honor and conscience and even their soul.
If you do not yet have an American military base officially( and you will say that they provide you just with toilet paper), you are so much eager to join NATO which did not accept you into its well- disposed genuine rows , tell me why ?
To give to NATO forces place fo having a rest in Ganmukhuri or to drink Borjomi mineral water ?
Or maybe to become a bridgehead in the contemporary rivalry of a big world power against another one ?
How was Georgia recognized – was not it due to personal abilities of Eduard in his successful managing in destruction of Berlin Wall and the socialist block?
After it has been recognized by the UN it started the wars against other nationalities , one by one and since that time was supported fully and even almost nursed by some leading countries?
You know perfectly where the reason lies.
If you consider Russia as an occupant , and you even are not going to talk about Nicaragua , as this country does not matter to you - this is your business.
The Abkhaz passport about which you talk so sarcastically is as far as known, something the most desirable to obtain by many many people especially outside of Abkhazia and even in the country you are writing from.
C~est la vie.
When you say that all ethnicities are so happy living in Georgia, then why do you have problems in Djavakheti and Marneuli , densely populated by Armenians and Azeri?
What about Turks - Meskhetians , when will they get the right to come back to their homes , or the return is the privilege just of Georgians to Abkhazia and South Ossetia ? Or you think if Georgia has a recognition , it can behave in such a way with the minorities or the democracy is just for you and no one else?
Kodor Valley , announced as Svaneti – is strange , it is better for you to see the historical maps and to learn History even being so adult .
It is never late.
The Upper Kodor villages of Abkhazia became empty when the majority of the Abkhaz nation left Abkhazia after the Russian – Caucasian War , in the war in which all Caucasian peoples were involved except yours.
The famous Imeretin polk assisted Russian tsarist army to fight against the freedom – loving peoples of the Northern Caucasus and Abkhazia as well.
Today, after you are mentioning not once about that war and the Makhadzhirs especially after you wanted to do the same in the 1992-92, and tried then not once , and was supposing after occupying South Ossetia – to start the same in Abkhazia last year , just if I were you I would not mention it at all in front of me. Especially, if you remember where was burnt down during the war the helicopter full of women , children and wounded from Tkvarchal to Gudauta.
The Abkhaz historian, George Dzidzaria in the Soviet times wrote a book about Makhadzir period of Abkhazia and this was a kind of historical monument to that time and tragedy which as you know perfectly, the Soviet scholars and even nowadays do not appreciate to talk a lot about.
But all that happened those old days is our tragedy and with the consequences we fight historically and sorry , but this is not your business to remind me things which we never forget.
And I repeat again.
I am not angry with you.
I am just frustrated to see how you do not want to understand your mistakes , offering me to read Chervonnaya which is mentioned in the link about Ardzinba you are persisiting me to see?
Or even to share responsibility with you ?
Read then Leonti Mroveli , the Life of the Kartlis kings and you will see whom he met on the banks of the river Kura , Alexandr Macedosky, when he invaded Kartli ?
Read page by page historical writings of Ivane Dzhavakeshvili , not Marika Lordkipanidze who just poisoned your nation and is standing at the origins of the modern Georgian nationalism.
Dear Losmira, Thank You, I accept the challenge. With pleasure and gratitude that I have a genuine Abkhaz to talk to.But let's agree on something before we even start:Let's not turn this into a discussion forum where people accuse each other, but a better chance to get to know each other and each others positions as we belong to the conflict sides.I hope you will understand what I mean. I feel we lived in one small place but we did not really know each other. That is what I learned whenI started to talk to Abkhaz online. I told you I gained really good friends. Have never seen them but :)) C'est la vie, like you said :) Soviet prison cells.Before throwing ideas in the empty space to accuse Georgians of being such bad diabolic vampire nationalists who occupy other peoples lands, lets analyze everything you say. You can throw facts in the air but without analysis they are just facts and we can spend days here throwing accusations at each other. Which we can perfectly do unless you are not tired of it. Important thing is to know WHY ? WHEN ? WERE ? what context ? what was the reason, cause ? Whats is the way you see ? what is the way I see ? Only by compromise and understanding we can seek the truth. NO "LOZUNGI" please (ti menya ponimaesh?) when we deal with a delicate problem like this. Anyway, I was glad you responded with facts, documents. Written documents are very good arguments. You used fragments of Georgian history, very brightly, I have to admit. But you know, fragments never make the full picture. Out of context, any sentence can be understood in many ways and there is no way out if they are caught this way. As you have many arguments I will try to combine them a little to be able to answer some together, as they often relate somehow:You know that perfectly that after Stalin death , every ten years, from 1956 , it was the Abkhaz people which every time made meetings and mass protests and claims about their rights and their problems in that Soviet time, Galina Starovoitova , a well –known strong defender on ethnic minorities, mentioned about in her researches. And this was done on the contrary to the Soviet mentality. (...)What about the educationalist Iakob Gogebashvili, who wrote an article in Tiflisskij Vestnik in 1877 entitled Who should be settled in Abkhazia?. In this article he argued that the neighbouring Mingrelians would make the best /kolonizatorebi/ (colonisers)... Or this one : On 4 February 1879 ‘Droeba’, the newspaper,urged its readers: ‘Let us expand while there is still time to do it, before other peoples come and settle the empty spaces of our Caucasus.’ While the aforementioned issue of ‘Shroma’ pleaded with its readers: ‘Send us lots of Rachintsy, Lechkhumtsians, Upper Imeretians and Mingrelians from our mountainous regions!’ ['Shroma', 1882, №15 (in Georgian)].???(...)Read then Leonti Mroveli , the Life of the Kartlis kings and you will see whom he met on the banks of the river Kura , Alexandr Macedosky, when he invaded Kartli ? Read page by page historical writings of Ivane Dzhavakeshvili , not Marika Lordkipanidze who just poisoned your nation and is standing at the origins of the modern Georgian nationalism. (...) Absolutely. These are facts one can not deny. I know how many meetings and protests Abkhaz people signed, in 1956 then in 1978 in 1988 again. I fully agree with this fact, it is a true fact. I also read Gogebashvili, I can read georgian. I have a quite good knowledge of Mroveli (transcripted by Vakhushti later). And yes Lordkipanidze is pure soviet propaganda. Losmira, I want you to take a pen now and note, that I agreed with the FACTS you stated. Now please lets go back and analyze the full picture these facts can be put into:The main center of disagreement between Georgians and Abkhazians comes at where they start history, what they consider true or false in their relationship. It is a question of standards that differ and the education that has been given to them. The self-consciousness of a Nation (which leads to self-determination) is different in Abkhazia and rest of Georgia. Even two people won't be able to form a group, if they do not have a common standard. Now here is what happens: Georgians identify themselves to an image of Georgia which is a synthetic combination of TRUE georgian history and FALSE way to interpret it. The True history, is the one you mentioned. Mroveli, Dzuansher, Vakhushti and other "Jamtaagmtsereli" combined with other prominent historians Greek, Roman, Arab, French, Italian e.t.c The false history is the way Soviets made it look. The simplistic assimilative version of how things are or were. The famous Abkhaz Gulia ;) wrote one of these false histories, not only Lordkipanidze.Now, Georgians identify their country to the United Georgia, the promised land. The free will union of three south caucasian provinces of Kartli, Tao-Klarjeti and Abkhazeti. That is a fact, this really happened in 963. Now, this union was a feudal inheritance of King Bagrat III, whose mother was Abkhaz, father was Kartlian and the uncle Ashot Kouropalates did not have any heirs. The base of union, in those times was mainly Religion and allegiance to one King, not ethnicity or language. For example, France during its formation as a modern Nation spoke: a) unstable french, b) britton (no relation to french), c) normand (no relation to french), d) navarrois (basque - no relation to french), occitan - some weird french, but it still pleaded allegiance to Louis XIVth. Spain still speaks - Galician, Castillan, Catalognian, Andalous, Basque. Bavarians, allthough speaking perfect german do not consider themselves German. Scots and Irish have nothing to do with Mr Hewitts Englishmen but still are part of the Same United Kingdom with each their own identities still subjects of her Majesty. Swiss have four backgrounds. Belgians two. But neverthless, they are Nations. In the wide sense of this term. And this term was perfectly used by some of prominent Abkhaz noblemen as "OBSHEGRUZINSKAYA SEMYA" (wide Georgian Family). In the letter dated March 23d 1873 to an emissary of Russian Empire: "from old times Abkhazia beloged to the former Georgian Kingdom. The last dynasty of Georgian Kings was Abkhaz. The Pitsunda Temple was throughout long centuries the throne of Abkhaz and Georgian catholicates.(...) The people of Abkhazia, till latest times had with peoples of Mengrelia, Samurzakano, Georgia and Imeretia the same religion, same traditions and laws. If the christian faith under influence of islam had been weakened, its traces have been conserved in the way Abkhaz live. (...) The Georgian kings never excluded Abkhaz from the WIDER GEORGIAN FAMILY before and after the break-up of the Kingdom. They (the georgian kings) were named kings of Georgians, Abkhaz, Imeretia and all other provinces of the former Georgian Kingdom. (...) Abkhazian people have conserved the oldest Georgian traditions. (..) No less strong proofs of belonging of Abkhazia to Georgia are the christian temples and ruins of old military buildings. The famous catsle on Prysta valley belonged were built by the Queen Tamara. The stone wall at Kelasuri by Vamekh Dadiani. The castless in Ashtuva, Otsartsy and many other places allthough of unidentified origin are identical to those in Mengrelia. Most of the local places have Georgian names. (...) the head of Abkhazia was always a famous member of Georgian nobility Shervashidze. " signed by Margania, Emukhvari, Inal-Ipa, Marshani THIS IS NOT ME TALKING. THIS IS ABKHAZ THEMSELVES. in 1873. Please understand that I am not trying to convince you that this is the only truth and I am not trying to make you change your lastname. All I ask, almost beg for is that you try to understand our position without calling us crazy lying nationalists. Not everything we say is wrong because we are Georgian. We have our arguments and vision too. We are also children of the same land.I will go back a little. One of my old posts had a question about "Mohajirstvo". You choose not to answer my question about the role of Russia. I don't want you to think, I am playing a psychologist. But honestly, WHAT ABOUT RUSSIA ? Let's forget Georgia and Abkhazia for few sentences. Let's talk about our common abusive "father". Adoptive father of course :). The one who adopted us with force in early 19th century. Both, Abkhazia and Georgia. Although correct would be all three of us. Abkhazia, Imeretia and Kartli-Kakhetia (Gruzia), little provinces torn apart by Persia and Turkey. Torn by wars and continuous instability, Russian Empire offers the Eastern Kingdom of Kartli Kakhetia its help. Constantinopolis fell in 1453, In exchange of loyalty, the king Erekle signs in 1783 a treaty of Georgievsk which should guarantee the involoability of Georgias (pardon Kartli-Kakhetias) borders, the protection of its people and faith by an allmighty neighbor whom Erekle sees as the only way to get back to christian Europe, where Georgians belong. He is fiercly decieved. IIn 1795 Aga Mohammad Khan enters Kartli-Kakhetia with an enormous army. Erekle gives last defenses of Tbilisi but his small army is broken and Aga Khan burns the city, killing 100 000. For a month the city was all smoke. Georgia is destroyed. Russia did not help, instead, now that the entire Georgian army is annihilated they enter Tbilisi and breaching the Georgievsk treaty abolish the kingdom. It is the year 1801. The Kingdom of Kartli Kakhetia is now, Tiflis Gubernya of Russian Empire. In 1810 Abkhazia joins the Empire. Imeretia is turned into Kutaisi Gubernya. Begins what we call the time of RUSSIFICATION. In entire Georgia, Georgian is forbidden from schools, churches and every public place. Georgians read and write in secret.One salvation, Georgians have an alphabet, and still can resist better then Abkhaz. Veidenbaum a famous caucasologist of those times (like Mr Hewitt now) wrote around 1860s:"Abkhazian language does not have an alphabet and literature, so it is doomed in near future. The question is, which language will replace it ? It is clear the role of communicator of cultural ideas should not be Georgian but Russian. I think, the creation of Abkhaz alphabet should not be a goal on its own but a mean used in church and schools in order to weaken the need they have to speak Georgian. So it can be ultimately replaced by the state language (Russian)" Now about the article in Shroma. I explained that to Mr Cimino. Iakob Gogebashvili never says, replace Abkhaz by Georgian. You have to watch every word there to understand the context and right meaning. He says, Bring us, Imeretians, Gurians, Rachians e.t.c. It is a clear message, he considers Abkhaz as part of the Wide Georgian Family as he mentions them alongside other Georgian provinces. As for word colonisator, it is a colonisation of an empty land of course not a colonisator like colonizing Africa. What Gogebashvili says, do not let other peoples take the land that belongs to our family. That is the message of this article. So here is the resume. Georgians have a vision of Wide Georgian Family, which includes Abkhaz. In fact Georgian Constitution says, on the teritory of the Republic of Georgia live two autochtonous Nations, Georgian and Abkhaz. It does not say, Abkhaz are a subclass of Georgians or something :).Abkhaz (majority) on the contrary do not see themselves as Georgians, but rather separate. Now, we can not convince anyone to think they should be Georgian, unless they like the idea ;). You see the letter I mentioned, these particular Abkhaz liked the idea of the big Georgian Family (or whatever you want to call it). They liked to be part of a rich common history, achievements. That is the way how it was before communists. Of course they never signed for Beria and Bolsheviks. All I am saying is that perception has changed. Now it's too early to talk about new ideas of Union. South Caucasian Federation or United Georgian Kingdom or whatever you may imagine, Abkhaz have difficulties to think themselves in one state with Georgians. On the other hand, There are 239 000 Georgians that belong to Abkhazia. They are sons and daughters of Abkhazia. They are citizen, as much as You are. They should be given their rights. Maybe, there is no other alternative then Abkhazian Independence. But even so, to have a sustainable long happy peaceful future, a compromise must be found. If an independent Abkhazia is like Belgium, respecting the rights of all citizen, Abkhaz and Georgian equally, then it may be a dream come true to Abkhaz as a free independent state but also a second homeland to Georgians.Or else, why not a federation. Maybe bring back the king we had in common, bring back the common church institution. Be like United Kingdom. Different states, yet united on historic and legal background. Think about those things Losmira. Do not start screaming the angry stuff at me because I have enough pain here caused by Russian Bombs and aggressive Caucasus agenda. Now painful subjects:Karkarashvili. Yes he said what you mentioned and he should be brought to tribunal as should be Ardzinba for his statements. As should have been all the instigators and hands of a bloody war. Khaindrava said it to Le monde dimplomatique. Yes he did. Again you took them out of context but no matter what, they are terrible statements. But I remind you again, V.Smir called on Abkhaz to kill all georgians too. I fully accept the horrific meaning of those statements. And You still try to persuade yourself it only applies to one side. These statement were made from both sides during war in 1992.Few weeks ago, the chairman of Human Rights Commitee of Abkhazia, Batal Kobakhia was cited in Radio Svoboda : "The displaced Georgians, Kobakhia says unapologetically, "will never be able to return." Similar declarations can be heard from virtually every Abkhaz, regardless of political stripe. " This is the guy who is supposed to protect Human Rights. He just considers, he has right not to let 239 000 people go back to their home where they are born, raised and where they belong by every moral and legal perspective. Do you Losmira, as a human being understand the gravity of your position ? How is your statament different of the one made by Karkarashvili ? To me it's part of the same philosophy. Allthough I am sure you are a much better person then Karkarashvili. But unfortunately you are part of the Powerful anti Georgian current fed by Russian Media that runs through Abkhazia (these are not my words, this is the same Radio Svoboda) You wrote: The Abkhaz passport about which you talk so sarcastically is as far as known, something the most desirable to obtain by many many people especially outside of Abkhazia and even in the country you are writing from. You know, A PASS-PORT includes word PASS and PORT, which means it is supposed to allow you PASS and MOVE FREELY as A FREE CITIZEN of a Legal country, not FORBID you to go anywhere. WHat your passport does, it is an apartheid document, which DOES NOT allow half of Abkhaz citizens to go to their homes as it does not Allow Abkhaz to go anywhere as it is as legal as a toilet paper beyond Psou. And That is not sarcastic statement. That is the sad truth. When you say that all ethnicities are so happy living in Georgia, then why do you have problems in Djavakheti and Marneuli , densely populated by Armenians and Azeri? What about Turks - Meskhetians , when will they get the right to come back to their homes , or the return is the privilege just of Georgians to Abkhazia and South Ossetia ? Or you think if Georgia has a recognition , it can behave in such a way with the minorities or the democracy is just for you and no one else? Good point. In fact, it is not only my personal opinion but problems usually are not ethnic. They are economic. The problems you mention are not as big as you think. They are of punctual sense. The minority problems exist everywhere punctually. In France and in Spain there is not only problem with local muslim populations but also aggressive separatism from Basque and Corse countries. But not all peoples are involved, but some groups. Turkey has a 25 year old war in Kurdistan. So compare to that Georgia is a paradise.The Djavakheti and Marneuli problems, will with help of Armenian and Azeri communities be solved. They are working on it together, plus with lessons learned from the past.I do not disagree there was a very bad minority politics in Georgia. But once the economy is good, once we have confidence in each other and once we have GOOD WILL everyone will forget problems like why some lastnames finish on dze and others on ba. As for Turk-Meskhetians, there is a law of repatriation. Georgia took a commitment at EU to repatriate all those who desired to come back. The problem was mostly armenians who live now in Djavakheti (Meskheti), they fear a little the turkish element, but with proper infrastructure and pace, everything will be fine. If you do not yet have an American military base officially( and you will say that they provide you just with toilet paper), you are so much eager to join NATO which did not accept you into its well- disposed genuine rows , tell me why ? To give to NATO forces place fo having a rest in Ganmukhuri or to drink Borjomi mineral water ? Or maybe to become a bridgehead in the contemporary rivalry of a big world power against another one ? How was Georgia recognized – was not it due to personal abilities of Eduard in his successful managing in destruction of Berlin Wall and the socialist block? You have many ideas concentrated here. But I will respond one by one. NATO did not take Georgia because Germany was against. Germany has a pipeline deal with Russia. France followed Germany.All other states voted for, that is 25 states. Georgia wants to join NATO for historic reasons. it considers that the only long lasting guarantee of security and development for all of us, Georgians, Abkhaz e.t.c is to be integrated into Euro-Atlantic structures. These structures are inheritance of European culture and we belong to that cultural space. Also it is a civilized bloc of civilized countries which respect the agreements (unlike Russia which violates all the treaties and agreements ever signed: Starting from Georgievsk Treaty, passing by Sukhumi agreement of September ceasefire, finishing with Medvedev-Sarkozy)Shevardnadnze, yes played a role in Georgias recognition but USSR had collapsed. It was a hardly achieved independence for our nations. After it (Georgia) has been recognized by the UN it started the wars against other nationalities , one by one and since that time was supported fully and even almost nursed by some leading countries? You know perfectly where the reason lies. I don't understand what is your point in this sentence. I have no idea what was nursed and supported by who. I know Russia supported separatisms in Georgia. That I can state 100% and every child can confirm. And this has clear reasons, keep Georgia under it's boot. For the rest, please explain yourself. Dear Losmira, it took me long time to respond. Thanks for reading it with calm and consideration as much as I read your postings. Again best wishes. And hope to hear from you. Abziaraz.
To Avaliani once again.
You may say you are lucky.
You can say that you have won a lottery introducing to me the point of view of yours on all the facts and events which stood our peoples so far from each other instead of living a happy neighborhood. Even if you are trying to be polite and tolerant and did agree with those facts I introduced here, though not to all, asking me to step out from the way to accusations, but then yourself returning to it, I see and I repeat again, time did not change you at all as well as the circumstances of the old and recent history. The historical events which you interpret in the way of 1989 you had done and why, tell me should I return to it back and talk about?
Why did I say about Leonti Mroveli ?
85 Александр завоевал все края земные. Прошел он с запада на юг, на севере перевалил [горы] Кавказа и явился в Картли. И нашел он всех [28] картлийцев злейшими из всех племен и родов, ибо, прелюбодействуя, не блюли они родства при вступлении в брак, съедали всякую тварь, поедали прах, как звери бессловесные, и об образе действий их нет слов. И, видя этих насельников вокруг той реки Куры, жестокие языческие племена, каковых мы называем бунтурками 85а и кипчаками, дался диву Александр, ибо никакое из племен не творило [ничего] подобного 85. Текст воспроизведен по изданию: Мровели Леонти. Жизнь картлийских царей. М. Наука. 1979. © текст - Цулая Г. В. 1979 © OCR - Тарсков А. 2003 ...
www.vostlit.info/Texts/rus8/Mroveli/text.phtml?id...
No comment from my part.
Ask any historian you know there if they can tell you anything about “ DIVAN Abkhazskih tsarej “ where is it now ?
Why speculating on the historical events so glued artificially to each other you forget to say that Georgia was the first one which joined Russia while the Abkhaz princedom as other peoples of the Northern Caucasus were resisting it ?
Why the Abkhaz king Leon the 2 united Abkhazia with Georgia ?
Maybe I have to tell you that the Kartli and Kakheti princedoms as other parts of Georgia were so weak an could not themselves resist any enemy and all fightings were usually finished that then the enemies invaded Abkhazia?
But you , to your unfortunate you were brought up on the theory of Pavle Ingorokva , who in the middle of the XX century made a destructive effect on the conscience of your nation and horrifying consequences of produces its inhuman echo even here in this discussion.
The true father of that historical deform and unheard distortion was Koba Djugashvili who as I read in the other of your today comment you need to live many generation to close his museum and stop immortalizing that evil born in Gori , ( but is not Gori Georgian town ?)
You mentioned Dyrmit Gulia “History of Abkhazia” , he had been forced to refuse from in those Stalin and Beria black triumph years and so preserved his life ?
It was his personal deal and not of ours or yours at all.
The abstract of the letter of the Abkhaz noble princes you are so happily mentioning .
This fact is not something of a secret, the ironical mystery even is not in that fact why did you lift it out of the context and did not describe why at least on the whole they wrote it? But I will tell it if you seem not to know it .
Just from their selfish ends, no more is inside, they wanted peasants to buy lands from them in Abkhazia as it had been done in Georgia when Russia abolished serfage.
Your psychological example by which you tried to show the position of Russia as far as you could ugly is disgustive in its essence.
I would not like to say that it speaks about you this moment more then of those ypu are trying to attract my mind as if I am not from those ones whose family survived the time of Amhadzhirra when as it is sadly known and repeated not once here or there, Abkhazia was devastated , empty and ruined.
What your Jakob Gogebashvili wrote – everyone read and do not think that just you can read it in Georgian , it became a “ privilege “ to be learned all over Abkhazia when Stalin and Beria decided to georganize the Abkhaz nation and as Stalin said “to pour it into Georgian nation?
Or maybe this you did not know? But when the success was poor they decided to displace us and that month when the decision was taken he simply died , and even if some idiots would like to revive his time , he appeared to be a human being which born once died one day too.
If in the Russian forums you noticed that there are people who fight for him – I can just express my deepest condolences to them, no more.
They are poorer much more then those who became victims of that historical period.
All your comparisons of Georgia to Spain , France or Great Britain , I will not comment a lot but just smile and regret when you say that comparing to some Georgia you think is a paradise .
You say it after the wars in SO, Abkhazia, Megrelia starting them not once?
You suffered last year just five days , you expected that the Russians would not turn a finger and while the world was enjoying the Olympics in China , Saakashvili whom you do not blame a second ,made an order to bombard South Ossetia with 27 Grad systems ?
Who told you that this will be forgotten very quickly?
I was in Abkhazia the whole year of the war and I know how disgustive is the noise and the sound of not only Grad systems and I could not forget it.
When Kobakhia said it as you again torn it from the context he explained that while security is not provided to all parties , to those who return back and to those who live here one can not talk about any return of refugees and the example is the Gal district, to which ARDZINBA Vladislav signed the agreement about the returning back of GAL residents and they do not have there normal life yet as they live in the border with the country which preserve its military aims.
If that 239000 though there are Gal people who came back ? There are some who live in Abkhazia in all parts and did not leave it from the end of the war, why you do not mention them?
At least you did not say as Saaakashvili and his supporters say more then 300000 ?
Can you name to me how many Azeri came back to Nagorny Karabakh , Russians to Chechnya ? Serbs to Kosovo? To Croatia? Bosnia? Turks –Meskhs to Meskhetia ?
As to Gal district?
If others , and you included , you consider yourself Abkhaz citizens, then why you so dirtily talk about the Abkhaz passport ?
As toilet paper ?
Ask the idiotic dealers they will tell you how much is it in the black market and who strive so much to but it , maybe on the contrary , the Georgian passport which is not appreciated and will never be accepted even if you try to give a lot of money for taking it ?In Abkhazia it will not even be used as a toilet paper.
The factor of Russia.
Which you liked recently with all your communist bosses so much.
I can just promise you strongly , we are not going to join any state , the freedom is too much sweet even as a word to give it to anyone , but nowadays , paradoxically , the wheel of the history turns so that it is Russia which is supporting us and guaranties security from you .
Did you want me to tell you about it openly?
My grand grandfather from my mother side, returned back from the exile from Turkey ,but his mother died there from anguish and depression to see Abkhazia again, and her beautiful Abkhaz name was given to me at my birth , I say it to you just to make you realize a little bit to whom you are talking especially about Russian politics in my Abkhazia , as in the 19 or 20 century. Or of today.
The reality changes, they have their geopolitical interests, if the USA might have it why not them either?
But the question is in YOU – not in Russians or Americans , or any other powers, as one well – known European journalist said that the tragedy is that in between two large powers rivalry and interests you made us mince each other and if a second you think that obtaining Abkhazia you will be happy here – YOU ARE MISTAKEN.
Irakly , the train of the united country , has gone ,so the hope of it sounds stupid , you burnt the territorial integrity of Georgian Socialist republic yourself, you should have been thinking about federal Georgia much more earlier at the end of 80 ies, not as Zviad proposed to you ‘Georgia for Georgians” ,but if it didn’t happen so this is your destiny. The last abstract of my previous comment which you did not understand I will paraphrase, to be clear)))
Georgia was recognized by the world community, the UN, World Bank, etc, just because of the influence of Shevarnadze personality and his impact into the collapse of the Soviet era , Kitovani and ether bandits used this and played on it and established Gossovet junta , so that was the moment when the Georgian state in those soviet borders came to the end on the day of the 14 August , 1993.
For ever.
All I have written to you are my views, my thoughts and it is my response to you , I am not a psychologist, neither a historian or a polytologist , I am sorry that you have learned the Abkhaz online and when you lived here if you did it you did not know us well .
But on the contrary , I knew you, I mean Georgians , then and now, and not online but in life and I have friends and they are the best of you and will never appreciate what you wrote to me.
Adios!
George Hewitt has written an article entitled "Abkhazia, Georgia, and history: a response" (25 August 2009), in which he discusses some of the points raised in this discussion. The url is here - http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/abkhazia-georgia-and-history-a-response
Dear Mr Hayes, I am preparing a large response to Mr Hewitts "response" that I will post below his article. Please make sure it gets published. I have no epaulettes of a scientist that would allow me to publish articles and my english is mediocre for such illustrious enterprises. Yet what I can gather as a citizen of my country, heavily involved and concerned by the subject is more then enough to prove Mr Hewitts Pamphlets are one-sided and serve only one result, alientation and hatered. While our society, really damaged and concerned by the situation has other goals, respect of all human beings and their dignity. Their rights to their homeland, regardless their ethnical background or religious beliefs.Thank You very much for the opportunity you give us to express our very founded and grounded views.Best regards
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