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Armeno-Georgian
War of 1918 and Armeno-Georgian Territorial
Issue in the 20th Century By Andrew Andersen and Georg Egge
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Brief
History of the Disputed Territory The official status of the territory that formed
the counties of Akhalkalaki and Borchalo, can be traced
back to ancient times (See Map 1). Both the results
of archaeological excavations and the texts of such ancient authors as
Herodotus, Xenophon, Hecataeus, Ptolemy, and
others, provide enough evidence to believe that starting at least with the 5th
century BC, most of the territory in question was part of the the early state formations of Iverians and Moskhians. After the establishment
of the Kingdom of Iveria at the turn of the 4th
and the 3d centuries BC on the basis of the above state formations, the
territory of the two future counties for more than a hundred years stayed
within the borders of that ancient Georgian state. As a result of major
political changes and upheavals that occurred in East Mediterranean area
during the 1st and 2nd centuries BC, early Georgian
states suffered heavy territorial losses. According to Strabo, a considerable
part of modern south-eastern Georgia including the two counties the history
of which being traced here, became incorporated into Armenia and stayed for
almost 300 years either within ancient Armenian state or the two empires,
namely, Rome and Parthia, that to a greater or less degree controlled
Armenian territory during the described period of time.
The beginning of the 2d century AD, was marked by certain consolidation of the early
Georgian states and recovering previously lost territories by Iveria. The Kingdom of Iveria
managed to keep the territory of the future counties Akhalkalaki
and Borchalo for nearly half a millennium – until
most of the whole region was conquered by the Arabs in 656 AD. The century of
Arab-Byzantine wars and the decline of the Arab Caliphate were followed by
the gradual recovery of both Georgian and Armenian statehood in
the form of a patchwork of small kingdoms[1] and principalities.
In this context we should mention the
Kingdom of Lore and Tashir that was formed at the
end of the 10th century in the territory re-conquered by the
Christians from the Emirate of Tiflis (one of the fragments of the former
Arab Caliphate), as well as in the territories that ceded from the Kingdom of
Tao-Klarjeti and the Principalities of Kakheti and
Shirak (the first two states were the Georgian ones while the last one was
Armenian). The Kingdom of Lore-Tashir
whose borders embraced the whole territory of the future county of Borchalo as well as considerable parts of the future
counties of Alexandropol and Kazakh, is referred to
by many Armenian historians as an Armenian state. At the same time, the
majority of Georgian and until recently, Russian historians tended to
characterise that state as a mixed Armeno-Georgian formation.
Here it would be important to mention that during the Mediaeval period of
history to which the Kingdom of Lore-Tashir belonged,
neither Europe, nor the adjacent Caucasus were under influence of ethno-linguistic
ideologies known today as nationalism. At that time, the states were formed primarily
on the basis of the loyalty of the majority of the population to a ruling
house (in the case of Lore-Tashir it was the Kvirikid house) and on the front lines of fighting faiths,
one of which passed through the South Caucasus, - on commitment to a certain religion
or one of the competing churches. According to the chronicle by Matheos Uraetsi and recent
studies by Arutyunova-Fidanyan, the Kingdom of
Lore-Tashir was dominated by Chalcedonism
(i.e., Oriental Orthodoxy) and belonged to the realm of the Georgian
Apostolic Church, while all of its neighbours, including the Byzantines, determined
the population of that kingdom either as the Romaioi (Byzantine Greeks), or Iviroi (Georgians).
The wars and turmoil of the period between the
end of the 10th and the beginning of the 12th century
resulted in the incorporation of Lore-Tashir
together with the entire Northern Armenia from the river Aras to the Karabakh mountains into the united Georgian Kingdom. During
the "golden age of Georgia," which lasted from 1118 until 1220 It
should be noted here that during the described period of time, the province
of Tashir (Tashiri),
which included most of the future county of Borchalo
without Trialeti (the current Tsalka
district), was under hereditary governance of the princely family of Zaxarian (also known as Mxargrdzeli)
that ruled the lands of northern Armenia on behalf of
the Georgian kings. As for the province of Javakheti
(the future county of Akhalkalaki) was not included
into the domain of the Zaxarids and remained among
the crown lands of Georgia proper.
During the following 580 years up until the
annexation of East Georgian (Kartli-Kahetian)
Kingdom by the Russian Empire in 1801, the territory of the future Borchalo County did not leave the limits of Georgia (Kartli). As for the future county of Akhalkalaki
(Javakheti), this province also stayed within Georgia
until the collapse of the centralized kingdom into several states in the
middle of the fifteenth century. Starting from the 1460s, Javakheti
was part of a fairly strong Principality of Samtskhe
in southern Georgia up until the elimination and of the principality and complete
absorption of its territory into the Ottoman Empire in 1590. After two
hundred and forty years of being part of ottoman Turkey, Javakheti
was invaded and annexed by the Russian Empire in 1829 to be reorganized into
the county of Akhalkalaki within the imperial province
of Tiflis. Based on the above facts which were well
known to the Georgian leaders as well as to vast majority of educated
Georgians, both the Government and the public of Georgia shared strong belief
that the counties of Akhalkalaki and Borchalo were integral and undeniable parts of their
country[2]. |
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