History of Georgia (country)
The nation of Georgia was first unified as a kingdom under the Bagrationi dynasty in 1008 AD, arising from several successor states of the ancient kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia. The Kingdom of Georgia flourished during the 11th and 12th centuries under King David IV of Georgia and Queen Tamar the Great. It fell to the Mongol invasion by 1243 but saw restoration of its former strength under the leadership of George V the Brilliant. Throughout the Middle Ages, Georgia was one of the preeminent powers of the Eastern Orthodox world.
Facing relentless invasions from much larger empires, by 1490 Georgia finally collapsed into several petty kingdoms and principalities, which throughout the Early Modern period feuded with one another and struggled to defend themselves against external threats, such as Ottoman and Persian encroachment. This prompted Georgian monarchs to increasingly seek an alliance with the Russian Empire, their Orthodox Christian neighbor to the north, culminating in the annexation of Georgia by the Russian Empire beginning in 1801.
Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia emerged as an independent republic under German protection. However, this was cut short by Russia's violation of the Treaty of Moscow and the Red Army invasion of Georgia, which ended the country's sovereignty and transformed it into a Soviet Republic until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The current republic of Georgia has been independent since 1991. For much of the 21st century, Georgia pursued a strongly pro-Western foreign policy, introducing a series of reforms aimed at integration into the European Union and NATO. This Western orientation led to worsening relations with Russia, culminating in the Russo-Georgian War.
Prehistoric period
Evidence for the earliest occupation of the territory of present-day Georgia goes back to c. 1.8 million years ago, as evident from the excavations of Dmanisi in the southeastern part of the country. This is the oldest evidence of humans anywhere in the world outside Africa. Later prehistoric remains are known from numerous cave and open-air sites in Georgia. The earliest agricultural Neolithic occupation dates between 6000 and 5000 BC. known as the Shulaveri-Shomu culture, where people used local obsidian for tools, raised animals such as cattle and pigs, and grew crops, including grapes.Numerous excavations in tell settlements of the Shulaveri-Shomu type have been conducted since the 1960s.
Early metallurgy started in Georgia during the 6th millennium BC, associated with the Shulaveri-Shomu culture. From the beginning of the 4th millennium, metals became used to a larger extent in East Georgia and the whole Transcaucasian region.
Diauehi, a tribal union of early-Georgians, first appear in written history in the 12th century BC. Archaeological finds and references in ancient sources reveal elements of early political and state formations characterized by advanced metallurgy and goldsmith techniques that date back to the 7th century BC and beyond. Between 2100 and 750 BC, the area survived the invasions by the Hittites, Urartians, Medes, Proto-Persians and Cimmerians. During the same period, the ethnic unity of Proto-Kartvelians broke up into several branches, among them Svans, Zans/Chans, and East-Kartvelians. That finally led to the formation of modern Kartvelian languages: Georgian, Svan, Megrelian and Laz. By that time Svans were dominant in modern Svaneti and Abkhazia, Zans inhabited the modern Georgian province of Samegrelo, while East-Kartvelians formed the majority in modern eastern Georgia. As a result of cultural and geographic delimitation, two core areas of future Georgian culture and statehood formed in western and eastern Georgia by the end of the 8th century BC. The first two Georgian states emerged in the west known as the Kingdom of Colchis and in the east the Kingdom of Iberia.
Antiquity
Early Georgian kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia
A second Georgian tribal union emerged on the Black Sea coast in the 13th century BC under the Kingdom of Colchis in western Georgia. The kingdom of Colchis, which existed from the 6th to the 1st centuries BC is regarded as the first early Georgian state formation and the term Colchians was used as the collective term for early Georgian-Kartvelian tribes such as Mingrelians, Lazs, and Chans who populated the eastern coast of the Black Sea..According to the scholar of the Caucasian studies Cyril Toumanoff:
The ancient Greeks knew of Colchis, and it featured in the Greek legend of Jason and the Argonauts, who travelled there in search of the Golden Fleece. Starting around 2000 BC, northwestern Colchis was inhabited by the Svan and Zan peoples of the Kartvelian tribes. Another important ethnic element of ancient Colchis were Greeks who between 1000 and 550 BC established many trading colonies in the coastal area, among them Naessus, Pityus, Dioscurias, Guenos, Phasis, Apsaros, and Rhizos. In the eastern part of Georgia, there was a struggle for the leadership among the various Georgian confederations during the 6th–4th centuries BC, which was finally won by the Kartlian tribes from the region of Mtskheta. According to the Georgian tradition, the Kingdom of Kartli was founded around 300 BC by Parnavaz I, the first ruler of the Parnavazid dynasty.
File:State Museum of History of Georgia 3.jpg|thumb|Patera depicting Marcus Aurelius uncovered in central Georgia, 2nd century AD.
Between 653 and 333 BC, both Colchis and Iberia survived successive invasions by the Iranian Median Empire. The case is different for the Achaemenid Persians however. According to Herodotus, Achaemenid power extended as far as the Caucasus mountains, but the Colchians are not included in his list of the twenty Persian satrapies. Nor are they referred to in the lists of Achaemenid lands given in the Old Persian inscriptions of Darius and his successors. In Xenophon's Anabasis the tribes of Colchis and East Pontus are referred to as independent. On the other hand, Herodotus mentioned both the Colchians and various Pontic tribes in his catalogue of approximately fifty-seven peoples who participated in Xerxes' expedition against Greece in 481–80 BC. As the Encyclopaedia Iranica states, it is thus probable that the Achaemenids never succeeded in asserting effective rule over Colchis, though local tribal leaders seem to have acknowledged some kind of Persian suzerainty. The Encyclopædia Iranica further states, whereas the adjoining Pontic tribes of the nineteenth satrapy and the Armenians of the thirteenth are mentioned as having paid tribute to Persia, the Colchians and their Caucasian neighbors are not; they had, however, undertaken to send gifts every five years.
At the end of the 4th century BC, southern Iberia witnessed the invading armies of Alexander the Great, who established a vast Greco-Macedonian empire to the south of the Caucasus. Neither Iberia nor Colchis was incorporated into the empire of Alexander or any of the successor Hellenistic states of the Middle East. However, the culture of ancient Greece still had a considerable influence on the region, and Greek was widely spoken in the cities of Colchis. In Iberia Greek influence was less noticeable and Aramaic was widely spoken.
Between the early 2nd century BC and the late 2nd century AD both Colchis and Iberia, together with the neighboring countries, became an arena of long and devastating conflicts between major and local powers such as Rome, Armenia and the short-lived Kingdom of Pontus. Pompey's campaign in 66–65 BC annexed Armenia and then he headed north along the Kura river and then west down the Rioni river to the Black Sea. In 189 BC, the rapidly growing Kingdom of Armenia took over more than half of Iberia, conquering the southern and southeastern provinces of Gogarene, Taokhia and Heniochia, as well as some other territories. Between 120 and 63 BC, Armenia's ally Mithridate VI Eupator of Pontus conquered all of Colchis and incorporated it into his kingdom, embracing almost all of Asia Minor as well as the eastern and northern Black Sea coastal areas.
The Roman–Persian rivalry and the Roman conquest of Colchis
This close association with Armenia brought upon the country an invasion by the Roman general Pompey, who was then at war with Mithradates VI of Pontus, and Armenia. Still, Rome did not establish permanent power over Iberia. Twenty-nine years later, the Romans again marched on Iberia forcing King Pharnavaz II to join their campaign against Caucasian Albania.The former Kingdom of Colchis became the Roman province of Lazicum ruled by Roman legati. Struggles between Rome and neighboring Persia marked the following 600 years of Georgian history. While the Georgian kingdom of Colchis was administered as a Roman province, Caucasian Iberia freely accepted the Roman Imperial protection. A stone inscription discovered at Mtskheta speaks of the 1st-century ruler Mihdrat I as "the friend of the Caesars" and the king "of the Roman-loving Iberians." Emperor Vespasian fortified the ancient Mtskheta site of Armazi for the Iberian kings in 75 AD.
In the 2nd century AD, Iberia strengthened her position in the area, especially during the reign of King Pharsman II who achieved full independence from Rome and reconquered some of the previously lost territories from declining Armenia. In the early 3rd century, Rome had to give up Albania and most of Armenia to Sassanid Persia. The province of Lazicum was given a degree of autonomy that by the end of the century developed into full independence with the formation of a new Kingdom of Lazica-Egrisi on the territories of smaller principalities of the Zans, Svans, Apsilaes, and Sanigs. This new Western Georgian state survived more than 250 years until 562 when it was absorbed by the Byzantine Empire.
In the 3rd century AD, the Lazi tribe came to dominate most of Colchis, establishing the kingdom of Lazica, locally known as Egrisi. Colchis was a scene of the protracted rivalry between the Eastern Roman/Byzantine and Sassanid empires, culminating in the Lazic War from 542 to 562.