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Home | Ethnic Group | Georgians
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The absolute majority of Georgians are Christian and mostly adhere to their national autocephalous Georgian Orthodox Church, which originated in the 4th century. Muslim Georgian communities reside in Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan and few in Georgia’s autonomous republic of Adjara. Descending from some of the earliest settlers in the south of Caucasus, the Georgian people went through a complex process of ethnic consolidation and nation-making. It currently comprises a diverse set of local sub-ethnic communities, each with its characteristic traditions, manners and dialect or-in the case of Mingrelians, Lazes and Svans-language. The Georgian language, with its own alphabet and long written tradition going back to the 5th century, is the language of literacy and education of all Georgians living in Georgia as well as the official language of that country. Georgian, Mingrelian and Svan, together with Laz spoken by the related Laz people chiefly in Turkey, form the South Caucasian or Kartvelian family. Strategically located on the crossroads between Europe and Asia, the Georgian people have been influenced by many civilizations throughout history. They absorbed features of other cultures and married them to indigenous traditions to produce a vibrant culture which reached its high point of development in the Middle Ages. With their roots in the ancient tribal federations, the Georgians evolved into a highly structured feudal nation and by the early 11th century formed a unified kingdom which emerged as a dominant power in the Caucasus until the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. Threatened by rivaling regional empires and plagued by incessant internal unrest, the Georgians remained more or less independent until the Russian annexation of Georgian polities in the 19th century. They regained national independence-briefly from 1918 to 1921-and finally, from the Soviet Union, in 1991. |
