Georgians - Orientation

Identification. Georgians are one of the most numerous peoples of the Caucasus region, which divides Russia from Turkey and Iran. Georgians speak a group of languages that are not known to be related to any others. They have lived in Caucasia for at least three millennia and are counted among the area's native peoples. Most Georgians are Orthodox Christians, but some are Sunni Muslims. Georgians are the majority people of the Georgian Republic, which declared its independence in 1991.

Location. Georgians live at the east end of the Black Sea in a wedge of land between the Caucasus Mountains and the Armenian plateau. To the south and east are Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Northeast across the mountain crests live Circassian, Karachay, Balkar, Ossetic, Chechen-Ingush, and Daghestanian peoples in autonomous regions and republics of the Russian Republic. Georgia itself is divided into about twenty traditional provinces marked by distinctive landscapes, dialects, histories, cooking, folklore, and architecture. Kakheti and Kartli are the principal eastern provinces; Imereti, Mingrelia, and Guria the largest western provinces. The Georgian Republic also includes the Ajarían Autonomous Republic in the southwest next to Turkey, the Abkhazian Autonomous Republic in the northwest, and the South Ossetian Autonomous Region in the middle Caucasus. Ajarians are Muslim Georgians. Ossetes and Abkhazians are non-Georgians, many of whom wish to secede from Georgia.

Georgia covers 70,000 square kilometers, mostly hills and mountains. Across the north, the main chain of the Caucasus makes a wall of snowcapped peaks, the highest reaching above 5,000 meters. The Surami range then divides the southern lowlands in two: a wet, western crescent where rivers flow down toward the Black Sea, and long, drier eastern valleys that lead into Azerbaijan. The countryside is thus extremely varied and includes mountain slopes with rocky river gorges, alpine meadows, and old pine forests; a southern highland area of upland steppe, extinct volcanoes, and scrub-covered hills; a central, temperate band with fields, orchards, vineyards, and deciduous forest—the heartland of the country; and, in the far west, a subtropical coastal strip of tea and citrus plantations and forests thick with undergrowth. Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, stands in the east on the Mt'k'vari River (also known as the Kura or Cyrus).

Demography. As of 1989 the Republic of Georgia had a population of 5,456,000, of whom 538,000 live in Abkhazia, 382,000 in Ajaría, and 99,000 in South Ossetia. Georgians make up about 69 percent of the total, Armenians 9 percent, Russians 7 percent, Azerbaijanis 5 percent, Ossetians 3 percent, Greeks and Abkhazians each 2 percent, and Ukrainians and Kurds each 1 percent. Russians and Armenians are concentrated in cities; Abkhazians and Greeks live mostly in Abkhazia. Ossetes are the majority of South Ossetia (Shida Kartli), but a greater number live in other parts of Georgia. Only 4 percent of the Georgians in the Soviet Union, some 200,000 people, live outside Georgia, mostly in major cities. An estimated 150,000 Georgians, or people who recognize Georgian ancestry, are in Iran, and another 150,000, including 50,000 Laz, in Turkey. In the thirteenth century Georgians numbered some 5 million people, but waves of invasion and war reduced that figure to around 500,000 in 1800; Russian rule then allowed a recovery.

The birth rate in the Georgian republic is 16.7 per 1,000 people, the death rate 8.6. Infant mortality is 19.6 per 1,000 live births; life expectancy is 76 years for women, 68 for men. In 1917 about 25 percent of Georgia's population lived in cities; by 1989 this had risen to 56 percent. Tbilisi alone has a population of 1.2 million. In fact, some rural Georgians commute to city jobs, and urban dwellers spend much time with relatives in the country. Nearly all Georgians are literate in Georgian, and 15 percent have completed higher education, one of the highest percentages in the former Soviet Union. According to the 1989 census, 98 percent of Georgians considered Georgian their native language, and 33 percent claimed mastery of Russian. Most Georgians know some Russian, but for children, grandparents, and those in rural areas this may amount to very little. Nine percent of Georgian men and 6 percent of Georgian women marry people of other nationalities.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Georgian language, together with the less widely spoken Mingrelian, Laz, and Svan languages, makes up the Kartvelian (or South Caucasian) Family. Mingrelian and Laz are closely related, and neither is intelligible to those who speak only Georgian; Svan is quite different and apparently diverged from the others at an earlier date. Mingrelians live in Georgia's western lowlands, and Svans in two valleys up in the highest parts of the Caucasus; both peoples now also speak Georgian. Despite their linguistic differences Mingrelians and Svans regard themselves as Georgians, and Mingrelia and Svanetia are counted among Georgia's provinces. Almost all of the Laz live just over the Turkish border in Artvin and Rize provinces; they sometimes consider themselves distinct from Georgians. Scholars have tried to relate the Kartvelian languages to the neighboring Northwest and Northeast Caucasian families, to Indo-European, and even to Basque, but this question remains open.

Georgian is written in an alphabet of its own; there are three related scripts, only one of which is in current use. The order of the letters and their numerical values are based on those of the Greek alphabet, but the shapes of the Georgian letters themselves indicate no regular correspondences to other alphabets. The first surviving literature in Georgian dates from the fifth century, soon after the country was Christianized; before this time, Georgians wrote in Greek, Persian, and other languages. There may have been a pre-Christian Georgian literature that was lost or destroyed. The Georgian language is conventionally divided at the eleventh century into Old and Modern periods; Georgians today can read even the oldest texts with fair comprehension. The speech of Kartli Province is the basis of a standard literary language, developed in the nineteenth century; the north Georgian mountain dialects (Pshavian, Khevsurian, Rachan) have more archaic grammatical features, and western ones (Gurian, Ajarian) share some grammatical features with Mingrelian. Mingrelians, Svans, and the few Laz in Georgia use Georgian as their written language. Modern Georgian has twenty-eight consonants and five vowels, each represented by a single letter. Up to eight consonants may cluster together at the beginning of a word; however, Georgian favors open syllables and polysyllabic words. Stress is weak; Georgian verse utilizes lines with a fixed number of syllables and makes much use of alliteration and rhyme. Georgian has seven noun cases, ten basic tense-aspects, and four classes of verbs. The verbal system is complex: verbs are agglutinative and mark both subjects and objects. The grammar is sensitive to animacy and plurality, but there is no grammatical gender. Georgian has borrowed words freely from Arabic, Persian, Greek, and the modern European languages.

The Russian language was formerly a mandatory school subject in Georgia, and the urban intelligentsia speaks it fluently. Many, even in villages, also know some German, English, or Turkish; linguistic facility is a cardinal virtue, along with bravery and intelligence. Nonetheless, Georgian remains the dominant language in all aspects of people's lives and a national rallying point. Government, business, and university classes are conducted in Georgian; most newspapers, books, and television programming are also in Georgian. In 1978 the Communist party proposed giving Russian and minority languages equal status with Georgian under the Georgian constitution but backed down in the face of demonstrations.