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Soviet Union [USSR] Georgians
Georgians possess perhaps the oldest culture among the major
nationalities of the Soviet Union. The ancestral Georgian tribes
appeared in the Caucasus probably during the second millennium B.C.
These tribes began to unite into larger political entities in the
first millennium B.C., and by the sixth century B.C. the first
Georgian kingdom was established. From the first century A.D. until
the early twelfth century, Georgians endured a succession of
conquests by the Romans, Iranians, Arabs, and Seljuk Turks. After
each conquest, Georgians were able to regain their independence,
reaching a golden age during the late twelfth and early thirteenth
centuries, when Georgian power extended to include other parts of
the Caucasus. Between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries,
Georgia was invaded first by Chinggis Khan's and then by
Tamerlane's hordes. The destruction wrought by these invasions and
internal feuding between the Georgian rulers and their vassals led
to the disintegration of Georgia at the end of the fifteenth
century. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the Georgians faced
two new powerful foes, Turkey and Iran. Unable to resist the threat
of either, the Georgians sought the aid of their Russian neighbors
and in 1783 signed a treaty of friendship with imperial Russia,
which guaranteed Georgia's independence and territorial integrity.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, Russia began
the process of annexation of Georgian lands, which was completed in
the second half of the nineteenth century.
The nineteenth-century nationalist reawakening that swept the
Russian Empire and aroused its nationalities had a much stronger
socialist content in Georgia than in any other non-Russian part of
the empire. From the beginning, it was closely identified with
Marxism (see Glossary), particularly the
Menshevik (see Glossary)
branch of Russian Marxism. In 1918 Georgian Mensheviks, who were in
control of the revolutionary ferment in Georgia, declared Georgian
independence. In 1921 the Red Army invaded Georgia in support of a
Bolshevik coup there and established it as a Soviet republic; in
December 1922 the Georgian Republic entered the union of Soviet
republics as part of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist
Republic. The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic was established as
a union republic of the Soviet Union in 1936.
According to the 1989 census, Georgians numbered almost 4
million, and 95 percent of them lived in the Georgian Republic.
Only the Baltic nationalities were as concentrated in their own
republics. Within its borders were also two autonomous republics,
the Abkhazian Autonomous Republic and the Adzhar Autonomous
Republic, and one autonomous oblast, the South Ossetian Autonomous
Oblast.
In 1989 over 5.4 million people lived in this densely populated
republic, of whom about 69 percent were Georgians. Armenians,
Russians, and Azerbaydzhanis were the largest national minorities
in the republic. Since 1970 the number of Russians in the republic
has steadily decreased.
Georgians speak an Ibero-Caucasian language that belongs to the
Caucasian group of languages. Like the Armenian language, the
Georgian language has a distinct alphabet. The overwhelming
majority of Georgians living in the Soviet Union and 99.7 percent
of Georgians in their own republic considered Georgian their native
tongue in 1989.
Georgians constitute one of the most highly educated
nationalities in the Soviet Union. In 1971 Jews were the only
nationality having a greater number of students in higher education
institutions, and Georgians had the third highest number of
scientific workers relative to their share of the population. Yet
the Georgian Republic was one of the least urbanized. In 1987 only
55 percent of Georgian residents lived in towns and cities, and as
of 1970 only 44 percent of all Georgians in the Soviet Union lived
in urban areas. Among the major cities in the Georgian Republic
were Tbilisi, the capital with 1.3 million people, and Kutaisi with
230,000; three other cities had populations over 100,000.
Traditionally, Georgians have been very active participants in
the CPSU. In 1983 Georgians ranked first, ahead of the Russians, in
the size of party membership relative to their share of the total
population. The most famous Georgian CPSU member was Joseph V.
Stalin, whose surname was Dzhugashvili. Other prominent Georgians
were the Bolshevik leader Sergo Ordzhonikidze and the longtime
chief of the secret police, Lavrenty Beria. Eduard A. Shevardnadze,
a full member of the Politburo and minister of foreign affairs in
the 1980s, was also a Georgian.
Data as of May 1989
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