A brief look at South Ossetia

In continuing our blog discussion on the disputed territories and states of Europe we're heading back to the Caucuses. This time we're going to focus on South Ossetia, a state that has a few backers in the international community but one that Georgia still claims as part of its territory. Like most of the other Caucuses states that we've talked about this week, much of the current state of affairs has to do with the break up of the Soviet Union and deep historical issues that predate the communist empire by centuries.

The Ossetians were a people group that are believed to have descended from the Alani tribes, one of the many barbarian hoards that poured into parts of the Roman Empire when everything out east went haywire because of the Huns and other massive tribes that messed up the old social order. The Ossetians became Christianized through Byzantine and Georgian influences during the early Middle Ages. But, like the Alani from whence they came they too were pushed out of their homeland by a massive group of barbarians, the Mongols. When the Mongols started pouring eastward the Ossetians settled into what became known as Ossetia, which today is split into roughly two halves, North Ossetia-Alania, a federal subject of Russia and South Ossetia, the de facto independent state that is disputed by Georgia. This split occured during the late Middle Ages, early Modern period when the northern Ossetians fell under Russian rule and the Southern ones came under Georgian power. Both enjoyed refuge from the Mongols in this set up so all was well and dandy.

Eventually though, South Ossetia became part of the Russian Empire in 1801 with the rest of Georgia. This lasted until the Bolshevik uprising when North Ossetia sided with the Bolsheviks and Georgia sided with a breakaway communist group called the Mensheviks. Some Georgians accused the South Ossetians of being Bolshevik supporters and a series of South Ossetian rebellions sprang up between 1918-1920. Eventually though the Bolsheviks would control the whole Soviet Empire and the relative peace and normality that existed between Ossetians and Georgians would resume, basically unabated until the end of the Soviet Era.

As the USSR was crumbling there was a surge of nationalism within much of the Soviet Empire and the Ossetians and Georgians were no different. South Ossetia didn't mind being part of a new nation of Georgia so long as they retained the autonomy they had enjoyed under Soviet dominion. Georgia however was looking to annex all of its historical boundaries and create a unified state. South Ossetians bucked at a call for Georgian to be the only nationally recognized language and conflict soon broke out when Georgia removed any autonomy for South Ossetia. The 1991-92 South Ossetian war witnessed atrocities committed by both Georgian and South Ossetian militias. In 1992 a cease fire was reached between Georgia and South Ossetia because the Georgians feared a full scale military conflict with Russia who was backing South Ossetia. It was this war and the genocidal tendencies within that really fueled the current state of affairs in the Georgian-South Ossetian relations.

All was relatively quiet for 12 years until in 2004 tensions flared up again. Georgia created a South Ossetian government within the Georgian capital of Tblisi in order to gain more control over the region. South Ossetians, especially those in the region's capital of Tskhinvali railed against this power grab. Georgian troops came in and stormed a black market operation that crippled the South Ossetian economy and fought against South Ossetians and Russian "freelance" fighters. Somehow I think the term mercenary here would be appropriate. The fighting was short-lived but atrocities furthered the rift between South Ossetia and Georgia.

In 2008 fighting flared up again. A quick cease-fire was announced but Georgian troops rolled in right before the cease-fire was supposed to come into effect. They did this, according to Georgian sentiments because of a growing number of Russian military troops and vehicles in the region. In the attack on Tskhinvali a number of Russian peacekeepers were killed. The day after Russia came into the region and steamrolled the Georgian forces. As this was happening, Russia entered into Georgia proper by way of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Georgia and Russia came to a cease-fire, but South Ossetia was left as a de facto independent state. Unfortunately though the capital of Tskhinvali was left in ruins and nearly 40,000 people had been killed or displaced by the short war. Today, South Ossetia operates as its own independent state and efforts to rebuild the capital are underway, albeit slowly.

A very brief history of Modern Abkhazia

The next few weeks of Podcasts (which I think I said would start on Sunday, but our episode days will be Fridays not Sundays, that way every one will have something to look forward to) will be focusing on the end of the Prehistoric period and moving into a bit more of the historical period. Of course, it's not the historical period per se, but we'll be entering into the Bronze Age and have a much better trove of information to draw on. However, this week on the Blog we're going to be focusing on some of the "states" of Europe that are either not fully recognized internationally or are dependencies of other nations with enough amounts of autonomy to warrant a Label by this humble Blog. We'll start with Abkhazia.

Abkhazia is located in the Northwestern corner of Georgia. I say this because Georgia feels that Abkhazia is part of its territory, not because I am backing up Georgia's claim to the territory. I'm neither backing it or denying it. But, Abkhazia is only recognized by a number of nations as being its own state, three tiny island nations in the Pacific, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Russia. Russia's recognition of Abkhazia caused Georgia to claim that Abkhazia is a "Russian occupied territory". Tensions between Abkhazia and the rest of Georgia have been at a boiling point since the break up of the Soviet Union. In a war from 1992-93 after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Abkhazia went to war with Georgia. The result of the war was a victory to the Russian and Armenian backed Abkhazia over Georgia. During and after the war 200,000 - 250,000 ethnic Georgians living within the territory of Abkhazia were either killed or forced into mass exodus in what has been labeled an ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia. In 1998 some ethnic Georgians within Abkhazia started a guerrilla war against Abkhazia that officially lasted for about six days, but continued into the early 2000's.

I wondered if this conflict was limited to Modern European History or if it had deeper roots. I researched to find more information on this breakaway region and scantly recognized state. The origin of the Abkhaz people is somewhat disputed, as could be guessed because of the ongoing conflict. The 1st Century Greek writer Strabo labeled the primary group living in the current region of Abkhazia as the Zygii. But in the late 8th century a kingdom popped up on the map known as the Kingdom of the Abkhazes when it gained independence from the Byzantine Empire. It lasted for a little over a 120 years before being married into and absorbed by the larger medieval Kingdom of Georgia. The Georgians and Abkhaz people seemed to get along well enough in the early medieval period because they teamed up against the Seljuk Turks and expelled them from the Georgian lands. However, by the 15th century, when the Kingdom of Georgia erupted into the civil war that would be its eventual downfall, the Principality of Abkhazia, a Georgian feudal entity, sided against Georgia. Abkhazia would go on to become a relatively autonomous part of the Ottoman and the Russian empires before becoming a full fledged part of the Russian Empire in 1864.

But it was under the Soviets when things flared up again to take a turn for the worst. During the Soviet era Abkahzia was under the dominion of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Many of the Abkhazia elite became dismayed at the "Georgianization" of Abkhazia and demanded to be transfered from Georgian dominion to Russian dominion as many as three times, in 1957, 1967 and again in 1978. This seems to be a continuing strife that ripples through the Northern Caucus regions as both South Ossetia (another Georgian breakaway region) and Abkhazia continue to look toward Russia as Georgia begins to look increasingly westward. So, there you have it, a very brief history of the modern Abkhazia and its historical reference points.

Kura-Araxes and Maykop mop up

As we mentioned on our last blog post, the Caucusus got excluded from the Neolithic podcasts coming up in the next two weeks primarily because their development was so entrenched with contemporary Mesopotamia. We'll focus on two last Neolithic cultures from this area (that eventually become Chalcolithic and Bronze Age cultures) and then ensure that the Caucusus gets some dap in the podcasts from now on.

First we'll talk about the Kura-Araxes Culture that existed in the southern Caucusus from around 3400 BC - 2000 BC. The culture is known by two very distinct things, both of which were so highly sought after that they spanned a large swathe of the ancient world.

First, they made very distinctive pottery. Like most early cultures we often identify a group by its style of pottery. The Kura-Araxes people made distinctive pottery that was painted with red and black geometric designs and contained Nakhichevan-type lugs, which you can surely see in these pottery shards? As far as I can tell the Nakhichevan-type lug is that circular thing you see on some of the pieces of pottery that is done in a way that is distinctive to the Kura-Araxes Culture. The pieces you see here on the left were found at a site in Iran, a place where the Kura-Araxes culture did not live.

Spear found
in Gegharot,
Armenia.

Second, as they became more settled in the Caucusus regions and pushed north into the present day Russian territories of Chechnya and Dagestan, they began to work copper. They worked it real good. Then they pushed on people. Copper made tools that are distinct to the Kura-Araxes have been found as far north as the Volga, Dnieper, and Seversky Donets rivers. The copperworks have been found as far south as Syria, Palestine, Israel and into central Turkey.

So how did the Kura-Araxes' wares get from all the way north in Russia down into modern day Irsrael? Two ways. First, the Kura-Araxes had extensive trade networks allowing them to spread their goods to a far flung field. Second, they invaded areas. They began to expand their borders outward. That expansion however was abruptly stopped by someone who had been making his way into Europe for some time, but decided to begin its wave after wave of advancement at about this time that would forever change Europe.

But, the Kura-Araxes were not the only players in the Caucusus at this time. They were basically contemporaneous with the Maykop or Maikop Culture (ca. 3700 BC - 2500 BC). They Maykop culture was located in the Ukraine, Southern Russia and the Northern Caucusus. It was highly influenced by the Kura-Araxes culture beneath it and another minor culture to its north, the Novotitorovka Culture.The Novotitorovka culture was a part of the wider Yamna culture, which is very important and we'll attempt to give that a quick summary here as to why.

The Kurgan Hypothesis, which I'm studying a bit more intensely to get a better grasp on and will let you know about later states that the European languages and cultures that we're familiar with today have a common ancestry. Under the kurgan school of thought that culture is the Yamna culture and its predecessors. So under this widely accepted theory of European ancestry the Kura-Araxes and Maykop were the last non-Proto-European groups living in the Caucusus before the Indo-European invasion. The Indo-Europeans brought a pretty different lifestyle to Europe. Some would claim, including the developer of the Kurgan Hypothesis that the change was as drastic a shift from a peacenik, hippy matriarchal society to a warmongering man's world. I think that might be overdoing it a bit, but I'm not a feminist.

While the Kura-Araxes were definitely tied into the south with roots and offshoots in Mesopotamia, the origins of the Maykop are a bit fuzzier. They were either a) indigenous pre-Indo-European Caucasians, b) Mesopotamians or proto-Assyrians who migrated north like the Kura-Araxes, or c) part of the wider Yamna Culture. We're unsure of their origins because they exhibit both Kura-Araxes traits and Indo-European ones. Under the Kurgan Hypothesis they were Indo-Europeans who did not have the willpower to impose their culture on the south, but were rather weak Indo-Europeans that had become Kura-Araxesified. Either way, they produced some incredible metal working, but unlike the Kura-Araxes culture that dabbled and innovated in copper making skills, the Maykop were a refined people and moulded using silver and gold.

The Maykops produced an incredible trove of silver and gold items. Some of which you see here. They have also been called a possible first culture to use the wheel. That alone would make them a culture worth noting...