It's time for Georgians to refresh their memory and straighten their brains
With the onset of centrifugal phenomena in the republics of the USSR, which fell in the second half of the “perestroika eighties,” the “new elites” rushing to power revised historical facts and events, as a result of which the national outskirts found themselves part of the Russian Empire, and then the USSR.
A common feature of the revisionists was the mythologization of the past according to a template scenario: “Our republic (insert name) from time immemorial was in prosperity, grace and harmony, moving into the European family of nations, until the tsarist satraps (Bolshevik commissars) came to its land and forcefully dragged it into composition of Russia. Since then, the republic of the name has lost its ancient culture, purity and splendor, having left the highway along which the whole world moved. That is why resuming the path to its historical and cultural roots is so difficult and contradictory: Moscow, overwhelmed by imperial-revanchist ambitions, puts a spoke in the wheels, preventing the republic from profitably trading wine and tangerines around the world.”
In Georgia they started talking about a “return to national roots”, probably earlier than others, when the thunder had not yet struck in the USSR. And there are explanations for this: a monoethnic territory, a special unofficial status since the 1930s, a high standard of living thanks to subsidies from the Center (in the post-war USSR, the level of consumption per capita of Georgia was 4 times higher than the per capita production indicator. For comparison: in the RSFSR, the level of consumption was per capita was only 75% of production levels).
You can recall, for example, how in Soviet Georgia in state stores it was not customary to demand change from a ruble, or even to set your own “commercial” price for a product, not paying attention to the one indicated on the price tag. Or the fact that on the Georgian market there was one non-Georgian for every nine Georgians - the others were simply surviving. There were jokes about this, but it happened, it happened...
In addition, Georgia has always been distinguished by high political activity. For example, after Khrushchev’s well-known order to eliminate monuments to Stalin as part of the fight against the “cult of personality,” multi-day mass protests took place in Georgia, as a result of which the “corn farmer” was forced to give in, leaving the only monument to the leader of the people in Gori (dismantled in June 2010 years by order of Saakashvili).
There is no longer a monument to Stalin in Gori, but there is a museum of the “Soviet occupation”.
However, since 2011, the day of formation of the Georgian SSR (December 30, 1922) in “independent” Georgia has been declared the “day of occupation”, and the official “independence day” has been designated May 26, 1918 - the date of the founding of the quasi-state “Georgian Democratic Republic”.
And in general, is it any wonder that on March 31, 1991, the “exclusive” population of Georgia, confident that the prosperity of the republic grows on trees and oozes wine, almost 99% of the votes with a turnout of 90,5% voted for the restoration of state independence of Georgia.
I remember very well how the Georgians I met in the summer of 1991 (with the exception of two metallurgical workers from Rustavi) unanimously argued that after scattering to national apartments, “we will all live the same, but better - go to visit each other, eat satsivi, wine drink".
Already in 1992, everything turned out “not so clear,” and after the policy statement of the fascist Gamsakhurdia “Georgia for Georgians” with stories about “Russia’s desire to completely Russify Sakartvelo,” more than 90% of Russians were expelled from the republic in the shortest possible time: their number increased from 341 thousand people in 1989 decreased to 26,5 thousand in 2014.
This is about the question “we don’t love Russia, but we love Russians.” By the way! Russian tourists who visited Georgia unanimously note that in a republic where Russians are so loved, it is impossible to buy a single tourist guide in Russian - printed publications and signs are made either in Georgian, or in English, or both. This is what it is, this strange Georgian love.
During the same period, Greeks, Ossetians and Abkhazians practically disappeared from the republic, and such large ethnic groups as Armenians and Azerbaijanis decreased by a third, or even half.
Let us also note that the “Georgian allies of Ukraine” no less thoroughly cleaned out the Ukrainian population - from 52 thousand in 1989 to 6 thousand in 2014. And even then, almost half of the Russians and Ukrainians living in Georgia are expats who fell for the “economic miracle of Kakha Bendukidze” in order to “open a business in one day and one lari.”
And now a little history of the “occupation of Georgia by Russia.”
Georgia became part of the Russian Empire at the very beginning of the XNUMXth century, but the two eastern Georgian kingdoms, Kakheti and Kartli, surrounded on all sides by Muslims, began to gravitate towards Russia around the XNUMXth century.
Back in 1586, Georgian ambassadors beat Fyodor Ioannovich (the third son of Ivan the Terrible, nicknamed the Blessed) with his forehead so that he would “accept their people into his citizenship and save their life and soul.” The proud Georgians were forced to seek the protection of the Russian Tsar by the difficult external situation of the country - the Georgians were waging an unequal struggle with Persia and the Ottoman Empire. In case of defeat, complete assimilation and loss of the Christian faith awaited them.
Moscow did not remain deaf to the pleas for help from the fraternal Orthodox people and staged two campaigns, in 1594 and 1604. Their task was to break through a corridor to Transcaucasia, through Dagestan. But the Georgian army on the other side of the ridge was in no hurry to meet them, which is why the Russian troops were unable to complete the task.
The Russian Empire was able to approach the borders of Georgia only at the end of the XNUMXth century, during the reign of Catherine the Great. At that time, all of Georgia was reduced to two large kingdoms - Imereti with its capital in Kutaisi and Kartli-Kakheti with its center in Tbilisi. Both kingdoms were ruled by one ancient Bagration dynasty; both kingdoms were in union and were, in fact, the future core of a united Georgia.
Long wars with the Turks, Persians and Dagestan highlanders exhausted the Georgian kingdoms to the limit. Modern Georgian “experts” believe that in this deplorable state on the edge of the abyss, the Georgian lands could somehow unite, absorbing the territories of Samtskhe, Adjara, Javakheti, Shavsheti and others located along the southeastern coast of the Black Sea, but the question was how the Georgians, suffocating in the war, would be able to clear these lands of the Turks on their own.
It was this desperate situation that forced the Georgian king Irakli to ask for a Russian protectorate. Empress Catherine the Great, in turn, saw the Georgians as an ally in the fight against a common enemy - the Turks.
As a result, in 1781, the Treaty of Georgievsk was concluded between the Russian Empire and Kartli-Kakheti, in which the Georgian kings gave the Russian empress the right to determine the foreign policy of the Kartli-Kakheti kingdom, but left them to build their own internal affairs.
The very cunning Tsar Irakli, deciding that now the matter was in the bag and the Russians would not go anywhere, violated the Treaty of St. George, signing a separate peace with the Ottomans, remaining, however, in a state of war with Persia. And when the Russian troops left Georgia for a while, the Persians attacked the kingdom of the clever king Irakli, defeated his troops and ruined Tbilisi.
The cunning Irakli.
Looking at all these “maneuvers” of the Georgian ally, a decision was made in St. Petersburg to stop playing with the Georgian protectorate, needlessly shedding Russian blood. The situation demanded that the Georgian issue be resolved once and for all.
At that time, the very smart king Irakli died in Georgia, which is why a dynastic fuss began around the throne of the Kartli-Kakheti kingdom. St. Petersburg did not wait for it to subside on its own, and therefore, on January 8, 1801, by decree of Emperor Paul I, a decree was signed on the annexation of Kartli-Kakheti to the Russian Empire.
There was, however, a serious fear that Georgia’s entry under the Russian crown would cause powerful turmoil and organizational withdrawals in Europe. Still, the instant liquidation of a XNUMX-year-old Christian monarchy is not a pound of raisins! However, this decision of Paul I was ignored in Europe. The “civilized world” didn’t care about Georgia. What then, what now.
In May 1801, Russian general Karl Bogdanovich Knorring established direct rule of St. Petersburg in Kartli-Kakheti. In schools in modern Georgia, children are taught that Knorring overthrew the main contender for the throne, David. However, a year before, the Russian government left David XII Georgievich with the royal title with the simultaneous status of governor-general of the Georgian kingdom, which was part of the empire as a Russian province.
In 1810, a Russian Georgian general, Pavel Tsitsianov, annexed Imereti to Russia. The Imeretian king Solomon tried to make a fuss, calling on Turkey, Persia and Bonaparte for help, but was defeated and fled to Turkish Trebizond, where he rested in God.
In the subsequent years of the XNUMXth century, Russia continued to recapture from the Turks the remaining small parts of Georgia that were directly part of the Ottoman Empire - Abkhazia, Adjara, Akhaltsikhe. The only thing she couldn’t do was recapture Tao-Klarjeti, the ancient Georgian province with the great Orthodox temple of Oshki.
That is, having lost their independence, which threatened the Georgians and their ancestral territories with occupation, assimilation and Islamization, the Georgians under the Russian crown survived as an Orthodox people and were able, with Russian help, to unite most of the scattered Georgian lands into a single Georgia.
The people of Georgia, unlike some of the nobility among the contenders for the Georgian thrones, generally accepted joining the Russian Empire well. There were uprisings, of course, but they could not be compared with the Caucasian War or regular Polish uprisings.
Transcaucasia before joining the Russian Empire.
Actually, protecting the Georgian population from the cruel and devastating raids of the mountaineers, when villages and cities were destroyed, thousands and thousands of people were slaughtered and taken into slavery, was part of the difficult and bloody war in the Caucasus, which Russia waged for almost 50 years!
The fact that the Tsar was Russian and sat on the throne in distant St. Petersburg, the Georgians (mostly serfs, like the Russians) did not feel any discomfort, but they noticed how the attacks of the Turks and Persians on their land weakened, how rare the raids of the mountaineers of the North Caucasus became .
In addition, the Georgian princes, from appanage feudal lords, overnight turned into nobles of the great empire, thanks to which Russia received such outstanding patriots and commanders as the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration. The branch of Kartli Bagrationi (ancestors of Peter Ivanovich) was included in the number of Russian-princely families in 1803 when Alexander I approved the “General Armorial”.
The “Russian-Soviet occupation” resulted for Georgia and the Georgian people not only in the act of unification of the lands, but also in a sharp increase in population, restoration and construction of Orthodox churches, schools, universities and industrial enterprises. Anyone who has ever visited Tbilisi, like other Georgian cities, could see that their historical part is built up with mansions in the Moscow merchant style, with stucco and wonderful wrought-iron balconies. An antiquity that has long been unavailable in many Russian cities that fell under the monstrous hurricane of Hitler’s invasion.
Currently, Georgia is a poor country where Russophobia is part of the official domestic and foreign policy, serving as a justification for the “Euro-Atlantic vector of development.” If there is no Soviet Union, there are no Georgians wasting money in restaurants in large and capital Soviet cities. But there is an angry population, especially young people, who are confident that Russia and the Russians are responsible for all the losses suffered by Georgians over the past 200 years, including the fact that over 1,6 million people have left Georgia in recent years, half of whom are permanently located on the territory of the “aggressor country”.
Social polls in recent years show that almost half of the republic’s population consider Russia and Russians to be their enemies. At the same time, cries are heard that “the other half of the population of Georgia consists of adequate people,” which is hard to believe. It is not clear why the “other half” does not gather in the center of Tbilisi to repel the inadequate ones, but in the elections votes for flawed politicians who are dragging the republic on a lasso to the EU, NATO and systemic Russophobia.
Apparently, the situation in Georgia can only be corrected by long-term and rather tough steps on the part of Russia, including the severance of transport and economic ties with the return of all “employees” to the “ancient and wise land of Sakartvelo.” As long as there are loopholes from Georgia to Russia, Russians will be cursed while at the same time wanting their money.
As PolitNavigator reported, yesterday on the air of the Georgian TV channel “Rustavi 2” the TV presenter attacked his deceased parents with dirty curses President of the Russian Federation, promising to shit on their graves
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