Setting the Stage

Abstract

There are no easy answers to explain how Georgia was absorbed into the Russian Empire. In terms of history, language, ethnicity and culture, the Georgian and Russian peoples are quite dissimilar.¹ The Georgian lands, situated at the crossroads of the Greco-Roman and Persian worlds, were already organized into two principal kingdoms by the time of Christ, that of Egresi or Colchis in the west and Kartli or Iberia in the east. In the fourth century, Christianity, introduced by missionaries from Cappadocia beginning with St Nino, and the emerging Georgian Orthodox Church provided a basis for an emerging national unity as well as cementing cultural and political ties with the Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople. Caught in the crossfire of the wars between the Byzantine and Persian Empires, and then in the struggles between Byzantium and Islam, the Georgians maintained their particular identity and in the tenth century Prince David of Tao laid the foundation for a single, unified Georgian state. Under the rule of King David Bagrationi, titled the Aghmashenebeli or the Rebuilder (1089–1125), most of what we now consider Transcaucasia (Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia) was united into one realm. Medieval Georgia reached its zenith in the twelfth century, when it was the premier power of the northern Middle East.