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GEORGIA UNDER THE TSARS:
RESISTANCE, REVOLT, PACIFICATION: 1801-32
The liquidation of the old order--Prince Tsitsianov--Death
of a general--Subjugation of Western Georgia--KingSolomon II and Napoleon
Bonaparte--The revolt of 1812--Suppression of the Georgian Church--Economic
progress and literary contacts--The conspiracy of 1832
The
liquidation of the old order
WHEN TSAR ALEXANDER I published his manifesto of 12
September 1801, declaring the East Georgian kingdom of Kartlo-Kakheti
irrevocably joined to the Russian empire, he also made public the outline of
a new system of administration for the country. The land was now divided into
five districts or uezdy on the Russian model, three in Kartli and two in
Kakheti, with administrative centres at Tbilisi,
Gori, Dusheti, Telavi and Sighnaghi. With the Georgian royal family removed
from power, the commander-in-chief on Russia's
Caucasian front was now supreme head of the central government at Tbilisi by virtue of
proconsular powers conferred on him by the Tsar. Authority on the spot was
vested in a council of Russian and Georgian officials headed by the commander
in chief's deputy, who received the title of pravitel or administrator
of Georgia.
The administration was divided into four branches or 'expeditions'--the executive,
the financial, and the criminal and civil judiciaries. Each branch was to be
headed by a Russian official set over four Georgian committee members.
Corresponding local administrations were to be set up in the country
districts under Russian kapitan-ispravniki or district officers. The
mountain clans of the Pshavs, Khevsurs and Tush, as well as the Tatar nomads
dwelling in the southern borderlands, continued to be governed by Georgian mouravs
or prefects. For civil litigation, the code of King Vakhtang VI remained in
force, while criminal cases were to be judged according to Russian law.
The high-handed way in which Alexander had suppressed the
independence of Kartlo-Kakheti did not pass without protest. The late King
Giorgi's second son, Ioane, who had come to St. Petersburg, tried to organize a
nation-wide petition to be submitted to the emperor, urging him at least to
maintain the royal title in the Bagratid line in accordance with the treaty
of 1783 and subsequent Russian pledges. Ioane's correspondence was seized by
the Russian authorities, and his efforts frustrated. The Georgian envoys who
had been sent to St. Petersburg by King Giorgi
to negotiate an extension of Russian suzerainty over Georgia protested vigorously at
the fashion in which the Russians had devoured their country, without any
pretence of negotiation, and without even notifying the Georgian delegation
of what was afoot. A number of petitions were received from Georgia, urging the claims of the
Prince-Regent David or of his uncle, Prince Yulon, to be retained as titular
head of the Georgian administration. It appears also that representatives of
Western powers expressed, albeit discreetly, their misgivings at the way in
which Georgia's
absorption had been effected. But the Tsar stuck to his decision, and refused
to make any concession to the Georgians' national pride and susceptibilities.
On 12 April 1802, the Russian commander-in-chief in the
Caucasus, General Karl Knorring, published in Tbilisi the imperial proclamation of September
1801, confirming Tsar Paul's earlier decree, and affirming Kartlo-Kakheti to
be an integral part of the Russian dominions. The general then administered
to the princes and notables of Georgia the oath of allegiance to
the Tsar. The effect was somewhat marred by the presence of armed Russian
guards around the audience hall, making it clear that any attempt to avoid
due compliance would provoke reprisals. A few Georgians who voiced
disapproval were taken into custody. This made a poor impression on Russia's
new subjects, deemed to have placed themselves voluntarily under the Tsar's
benevolent protection.
The new Russian administration was set up in Tbilisi in May 1802. The
administrator of Georgia
was a certain Kovalensky, who had served as Russian envoy at the Georgian
court during the reign of the late King Giorgi XII. This Kovalensky had
already made himself obnoxious to the Georgians by
his haughty manner and bullying demeanour. They were not reassured to see him
back among them, invested with all the authority of the Russian state.
During these first two years of Russian rule, the internal
situation in Eastern Georgia left much to be
desired. Russian authority was confined to only a small part of
Transcaucasia, namely the area centred on Tbilisi, measuring about one hundred and
ninety miles long by one hundred and forty miles wide. This bridgehead of
Russian power was ringed about by Persian khans, Turkish pashas, wild
mountaineers, and unsubdued Georgian princelings, most of them hostile to Russia.
Marauding parties of Lezghis on their agile steeds roamed the countryside,
defying the less mobile Russian garrisons. The Ossetes
who dominated the Daryal Pass, Russia's only supply line over the Caucasus range, held up travellers and convoys. Trade
was virtually at a standstill, while the peasantry scarcely ventured out to
plough the fields.
The widow of King Erekle II, the redoubtable Dowager Queen
Darejan, continued to intrigue in favour of her eldest son, Prince Yulon,
whom she wished to see installed as king under the Russian aegis. The nobles
and people, while affirming their desire to remain under Russian protection,
continually agitated for a prince of their own. The Russian authorities
interpreted this natural aspiration as insurrection, and made a number of
arrests. Seeing scant improvement in the state of the country, the Georgians
lost faith in the Russian government and its local representatives.
Prince Tsitsianov
The chief administrator in Tbilisi, Kovalensky, was not the man to
restore general confidence. He was busy enriching himself by disreputable
speculations in the bazaar, and allotting key positions in the government to
his relatives and friends. The Georgian councillors
whose appointment was provided for in the manifesto of September 1801, were
never nominated. Corruption and abuse went unchecked. Official documents of
the time show that rape and acts of violence were commonly committed by
Russian officials and soldiery. Prince Tsitsianov, who later succeeded
Knorring as commander-in-chief, alludes in one of his reports to the 'crying
abuses of authority committed by the former administrator of Georgia',
which had 'gone beyond the Georgian people's limits of patience'. Even the
official Russian historian of the Caucasus,
A. P. Berzhe, remarks that 'Kovalensky and Company did not remove, but
aggravated the abuses from which the Georgian people so grievously suffered.
. . . Disappointed hope for improvement turned into ill-will, discontent, and
impotent resentment, in fact the very impulses from which derive rebellion
and revolt against supreme authority.'20
Rumours of Kovalensky's nefarious activities soon reached St. Petersburg. It was
reported to the Tsar by one of his trusted advisers, Count Kochubey, that
Knorring and Kovalensky 'were committing great exactions; that they were
maintaining discord among the peoples of the country in order to be able to
pillage them with more ease; and all kinds of similar horrors'.
It can hardly be said that Tsar Alexander was much of a
liberal in his dealings with his Georgian subjects. But he was determined at
least to keep up appearances, and saw how much Georgia
needed a governor with courage and integrity, and some direct knowledge of
local conditions and of the mentality and culture of Russia's new citizens.
Fortunately, so it seemed, the ideal man was to hand in
the person of Prince P. D. Tsitsianov, a scion of the Georgian noble family
of Tsitsishvili. Tsitsianov was an officer with a distinguished record in the
Russian Army; he had been a disciple of the illustrious Suvorov. He was also
a distant relative of the widow of King Giorgi XII of Georgia, Queen Mariam,
who had been a Princess Tsitsishvili. In September 1802, Alexander appointed
Tsitsianov commander-in-chief on the Caucasian Line, with viceregal powers
over Georgia.
He was instructed to introduce order and prosperity into the country, and to
show the Georgian people that 'it would never have cause to repent of having
entrusted its destiny to Russia'.
The Tsar further empowered him to take immediate steps to persuade--if
necessary by physical force--the former Georgian royal family to settle in Russia,
and thus put an end to all agitation for the Bagratid dynasty to be retored.
Arriving at Tbilisi
on 1 February 1803, Tsitsianov's first care was to pack off the remaining
members of the old royal family. The former Prince-Regent David and his
uncle, Prince Vakhtang, left Tbilisi
under escort later in February. There remained the Dowager Queen Darejan,
widow of Erekle II, and the widow of the late King Giorgi XII, Queen Mariam,
with her seven children. In April, Tsitsianov heard that Queen Mariam was
planning to flee to the mountain strongholds of Khevsureti with the aid of
loyal clansmen from the hills. He therefore gave orders that the queen and
her children should be sent off into exile in Russia under guard the very next
morning. To impart an air of ceremony to the proceedings, it was decided that
Major-General Lazarev, commander of Russian troops in Tbilisi, should proceed in full uniform to
the queen's residence, with a military band and two companies of infantry,
and prevail upon her to take her departure forthwith.
Death
of a general
Of the ensuing tragedy there are several contemporary
accounts, based on the reports of eye-witnesses. 21 Arriving
at Queen Mariam's mansion, Lazarev found her in her private apartment, seated
on a couch, and surrounded by her seven sleeping children. The general strode
brusquely up to the queen and said, through his interpreter: 'Get up, it is time to be off.'
The queen calmly replied: 'Why this
hurry to get up? Can you not see my children peacefully asleep round
about me? If I wake them up abruptly it might be harmful to them. Who has
given you so peremptory an order?'
The general replied that his orders were from Prince
Tsitsianov himself.
' Tsitsianov--that mad dog!' Queen Mariam
cried out.
At this, Lazarev bent down to drag her forcibly to her
feet. The queen was holding on her knees a pillow, beneath which she held
concealed the dagger which had belonged to her late husband, King Giorgi. As
quick as lightning, she drew the dagger and stabbed Lazarev through the body
with such force that the tip of the weapon emerged through his left side.
Mariam pulled the dagger from the gaping wound and threw it in the face of
her prostrate tormentor, saying: 'So dies anyone who dares add dishonour to
my misfortune!'
At Lazarev's expiring cry, his interpreter drew his sword
and hacked at the queen's left arm. Soldiers rushed in and beat at the queen
with their rifle butts. They dragged her from the house all covered in blood,
and hurled her with her children into a carriage. Escorted by a heavy guard
of armed horsemen, the party left Tbilisi
along the military road leading to Russia
over the Daryal
Pass. Everywhere the
queen's carriage was surrounded by devoted Georgians, who wept as they
struggled to bid farewell to the family of their late sovereign. These loyal
manifestations were repulsed by the Russian soldiery. When one of the
children cried out that he was thirsty, a bystander brought up a jug of
water, which the Russian escort hurled to the ground. On arrival in Russia, Queen Mariam was imprisoned for seven
years in a convent at Voronezh.
She lived to a great age, and eventually died at Moscow in 1850. She was interred at Tbilisi with regal
honours.
The Queen Dowager Darejan--'that Hydra', as Tsitsianov
delicately termed her--held out until the October of 1803, when she too was
bundled off to Russia.
Click on the map for better resolution
Subjugation of Western Georgia
Having eliminated these obstacles, Tsitsianov rapidly
extended Russia's grasp on
Transcaucasia. He saw the urgency of
securing as rapidly as possible the entire area between the Black
Sea and the Caspian. From his headquarters in Tbilisi, he turned his attention westwards
to Imereti. Western Georgia was at this time
torn by a feud between King Solomon II of Imereti and his nominal vassal, the
semi-independent prince-regent or Dadian Grigol of Mingrelia. One of Grigol
Dadian's predecessors had sworn fealty to the Tsar of Russia as long ago as
1638. Now, in 1803, his country was taken under direct Russian suzerainty. In
contrast to the situation in Eastern Georgia,
the local administration was left to the princely house, which retained
control under nominal Russian supervision until the dignity of Dadian was
finally abolished in 1867. With his principal vassal and foe now under
Russian protection, King Solomon of Imereti felt it wise to feign submission.
His dominions also were in 1804 placed beneath the imperial aegis, under
guarantees similar to those given to the Dadian. However, Solomon remained at
heart bitterly opposed to his foreign overlords, and his court at Kutaisi was a hot-bed of
anti-Russian intrigue.
Eastwards of Tbilisi, Georgia's internal security was still
threatened by the warlike Lezghian tribesmen of Daghestan, and by the
independent Muslim khans of Ganja, Shekki and Baku, allies and nominally vassals of the
Shah of Persia. Tsitsianov sent several expeditions against the Lezghis, with
only partial success. His bravest lieutenant, General Gulyakov, was killed in
one of the bloodthirsty engagements which took place. In his dealings with
the Muslim potentates of Daghestan, Tsitsianov did not mince words.
'Shameless sultan with the soul of a Persian--so you still dare to write to
me! Yours is the soul of a dog and the understanding of an ass, yet you think
to deceive me with your specious phrases. Know that until you become a loyal
vassal of my Emperor I shall only long to wash my boots in your blood.' 22 With
language of this kind, backed by cold steel, Tsitsianov eventually abated the
Lezghian menace and improved Georgia's
internal security.
On 3 January 1804, Prince Tsitsianov took the important
trading centre and fortress of Ganja by storm. Its ruler, Javat Khan, had
been a bitter enemy of the Georgian kings, and had helped Agha Muhammad Khan
Qajar to invade Georgia
and sack Tbilisi
in 1795. Javat was now slain on his own battlements. The town was renamed
Elizavetpol, in honour of the Empress Elizabeth, consort of Alexander I. (It
is the presentday Kirovabad.)
This success enhanced Russian prestige to such an extent that for the time
being, to use the historian Dubrovin's metaphor, the rulers of neighbouring, khanates
took on a demeanour of lamb-like meekness. 23
During the reign of King Erekle II, the rulers of both
Ganja and the chief city of Armenia, Erivan, had been vassals of the Georgian crown. Having
subjugated Ganja, Tsitsianov judged the moment ripe for an expedition to Erivan. He learnt also that the Persians were massing a
large army in Azerbaijan
to the south, in preparation for an onslaught on the Russian dominions in the
Caucasus. Determined to nip this in the bud,
Tsitsianov marched against Erivan in June
1804, defeated a Persian force under the Crown Prince, ' Abbas Mirza, and
laid siege to the city. A wet autumn, supply difficulties, and skirmishing
attacks by the Persian light cavalry, ultimately forced Tsitsianov to raise
the siege and retire to Tbilisi.
A contributory cause of this fiasco was a mass uprising
which broke out along the Georgian military highway over the Caucasus range, on which the Russians depended for all reinforcements
and supplies. This was the first of several spontaneous mass revolts against
Russian rule. Its unmistakably popular character distinguished it from
earlier movements of protest headed by the Georgian royal house and landed
aristocracy.
The immediate reason for the outbreak was the severity of
the Russian commandants in the Daryal
Pass and Ananuri
sectors. The Ossete mountaineers and the villagers of Mtiuleti were forced to
toil without payment on the roads and were mercilessly flogged, some dying
from their injuries. Others perished from cold in clearing away snow drifts.
The peasants broke into revolt and killed the town commandant of Ananuri. The
insurgents were joined by contingents of the Khevsurs and other mountain
clans. They received encouraging messages from Prince Yulon, who still hoped
to win the Georgian throne, and from the Shah of Persia. The rebels defeated
a regiment of Don Cossacks sent from the North Caucasian Line, cut
communications between Georgia
and Russia, and menaced the
town of Gori.
The onset of autumn and the arrival of Russian reinforcements strengthened
Tsitsianov's hand. The insurgents were no match for regular troops, and the
revolt was brought under control. Reprisals followed and whole families were
shut up in Gori castle and left to perish of hunger and cold. Despite these
difficulties, Tsitsianov did his best to put the social and economic life of Georgia
on a sound footing. It had been one of the conditions of the various pacts
concluded between Russia
and Georgia
that the Georgian aristocracy and squirearchy should be confirmed in their
traditional privileges, and placed on the same footing as the Russian
nobility. Feudalism as practised in Georgia
was by no means identical with the Russian system of serf proprietorship,
which had reached the high point
of its development during the reign of Catherine the Great, and was in many
ways indistinguishable from outright slavery. However, Tsitsianov did the
best he could to regularise relationships between the Georgian nobles and
their vassals, though many grievances and misunderstandings arose under the
new dispensation.
Tsitsianov was well aware of the urgency of improving
trade and communications, with a view to feeding the Russian garrisons off
the land and clothing them from local resources, increasing the customs and
excise revenues, and generally making the country self-supporting. The town
bourgeoisie were afforded special protection, with inducements to expand
their operations. For some years to come, however, the occupation of Georgia
entailed a substantial drain on the central Russian treasury. In 1811, for
instance, a million silver rubles had to be sent to pay the troops and civil
servants stationed in the country.
Education and public amenities were not neglected. Prince
Tsitsianov founded a school in Tbilisi
for sons of the aristocracy. Special scholarships, notably in medicine, were
founded to enable some students to continue their studies at Moscow University. The Georgian printing
press which had functioned in Tbilisi
until Agha Muhammad Khan destroyed it was now reinstalled. A State-owned
apothecary's shop was opened, as well as a botanical garden, since famous
throughout Russia.
In 1804, a mint was opened in Tbilisi, at
which a distinctive Georgian silver and copper coinage was struck until 1834,
when the standard Russian coinage was given exclusive currency in Georgia.
Public buildings constructed on European lines began to make their appearance
in the Georgian capital, while the citizens were encouraged to rebuild those
quarters of the town which had been completely laid waste by the Persians in
1795.
With his Georgian ancestry, Tsitsianov fully realized the
dangers inherent in over-hasty russification of Georgia's administrative and
judicial system. He recommended that the transition from the old oral system
of administering justice to the bureaucratic formalism characteristic of
Russian official procedure should be brought about by gradual stages. He
thought that it would be best to retain the Georgian language as the medium
for transacting local official business. However, Tsitsianov set his face
firmly against any concession to Georgian national sentiment. Loyalty to the
Russian Tsar and his own personal ambition overrode any regard which he might
have had for Georgia's
glorious past and for her ancient dynasty, the Bagratids. Thus when Count
Kochubey, Alexander's liberal-minded minister of the interior, wrote in 1804
to ask whether one of the Georgian royal princes might not after all be set
up as a vassal ruler in Georgia
under Russian supervision, Tsitsianov at once stifled the project. 24
The successes won by Tsitsianov and the rapid expansion of
Russian influence throughout Transcaucasia were a source of extreme concern
to the Ottoman Porte and to the Shah of Persia, as well as to the East India
Company and the British Foreign Office. The Shah was at this time in the
enviable position of having rival French and British missions in Tehran vying for his
favour. In 1805, profiting by Russia's
heavy commitments in the struggle against Napoleon in Europe,
the Persian crown prince, ' Abbas Mirza, invaded the
Karabagh and menaced Elizavetpol. The Russians stood firm, until finally the
Shah's forces retired discouraged and without engaging battle.
Prince Tsitsianov now judged the time ripe to extend Russia's dominions to the shores of the Caspian Sea south of the Caucasian range. In January
1806, he marched on Baku.
The khan who governed that place as a nominal vassal of the Persian shah
feigned submission, and undertook to hand over the keys of the city. As
Tsitsianov rode out to meet the khan and his followers, the Persians opened
fire and shot him down on the spot. The artillery of the citadel started up a
bombardment, and the demoralized and leaderless Russians withdrew. So ended
the brief but eventful viceroyalty of this determined proconsul, a renegade
to his own people, but a man who, in serving Russia,
dealt many a crushing blow to Georgia's
traditional enemies.
The decade which followed Tsitsianov's death was less
spectacular than these first few years, in which Russian power had spread so
rapidly through Transcaucasia. Tsitsianov's
successors were less talented than he. The element of surprise which had
enabled the Russians to overcome the petty Caucasian states one by one was
now lost; the Persian shah and the Turkish sultan were on the alert, and
neither the British nor the French could view with approval this Russian
wedge being driven down towards Mesopotamia and the Levant on the one side,
and towards the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean on the other. Furthermore,
the Napoleonic wars imposed an immense strain on Russia's
resources, and prevented the deployment of large forces in remote Caucasia. Nor can one overlook the deterioration of
relations between the native Georgian population and the occupying power,
resulting from the exactions of the military commanders and the corrupt ways
of Tsarist officialdom.
'Up to 1812,' wrote a staff officer serving at that time
in the Russian Army of the Caucasus, 'the
Georgians, organized as irregular troops, had served in our ranks virtually
as volunteers. A disastrous expedition against Akhaltsikhe, in which they
felt themselves to have been sacrificed and abandoned, the resulting
misfortunes, combined with requisitions and extortions, drove them to revolt.
Rebellion was stifled in blood; but its spirit lived on. Only an entirely new
approach can reawaken the fidelity which an odious system has almost
extinguished.' 25
Under Tsitsianov's successors, the war against Persia and Turkey continued with varying
success and great ferocity. On the Persian front, Derbent and Baku were at last annexed in 1806, though a second
attack on Erivan in 1808 ended in another
costly failure. In Western Georgia, the Russians kept up their pressure on
the Turks, from whom they took the Black Sea port
of Poti in 1909, Sukhum-Kaleh on the
coast of Abkhazia in 1810, and the strategic town of Akhalkalaki
('New Town') in south-western Georgia
in 1811.
King
Solomon II and Napoleon Bonaparte
The remaining independent princes of Western
Georgia hastened to accept Russian suzerainty. In 1809, Safar
Bey Sharvashidze, the Lord of Abkhazia, was received under Russian protection
and confirmed in his principality. Prince Mamia Gurieli, ruler of Guria, was
taken under the Russian aegis in 1811, receiving insignia of investiture from
the Tsar. Only King Solomon II of Imereti held out to the bitter end.
Encircled by Russian troops, the king strenuously resisted
an demands for submission, in spite of the fact that
he had earlier, under pressure, sworn fealty to the Tsar. In 1810, the
Russians despatched an ultimatum to Solomon, demanding that he hand over the
heir to his throne and other Imeretian notables as hostages, and reside
permanently under Russian surveillance in his capital at Kutaisi. Solomon refused, and was declared
to have forfeited his throne. Hounded by Russian troops and by Georgian princes hostile to him, he sought refuge in the hills, but
was soon captured and escorted to Tbilisi.
A few weeks later, Solomon staged a dramatic escape from Russian custody, and
took refuge with the Turkish pasha at the frontier city of Akhaltsikhe. Inspired by this daring feat,
the people of Imereti rose against the Russian invaders. Ten fierce
engagements were fought between the Russian forces and the guerillas of
Imereti. Famine and plague broke out, and some 30,000 people perished, while
hundreds of peasant families sought refuge in Eastern
Georgia. Eventually the patriots were crushed by armed force. A
Russian administration was set up in Kutaisi,
the country placed under martial law.
King Solomon now applied for help to the Shah of Persia,
to the Sultan of Turkey, and to Napoleon Bonaparte himself. To the Emperor of
the French, Solomon wrote in 1811 that the Muscovite Tsar had unjustly and
illegally stripped him of his royal estate, and that it behoved Napoleon, as
supreme head of Christendom, to 'take cognizance of the act of pitiless
brigandage' which the Russians had committed against him. 'May Your Majesty add to your glorious titles that of Emperor of Asia! But
may you deign to liberate me, together with a million Christian souls, from
the yoke of the pitiless emperor of Moscow, either by your lofty mediation,
or else by the might of your all-powerful arm, and set me beneath the
protective shadow of your guardianship!" 26 Napoleon
himself was, of course, quite a connoisseur of 'pitiless brigandage'.
However, this eloquent plea, which reached him shortly before he set out on
his ill-fated campaign to Moscow, provided him with encouraging evidence of
the unsettled condition of Russia's Transcaucasian provinces. But as things
turned out, Napoleon could not save even his own Grand Army from virtual
annihilation, let alone a princeling down in the distant Caucasus.
Without regaining power, Solomon died in exile in 1815, and was buried in the
cathedral of Saint Gregory of Nyssa in Trebizond.
The elimination of King Solomon did not bring civil strife
in Georgia
to an end. No sooner was Western Georgia
outwardly pacified than fresh troubles broke out in Kartli and Kakheti. Ten
years of Russian occupation had greatly changed the attitude of a people who,
a decade before, had welcomed the Russians as deliverers from the infidel
Persians and Turks. Called upon to furnish transport, fodder and supplies to
the Russian Army at artificially low rates, and regarded by their new masters
as mere serfs, the Georgian peasantry looked back wistfully to the bad old
days. Under the Georgian kings, though invaded and ravaged by Lezghis,
Persians and Turks, their country had at least been their own. Now it was
simply an insignificant province, engulfed in a vast, alien empire, whose
rulers seemed lacking in sympathy for this cultivated, Christian nation which
had voluntarily placed itself under the protection of its northern neighbour.
In their yearning for independence, the Georgians were
encouraged by the dauntless personality of Prince Alexander Bagration, son of
their great king Erekle II. Alexander, who had sought refuge with the Shah of
Persia, was described by a contemporary British traveller as 'a prince whose
bold independence of spirit still resists all terms of amity with Russia'.
'It was impossible to look on this intrepid prince, however wild and
obdurate, without interest; without that sort of pity and admiration, with
which a man might view the royal lion hunted from his hereditary wastes, yet
still returning to hover near, and roar in proud loneliness his ceaseless
threatenings to the human strangers who had disturbed his reign.' 27
The
revolt of 1812
In 1812, the Persians won some military successes against
the Russians in the Karabagh region. When they heard of the Russian setback,
the peasants of Kakheti broke into revolt. They wiped out the garrison of
Sighnaghi and blockaded Telavi, the capital town of Kakheti. The insurgents proclaimed as king
the young Bagratid prince, Grigol, son of Prince Ioane, and grandson of the
late King Giorgi XII. In answer to an ultimatum addressed to them by the
Russian commanderin-chief, Marquis Philip Paulucci, the rebels replied:
'We know how few we are compared with the Russians, and
have no hope of beating them. We wish rather that they would exterminate us.
We sought the protection of the Russian Tsar, God gave it to us, but the
injustices and cruelty of his servants have driven us to despair. We suffered
long! And now, when the Lord has sent us this terrible famine, when we
ourselves are eating roots and grass, you violently seize food and forage
from us! We have been expelled from our homes. Our storerooms and cellars
have been plundered, our stocks of wine uncovered, drunk up and wantonly
polluted by the gorged soldiery. Finally our wives and daughters have been
defiled before our eyes. How can our lives be dear to us after such ignominy?
We are guilty before God and the Russian Tsar of steeping our hands in
Christian blood, but God knows that we never plotted to betray the Russians.
We were driven to this by violence, and have resolved to die on the spot. We
have no hope of pardon, for who will reveal our condition to the emperor? Do
we not remember that when we called on the Tsar's name, our rulers would
answer: God is on high, the emperor far away.' 28
The rebellion spread like wildfire. Even the Russian
authorities in Tbilisi
felt themselves menaced. Prince Alexander Bagration arrived in Daghestan from
Persia to mobilize the
Lezghis, those inveterate foes of both Georgia
and Russia.
But Russian reinforcements were hurried to the scene. The rebels lacked
cohesion, discipline, supplies. In October 1812, the Russians defeated
Alexander and his motley horde at Sighnaghi. A few days later, the daring
Russian commander, Kotlyarevsky, crossed the River Araxes and defeated the
main Persian Army at Aslanduz, leaving 10,000 of the enemy dead upon the
field of battle.
Neither the Russians nor their Persian and Turkish
adversaries were in a fit state to continue the struggle. Peace with the
Ottoman Empire had already been concluded at Bucarest in May 1812,whereby the Russians handed back to the Turks the Black
Sea port of Poti
and the strategic town of Akhalkalaki.
More favourable to Russia
were the terms of the Treaty of Gulistan, concluded between Tsar Alexander I
and Fath'Ali Shah of Persia in 1813, largely through the mediation of the
British ambassador to Persia,
Sir Gore Ouseley. By this instrument, Russia
was confirmed in possession of Eastern and Western Georgia, Daghestan, and
the Muslim khanates of Karabagh, Ganja, Shekki, Shirvan, Derbent, Baku and Kuba.
Suppression
of the Georgian
Church
An event which caused the greatest resentment throughout Georgia, and contributed still further to the
deterioration of Russo-Georgian relations, was the suppression in 1811 of the
independent Georgian
Church. It will be
recalled that the Russo-Georgian treaty of 1783 had guaranteed to the
Patriarch of Georgia the eighth place among the prelates of Russia and a seat in the Russian
Holy Synod. Now, having abolished both the Georgian monarchies, the Russians
found that the Church was becoming a focus for Georgian national solidarity.
With that same scant regard for treaty rights which it had shown even
earlier, the Russian government now sent the CatholicosPatriarch Antoni II
into enforced retirement at St. Petersburg,
replacing him by a representative of the Russian Church,
the Metropolitan Varlaam, who was given the title of Exarch of Georgia. This
complete suppression of a national Church by the government of a friendly
Christian power must be without parallel in the modern annals of civilized
nations.
Himself a Georgian of noble birth,
Varlaam failed to show himself sufficiently obedient to the will of his
Russian masters. He was soon replaced by a Russian cleric, Theophilact
Rusanov, a man quite alien to Georgian ways. Theophilact regarded his flock
as ignorant barbarians, and did his utmost to replace the Georgian liturgy
with Slavonic forms of worship. In spite of the Russian bayonets which he had
at his disposal, Theophilact encountered strong opposition throughout Georgia.
In 1820, the Russians arrested the Archbishops of Gelati and Kutaisi,
the principal ecclesiastical leaders of Western Georgia.
Archbishop Dositheus of Kutaisi,
stabbed and maltreated by Russian Cossacks, died soon afterwards. Spontaneous
uprisings followed these Russian outrages. The insurgents planned to restore
the monarchy of Imereti. The upland district of Ratcha was the scene of
bitter fighting. The movement also spread into Guria and Mingrelia. An
outbreak of civil war in Abkhazia in 1821 further aggravated the situation.
The general unrest was not quelled until 1822.
The Russian proconsul in Georgia between 1816 and 1827 was
General A. P. Ermolov, one of the heroes of the Napoleonic wars. Ermolov, who
had taken part in the battles of Austerlitz, Borodino and many others, was a man of unsurpassed
courage, spartan in his habits, and adored by his troops. He declared a war
to the death against the Muslim tribesmen of Daghestan and North Caucasia,
and his campaigns, conducted on the good old plan with fire and sword, the
devastation of crops, the sacking of villages, the massacre of men and the
ravishing of women, gave them a lesson which they doubtless appreciated to
the full. Another Russian general said of Ermolov that 'he was at least as
cruel as the natives themselves'. He himself declared:
'I desire that the terror of my name should guard our
frontiers more potently than chains of fortresses, that my word should be for
the natives a law more inevitable than death. Condescension in the eyes of
Asiatics is a sign of weakness, and out of pure humanity I am inexorably
severe. One execution saves hundreds of Russians from destruction, and
thousands of Mussulmans from treason.' 29
Ermolov's administration resulted in improved public
security within Georgia.
A police force was founded in Tbilisi.
Bands of marauding Lezghis dared no longer carry off villagers into slavery
or raid trading caravans. Military and post roads were built, benefiting
trade and communications. Ermolov had some of the Tbilisi streets paved, and roofed over the
bazaar. The erection of European public buildings helped to modernize the
city's appearance. Similar improvements were undertaken in Kutaisi, the old capital of Imereti, until
now a decayed and insignificant township.
Economic progress and literary contacts
Now that Russia
controlled a stretch of territory extending from the Black
Sea to the Caspian, commerce began to revive. Odessa
in southern Russia
was linked by sea with the little port of Redut-Kaleh in Mingrelia. By this
route, manufactured goods from Russian cities and Western Europe could be
transported via Tbilisi to Baku
on the Caspian, or into Persia
overland via Tabriz.
Tsar Alexander's edict of 1821 granted to Russian and foreign concerns
operating in Georgia
special customs concessions and other privileges for a space of ten years. Tbilisi merchants began to establish connexions with Marseilles, Trieste, and Germany, and to re-export European wares to Persia
on a substantial scale. In 1825, Georgian and Armenian traders made purchases
totalling over a million rubles at the Leipzig
fair; in 1828, the figure exceeded four million. The demand for European
manufactured goods was stimulated by the presence in Georgia of a large number of
Russian officers and civilian functionaries, with their families. In 1830, an
official of the finance department reported from Tbilisi that trade was in the most
flourishing condition. British, French and Swiss commercial houses showed
interest in this growing market.
Imports of Western manufactured goods, however, far
outweighed Georgian exports of raw materials. In 1824, for instance, the
Acting French Consul in Tbilisi reported that although Georgia produced
timber, cotton, saffron, madder, wax, honey, silk and tobacco, there was
little attempt as yet to market these commodities on a large scale. By
Western commercial standards, Georgia
could not furnish a worthwhile cargo of goods for export at any one time,
while acts of piracy by the Circassians and Abkhazians on Black
Sea shipping made sea trade hazardous. 30
General Ermolov did his best to remedy these difficulties.
The French Consul, the Chevalier de Gamba, was granted a concession in
Imereti to exploit the country's vast timber resources, and to start up cotton
plantations. Five hundred families of Swabian peasants from Württemberg
arrived in Georgia
in 1818. They were encouraged to set up model farmsteads near Tbilisi and elsewhere.
They set an admirable example of diligence, thrift and sobriety, which contrasted
with the fecklessness of the local inhabitants. But they remained aloof from
the population at large, with whom they had nothing in common. They were
respected rather than liked, and their influence on the general life and
history of Georgia
was small. Other branches of industry encouraged by Ermolov were the
cultivation of silk in Kakheti, and the production of wine, for which that
same province had always been famed. It would, however, be wrong to imagine
that Russia benefited
financially at this period from her colonization of Georgia. In 1825, her total
revenue derived from the country amounted to 580,000 rubles, which did not
even pay for the maintenance of the local Russian garrisons and
administration.
During the 1820's, the influence of the Russian Finance
Minister, Count Kankrin, and the agitation of the Moscow manufacturers led to
the triumph of protectionism in Russia generally and the abandonment of any
attempt to promote free trade with foreign countries. Tariff walls and
similar devices were imposed increasingly for the encouragement of budding
home industries. Accordingly, on the expiration of the tenyear customs
franchise granted for Georgia by the edict of 1821, this was not renewed;
merchandise entering Transcaucasia was subject now to the same high dues as
were levied at Russia's other frontiers. Since no large-scale local factories
existed, this return to protectionism simply impoverished the Tbilisi merchants and
hampered the growth of Georgian trade. European goods soon began to reach Persia via Trebizond and Erzurum
in Turkey,
without passing through Russian territory at all. This put a stop for the
time being to any increase in Georgia's
importance as a stage in the international trade route between Europe and the East.
In the meantime, a series of spectacular events had
brought Ermolov's Caucasian viceroyalty to an untimely close. Early in
December 1825, news was brought to St. Petersburg
of the death of Tsar Alexander I at Taganrog.
Immediately, a nationwide crisis arose over the succession to the imperial
throne. The reason for this was that the Grand Duke Constantine, who was
governing Poland,
had in 1822 formally renounced the succession to the Russian throne in favour
of his younger brother Nicholas, though this had been kept a closely guarded
state secret. For a time, neither Nicholas nor Constantine would accept the
imperial succession, until finally Nicholas was prevailed upon to do so.
Clandestine revolutionary societies had for some years
been active among the younger, liberal-minded officers of the Russian army.
Many of the conspirators belonged to the foremost princely families in the
land. The unsettled state of public opinion now provided them with what they
deemed a propitious moment for their projected coup. On 26 December 1825,
when called upon to take the oath of allegiance to the new emperor, Nicholas
I, 2,000 soldiers of the Guard formed up outside the Senate building in St.
Petersburg, shouting for 'Constantine and Constitution (konstitutsiya)'
which latter many of the soldiers took for the name of the Grand Duke
Constantine's wife. The military governor of St. Petersburg was killed while parleying
with the mutineers. Finally, loyal troops were brought up and two volleys of
grapeshot cleared the square. 31 The
resulting investigation revealed that the conspiracy had wide ramifications
throughout Russia.
Five of the ringleaders were hanged, and many others exiled to Siberia or
sent to serve in the ranks of the army of the Caucasus.
Among the many distinguished individuals whose names were mentioned in the
course of the enquiry was General Ermolov. In the absence of specific
evidence against him, he was left at his post, though under a cloud.
Ermolov was soon under fire from another quarter. In spite
of the Treaty of Gulistan, which they had signed under duress in 1813, the
Persians had never reconciled themselves to the loss of their Caucasian
possessions. In 1825, Ermolov's troops occupied Gokcha, a small and barren
frontier district northeast of Erivan in Armenia. This precipitated a
crisis. Encouraged by garbled reports of the Decembrist uprising, the
Persians decided on an offensive. They were spurred on to action by Prince
Alexander Bagration, the exiled Georgian royal prince, whose hatred of Russia
overbore any reluctance to subject his native land once more to the horrors
of war. In 1826, the Persian Army launched a surprise attack on Georgia and
the Karabagh. Pambak, Shuragel and Borchalo were overrun, Elizavetpol (Ganja)
captured. Tbilisi
itself was menaced.
Ermolov reacted with what can only be termed masterly
inactivity. To the urgings of Tsar Nicholas he responded with pleas for
reinforcements. The fire seemed to have gone out of the veteran warrior.
It was not long before the dashing General Paskevich
arrived to take command in the field. Ermolov was relieved of his post.
Paskevich soon routed the Persians completely. The cities of Erivan, Tabriz and Ardebil
fell to his victorious army. In February 1828, the Russo-Persian Treaty of
Turkmanchai was signed, establishing Russia's frontier on the River
Araxes, where it has ever since remained fixed. 32
The treaty of Turkmanchai eliminated Persia as a factor in Caucasian
politics. The warlike tribes of Daghestan were cut off from direct contact
with their co-religionists in the Islamic world outside the borders of the
Russian Empire. In future, the Muslims of the Caucasus
were to look to the Turks alone for support. But the successes won by such
commanders as Paskevich meant that the Ottoman Empire, once a mighty world
power, was fighting a losing battle to hold the passes giving access to the
inner homeland of Anatolia. During the
century following the Caspian campaign of Peter the Great, the main chain of
the Caucasus mountains had lost its old
importance as an impregnable bastion shielding the Middle Eastern lands
against invasion from the north. Caucasia had become a base from which
Russian political and military power could be directed westward across
Anatolia towards the Mediterranean, southward across Persia towards the Indian Ocean, and eastward
across the Caspian into the heart of Central Asia.
33
The conclusion of peace with Persia set Paskevich free to
concentrate on Turkish affairs. A general war between Russia and the Ottoman Porte was
in prospect. The main Russian objectives were the expulsion of the Turks from
the Black Sea coast, and in particular from the ports of Anapa, Poti and
Batumi; the reconquest of the former Georgian province of Samtskhe, which had
for centuries now been governed by the Turco-Georgian pashas of Akhaltsikhe;
and the establishment of a satisfactory frontier which would round off
Russia's Transcaucasian dominions and be defensible against Turkish
incursions.
The campaign opened in May 1828, with the surrender of the
Turkish garrison in Anapa to a combined expedition of the Russian fleet and
troops from the Caucasian Line. Relieved of anxiety on the score of his
communications with Russia,
Paskevich then marched on the famous fortress of Kars, which he captured by storm in June.
The next month, the Georgian towns of Khertvisi and Akhalkalaki fell to the
Russians, as well as the port
of Poti. The key city
of Akhaltsikhe
was captured in August, while the Turks in Ardahan surrendered without
fighting. With autumn coming on, Paskevich suspended operations and retired
into winter quarters. He left garrisons in the captured Turkish strongholds,
and withdrew with the bulk of his weary forces into bases within Georgia.
During the winter, Paskevich visited his imperial master in St.
Petersburg, and impressed upon him the potentialities of an
all-out offensive in Asia Minor. The general
proposed first to conquer Erzurum and overrun
the Armenian highlands; next, to launch a combined operation against
Trebizond, with the support of the Russian Navy; and thirdly, to advance into
the heart of Anatolia by way of Sivas.
Two untoward events delayed the campaign of 1829. On 11
February, the Russian mission to Tehran,
headed by the playwright Griboedov, was hacked to pieces by a frenzied mob of
fanatical Persians. Only a display of unwonted moderation by the Russians
prevented a fresh outbreak of war with Iran. This moment, too, was
chosen by the Turks to launch a counter-offensive in the course of which they
reoccupied Ardahan and laid siege to the Russians who manned the citadel of
Akhaltsikhe. At the beginning of June, Paskevich resumed the offensive. His
brilliant strategy and forceful leadership soon reduced the Turks to a state
of demoralization. Within a month, the Russians were before the great Turkish
fortress of Erzurum, which the Ottoman seraskier made haste to surrender
together with the remnants of his army, one hundred and fifty fortress guns,
and vast stores. The conclusion of the Treaty of Adrianople in September
1829, forestalled the complete execution of Paskevich's ambitious plan. The
terms of this treaty, dictated by wider issues of European politics, were
relatively moderate in regard to the Ottoman Porte's Caucasian dominions. The
Russians gained the strongholds of Adsquri, Akhalkalaki and Akhaltsikhe. But
the provinces of Erzurum, Bayazid and Kars reverted to the Turks, who also regained Batumi and parts of
Guria. The Russians received the ports of Poti and Anapa. The loss of Anapa
cut off the Turks from direct access to Circassia,
over which the Porte formally renounced all claim to suzerainty.
These spectacular campaigns had the effect of making Georgia
an important focus of international affairs. Intellectual life began to
revive as Tbilisi
became more and more of a cosmopolitan centre. There were frequent contacts
between the Georgian aristocracy and visitors from the outside world, both
Russians and travellers from Western Europe.
The first Georgian newspaper, Sakartvelos gazeti or The Georgian
Gazette, was published between 1819 and 1822. The Russian-language Tiflisskie
vedomosti or Tiflis News started to appear in 1828, with a
supplement in Georgian. Associated with this venture was the Georgian
publicist Solomon Dodashvili, otherwise known as Dodaev-Magarsky ( 1805-36), who had attended the University
of St. Petersburg and was now a
teacher at the government school in Tbilisi.
Also prominent in the intellectual life of Georgia was Prince Alexander
Chavchavadze ( 1787-1846), father-in-law of the
Russian dramatist Griboedov. Chavchavadze's house in Tbilisi was a meeting place for the cream
of Georgian and Russian society. He won renown as a lyric poet, as did Prince
Grigol Orbeliani ( 1800-83), both of them being
high-ranking officers in the Russian Army.
After the abortive Decembrist conspiracy of 1825, the
Caucasus was used by the Tsar as a milder alternative to Siberia
for political offenders. Many of the exiled Decembrists served in the ranks
of Paskevich's army. Several of these were poets and novelists of
distinction, who found the hospitable atmosphere of Georgia highly congenial. The
prevailing cult of Byronism in Russia
encouraged a mood of romantic enthusiasm for the snow-capped peaks of the Caucasus, and their valiant, picturesque denizens. As
the Russian critic Belinsky observed, 'The Caucasus seems to have been fated
to become the cradle of our poetic talents, the inspiration and mentor of
their muses, their poetic homeland.' In one of his lyrics, Griboedov
describes the charm of Kakheti, 'where the Alazani meanders, indolence and
coolness breathe, where in the gardens they collect the tribute of the purple
grape.' He started work on a romantic tragedy to be entitled Georgian
Night, based on a theme from national legend. The great Pushkin was in Georgia
in 1829. He was royally feted in Tbilisi,
and wrote several lyrics on Georgian subjects. His travel journal, A
Journey to Erzurum, gives an account of his visit to the marchlands of Turkey
in the train of the victorious Paskevich; it contains glimpses of Georgian
life, music, poetry and scenic beauty. Some of the brilliant inspiration of
the great romantic M. Yu. Lermontov came to him from Georgia. The poems Mtsyri
and Demon have a Georgian setting, while his ballad Tamara
presents a lurid if historically false image of the great queen. In another
of his poetic works, Lermontov sketches a portrait of a drowsy Georgian
countryman, recumbent in the shade of a plane tree, languidly sipping the
mellow wine of Kakheti.
But neither the Russian romantic cult of the Caucasus, nor
the hospitable welcome extended by Tbilisi
society to Russian officers and poets, could efface the deep-seated
antagonism which the experience of a generation of Russian rule had implanted
in the Georgian nation. There were observers who saw with concern the effect
which foreign misrule was having on the Georgian population. One eyewitness,
Colonel Rottiers, a Belgian in the Russian service, went so far as to
recommend that Russian officials be removed altogether from service in Georgia.
'The Georgians,' he wrote, 'would submit to a governor from among their own
nation. They would be happy to see punished, or at least recalled, the
officials of whom they have had the most to complain. They ask for an
administrative system which extends beyond questions of criminal, civil and
commercial law, and would like to have laws based as far as possible on the
code of their ancient kings. It is wrong to despise as barbarians a people
whose aspirations testify at once to their love of abstract justice, and to
so pronounced a sense of nationality. . . . They desire,
finally, to be eligible according to merit to posts which up to now have been
bestowed by favour alone, and, furthermore, they would like themselves to
elect their municipal magistrates, their mouravs or justices of the peace.
"But," you may say, "these folk are as good as demanding a
constitution!" And why not? Those who have seen them at close quarters
deem them ripe for this privilege. When it is a question of bestowing liberty
on a nation, that is the crucial point at issue.' 34
The conspiracy of 1832
The moral climate of the 1820's was conducive to romantic
nationalism and to movements of revolt against imperial systems. Throughout Europe, the ideals typified by the Holy Alliance and
the policies of Metternich and the Russian autocrats were being called in
question by thinking men. The activities of the Carbonari in Naples,
the liberation movement in Greece,
the abortive Decembrist rising in Russia,
the Paris revolution of 1830 and the general
insurrection in Poland,
were all symptoms of a general malaise.
The Georgians had not forgotten their chivalrous days of
old, and the general mood of romantic effervescence found response in their
hearts. There were also material causes of grievance. Even the higher aristocracy were discontented, especially as the Russian
administration had curtailed the landlords' feudal jurisdiction over their
peasants and ousted them from participation in local government, as well as
questioning the titles of nobility of some of the leading princely families.
Continual wars had bled the country white. The Russian writer Griboedov
commented in 1828 that 'the recent invasion by the Persians, avenged by Count
PaskevichErivansky with so much glory for Russia, and the triumphs which he
is now winning in the Turkish pashaliks, have cost the Transcaucasian
provinces enormous sacrifices, above all Georgia, which has borne a war
burden of exceptional magnitude. It is safe to say that from the year 1826 up
to the present time she has suffered in the aggregate heavier losses in
cereal crops, pack animals and beasts of burden, drovers, etc., than the most
flourishing Russian province could have sustained.' 35 The
prevailing mood was aptly summed up in a quatrain by Prince Ioane Bagration,
son of the last king of Kartlo-Kakheti, Giorgi XII:
The Scythians [i.e., Russians] have taken from us the
entire land, and not even a single serf have they given to us. Not satisfied
with Kartli and Kakheti, they have added to them even Imereti. We have grown
poor in misfortune, and have no advocate to whom to turn. We ask justice from
above; we shall see how God decrees!
A striking portrayal of the results of a generation of
Russian rule over Georgia
is contained in the report submitted by two Russian senators, Counts Kutaysov
and Mechnikov, who carried out an official inspection of Georgia in 1829-30. The state of
affairs displayed in this document resembles that so effectively pilloried in
Gogol's comedy, Revizor, or The Inspector-General.
'Not in a single government chancellery in Transcaucasia is there a shadow of that order in the
forms and procedure of transacting business which is prescribed by law. In
some chancelleries, this is because of their defective organization; in
others, because of the incapacity and lack of experience of the officials
posted for service there, and the complete absence of personnel capable of
efficient work. . . . The quantity of unresolved lawsuits turned out to be
beyond calculation. They had piled up, not because they were submitted in
great quantities, but because no efforts were made to bring them to a prompt
settlement.'
According to these two senators, Russian officials were
volunteering to serve in Georgia
simply in order to benefit by the advancement in rank automatically granted
as an incentive to undertake a tour of duty in the Caucasus.
On arrival there, they spent their period of service in wandering idly from
one department to another, and waiting impatiently for the moment to return
home. Arbitrary caprice rather than observance of official regulations
governed the administration of justice. Thus, the Governor of Tbilisi, P. D. Zavaleysky,
and his colleagues, had deprived some proprietors of their lands, and granted
these to others, just as they saw fit. 'In Imereti', the senators went on,
'we found abuses of power and acts of extortion.' The main culprits were the
head of the local administration, State Councillor Perekrestov, and his
colleagues. The senators removed these persons from office and committed them
for trial. The general muddle was further aggravated by the right which the
Russian commanders-inchief at Tbilisi had arrogated to themselves of acting
as supreme judges of appeal, and sometimes forcing local tribunals to give
verdicts against the canons of Russian law, in which nobody therefore had any
faith. 'Although certain provinces have been joined to Russia for about thirty years,' the senators
continued, 'the administration in Transcaucasia
still bears the stamp of the irresponsible, capricious and vague methods of
government practised by the former rulers of this country.' This applied
particularly to the basis of land tenure and the system of serfdom. 'Some
peasants exercise rights of ownership over other peasants, as if they were
themselves members of the gentry class. . . . The princes there possess
nobles as their vassals, and dispose of their persons as well as of their
property.' The dues and services rendered by the peasants to their
proprietors were innumerable, and not defined by any law. The lot of the
farmers was rendered intolerable by the behaviour of Russian quartermasters.
When grain and other supplies needed for the troops were commandeered, often
at artificially low prices, payment was frequently withheld and embezzled by
the military commanders themselves. There were even cases where the
authorities acted as receivers of stolen property, and protected the thieves
from prosecution by the rightful owners.
Senators Kutaysov and Mechnikov went on to underline the
backward state of the social services and public amenities in Georgia.
There were no charitable foundations, orphanages, almshouses, homes for incurables,
or lunatic asylums. One small, wretched hospital served the needs of the
entire population. Public hygiene and the study of tropical diseases demanded
urgent attention. The towns were still dirty and squalid in appearance. There
were no regular travel facilities or posting stations. The income of the
Georgian Exarchate was not being spent, as it should have been, in keeping
the churches under its authority in good repair. The churches in both Eastern Georgia and Imereti were in a wretched and dilapidated
condition. Some of these, which the senators recognized as possessing
outstanding architectural merit and historical interest, were literally
falling down; others had holes in the roof, through which rain poured down
upon the worshippers. The senators concluded by informing the emperor that
they had uncovered in the administration of Transcaucasia
abuses, malpractices and oppression of the people, and had endeavoured to put
an end to these once for all. They hoped that the state of Georgia would swiftly take a turn
for the better. 36 This
hope, as it turned out, was a trifle premature.
It was natural, given these conditions,
that the Georgians should have yearned for the removal of Russian
dominance and the return of the house of Bagration. The senior members of the
Georgian royal family were by now dead, or else for the most part resigned to
exclusion from power. An exception was Prince Alexander Bagration, who was
still living among the Persians, and ever on the
alert for a chance of action against the hated Russians. Within Russia,
the spirit of Georgian nationalism was kept alive principally by Okropir
Bagration, a younger son of King Giorgi XII and the heroic Queen Mariam, and
also by his cousin, Prince Dimitri, son of Yulon. Okropir and Dimitri used to
hold gatherings of Georgian students at Moscow
and St. Petersburg,
and attempted to inspire them with patriotic feeling. A secret society was
formed in Tbilisi
to work for the re-establishment of an independent kingdom under Bagratid
rule. Okropir himself visited Georgia
in 1830, and held talks with the principal conspirators, who included members
of the princely houses of Orbeliani and Eristavi, as well as the publicist
Solomon Dodashvili. They hoped to enlist the support of Western Georgian
nationalists who had been active in the revolt in Imereti in 1820. The young
Constantine Sharvashidze, a scion of the ruling house of Abkhazia, was also
believed sympathetic.
The Georgian conspirators of 1830-32 were not liberal
republicans, but rather monarchists and nationalists. Their projected plan of
action was melodramatic rather than practical. It was proposed to invite
Baron Rosen, who had succeeded Paskevich as commander-in-chief in Georgia,
and other members of the garrison and administration, to a grand ball in Tbilisi. At a given
signal, they would all be assassinated. The conspirators would then seize the
Daryal Pass
to prevent reinforcements from arriving from Russia. Prince Alexander
Bagration would return from Persia
to be proclaimed king of Georgia.
Plans for seizing the arsenal and barracks were drawn up, as was the
composition of a provisional government.
This rather wild project proved unacceptable to the more
moderate members of the group. Many of the Georgian nobles had, after all,
friends or relatives by marriage among the Russian residents. The publicist
Dodashvili quitted the conspiracy altogether, while the patriot and poet
Alexander Chavchavadze refused to support a scheme which depended on the
support of Prince Alexander Bagration and his infidel Persians, the murderers
of his son-in-law Griboedov. These waverers refrained, however, from
disclosing their knowledge to the Russian authorities.
The ball at which the Russian officers were to be
assassinated was scheduled for 20 November 1832, the day of the meeting of
Georgian princes and nobles at Tbilisi
for the election of deputies to the Provincial Assembly of the Nobility. This
session was unexpectedly postponed, first to 9 December.,
then to 20 December.
Early in December, the whole affair was revealed to the
authorities by one of the conspirators, who turned 'King's Evidence'.
Extensive arrests were made. Commissions of enquiry were set up at Tbilisi and in St.
Petersburg. Although ten of the accused were
sentenced to death, they were all reprieved. Some of them were deported for a
few years to provincial centres in Russia, or enrolled in the ranks
of the Russian Army. The writer Dodashvili, already a consumptive, was posted
to Vyatka, the harsh climate
of which place soon brought him to the grave.
The Emperor Nicholas was perturbed by the well-founded
grievances revealed by the commissions of enquiry, and ordered a thorough
investigation into the causes of discontent. Most of the conspirators were
later allowed to resume their official careers, and one of them, Prince
Grigol Orbeliani, rose to be Governor of Tbilisi. The failure of the plot of
1830-32 marks the end of an epoch in Georgian history. All hope for a restoration
of the Bagratid dynasty was now lost. The Georgian aristocracy came more and
more to identify their own interests with those of the Russian autocratic
régime. Georgia
sank gradually into a mood of torpid acquiescence, until the economic and
intellectual revival which occurred during the viceroyalty of Prince
Vorontsov, between 1845 and 1854, paved the way for a fresh upsurge of
national consciousness.
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20. See Russian
sources cited in D. M. Lang, The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, p. 254.
21. We follow the
version given by Colonel B. E. A. Rottiers, in his Itinéraire de Tiflis à
Constantinople, Brussels
1829, pp. 73-83.
22. J.F. Baddeley, The
Russian Conquest of the Caucasus, London
1908, p. 68.
23. Cited in D. M.
Lang, The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, p. 257.
24. D. M. Lang, The
Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, p. 259.
25. Rotfiers, Itiéraire
de Tiflis à Constantinople, pp. 94-95.
26. French
diplomatic archives, Quai d'Orsay, Paris,
as quoted in M. Lang, The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, pp. 263-65.
27. Sir Robert Ker
Porter, Travels in Georgia,
Persia, etc., Vol. II,
London
1821-22, p. 521.
28. D. M. Lang, The
Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, pp. 267-68.
29. Quoted in
Baddeley, The Russian Conquest of the Caucasm, p. 97.
30. Archives of the
French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Quai d'Orsay, Paris,
Correspondance Commerdale, Tiflis, Vol. I, pp. 107-8.
31. See Sir Bernard
Pares, A History of Russia, revised edition, London 1947, p. 365; D.
M. Lang, "The Decembrist Conspiracy through British Eyes", in American
Slavic and East European Review, Vol. VIII, No. 4, December 1949, pp.
262-74.
32. D. M. Lang,
"Griboedov's Last Years in Persia", in American Slavic and East
European Review, Vol. VII, No. 4, December 1948, pp. 317-39.
33. W.E. D. Allen
and P. Muratoff, Caucasian Battlefields: A History of the Wars on the
Turco-Caucadan Border, 1928-1921, Cambridge
1953, p. 21.
34. Rottiers, Itinéraire
de Tifiis à Constantinople, p. 95.
35. Text in D. M.
Lang, The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, pp. 275-76.
36. See the text of
the report in the Akty or Collected Documents of the Caucasian
Archaeographical Commission (in Russian), Vol. VIII, Tbilisi 1881, pp. 1-13.
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