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The end of the 15th century was marked
by further decline and disintegration of Georgia. Despite desperate
attempts by Georgian kings George VIII and Constantine III to reconstruct the
empire "from sea to sea" the battle for a united Georgia was
lost to the great feudal lords and territorial princes. Consequently, by the
year 1512 Georgia
was a kind of "patchwork quilt" of smaller states - the Kartlian,
Kahetian and Imeretian kingdoms and the South Georgian principality of
Samtskhe-Saatabago. As time went on the Imeretian Kingdom
disintegrated even further. By 1520 the independent principalities of
Mingrelia, Svanetia and Guria had, in effect, separated themselves
within Imeretia. The disintegration of
Georgia
resulted in the series of internal wars and the development of dominions (satavados)
- semi-independent feudal holdings headed by local feudals (didebuli
tavadi) who held administrative and judicial power in their own hands and
openly opposed the kings.
During this period the Armenian lands
remained in the hands of the Turkomans. By the middle of the 15th century
most of the Armenian feudal aristocracy was already destroyed, their lands
taken by Turkoman, Tatar and even Kurdish nomadic military nobility. Thus the
Armenian Apostolic
Church remained the only major force
cementing Armenian people and keeping them apart from the new conquerors and
settlers from Central Asia. The transfer of
the throne of Catholicos of all Armenians to Echmiadzin (near Yerevan) in 1441 enhanced the importance of the Ararat
valley and the city of Yerevan
as the new center of the Armenian lands.
In Northern Azerbaijan the rulers of
Shirvan and Arran wavered between Georgian
and Persian protection until early in the 16th century when they were
incorporated into the Safavid Empire.
The peoples of North Caucasus
(maneuvering between Georgians and Tatars after the break-up of the Kypchak
Empire) were finally lost for Georgia
by the end of 1560ies. The lands of Circassians and Kabardians, who were
living side by side with the new Turco-Mongolic settlers were incorporated
into the Khanate of Crimea, mountain Kabardia preserving certain autonomy.
The Alans, as well as the tribes of Dagestan
were ruled by their local warlords. From time to time they accepted the
suzerainty of the Khan of Astrakhan and tended to be increasingly hostile
towards the weakening Georgians.
Beginning in the early 16th century,
the Transcaucasia became the arena for a
bitter struggle between the new Islamic superpowers: Ottoman Turkey and the
Azero-Persian Safavid Empire. The Ottoman Turks had taken Constantinople in
1453 and Trebizond in 1462. In 1464 they had
subordinated the Khanate of Crimea and by 1475 conquered the last Genoese enclaves
in South Crimea and North-West Caucasus. The
Black Sea became "an Ottoman lake" and the Christian lands of the Caucasus were cut off from the rest of Christian world.
Moreover, great geographic discoveries had revealed new trade routes for
Western Europe, and the ancient routes to the Far East and India through the Caucasus
lost their significance, thus turning the area into "political
backwater".
While the Ottoman Empire was rising in
East Mediterranean, the Azerbaijani Safavid Dynasty took power in Persia.
In 1502 Ismail 1 (1486-1524) overthrew the Turkoman ruler, proclaimed
himself shah and established a new
empire. Shah Ismail was regarded as a saint by the Iranians. Thus the Shiite
doctrine became an official religion of his mighty state, covering a vast
territory from the deserts of Central Asia to the Euphrates
river. By the middle of the 16th century almost all of Azerbaijan
had come under Safavid rule. The Azerbaijani nobility played a leading role
in the new empire, both regional administration and court being in its hands
. The army was composed primarily of Azerbaijanis, whose language was used at
the Shah's court and in diplomatic correspondence.
The consolidation of both the Ottoman
and the Safavid empires facilitated a series of wars for hegemony in the
area, causing the territories of Armenia, Georgia and Mesopotamia
to become battlefields. The wars between the two Islamic powers resulted,
finally, in the partition of Armenia.
In the year 1555 the Safavids dominated the area of modern Armenia around lake
Sevan, most of the Khachen
(Karabakh) and the cities of Yerevan,
Jugha (Julfa) and Nakhichevan. All the rest of Armenia remained under the
Ottoman Turks. The Ottoman sultans ruled the Armenian lands through the
system of millet, according to which the ecclesiastical authority over
the Armenian people belonged to the Armenian Apostolic
Church.
Torn apart by feudal separatism and lack
of centralized power, and thus unable to keep its sovereignty and integrity, Georgia
was also to divide into separate spheres of influence. By the year 1545 the
Ottoman Turks had annexed Southern Georgia
(Chanetia, Ajaria and the Principality of Samtskhe) and began to carry out
forced Turkization. By the end of the 16th century Georgians completely lost
their battle against the new Moslem powers. West-Georgian lands (Imeretia,
Mingrelia and Svanetia) became dependent on the Ottoman
Empire, while the kings of Cartlia and Kahetia became tributary
to the Safavids.
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