Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/447

GEORGIA September 12, 1801, .»le.'ander I. issued a proclamation announc- ing t.lic fact to the people of that corriitry. In 1810 the pr-iircc of Irireritia revolted against Russia; brrt this movement was quickly suppressed, and the priireipality annexcd._ l_Iamia. V., the ruler of Gouria, recognized the su7.eraiirty of Russia iii the same year, his priircipality being evcirtually annexed iir 1829. See Wiikhoucht. 1[i'stoi'i-e de la Géorgie, trans. by Brossct. and additions. .5 vols , Sr I’.-tei-shiirg, 134:); 'lad_vkyir, Sabesyéiliig/k 1-‘por1te.<Iies!r-_i/iy pa li'ar'1azou, Moscow, 1574; Zeidleitz, Otclierk Vynadyelya I'urliaza, Tiflis, 1875; Comm. J. Ull(:ll_:1l1 Telfer. ll.l'., The Crimea and Transcaucasia, 1877. (J. B. TE.) 1:‘!/urology. —()f the three main groups iirto which the Caucasian races are now rrsually divided, the Georgian is in every respect the inost inrportairt and interesting. It has _accor-dingly largely occu- pied the attention of Orientalists almost incessantly froni the days of lilaproth to the present time. Yet such are the drfheultrcs cori- iiccted with the origin and mutual relations of the C:1tlC:.1Slill1 peoples that its affinities are still far from being clearly established. Anton Scliiefncr and P. V. Uslar, however, who iiirist be accepted as undoubtedly the greatest authorities on the subject, have at least arrived at some negative eonclrrsioiis valuable as starting points for further i'eseai'cli. In their valuable papers, published in the .l[:'nm£rs of the St Petcr'sbrri'g Imperial Acatlciriy of Sciences and elsewhere, they have finally disposed of the views of Bopp and llrosset, who attempted on linguistic grounds to eoirricct the Georgiairs with the Aryan family. They also clearly show that Max .Ir'rller’s “ 'l'uranian "’ theory is untenable, and they go a long v:ry towards proviirg that the Georgian, with all the other Carr- casian languages except the Ossetian, forms a distiirct linguistic fanrily absolutely independent of all others. This had already been suspected by Klaprotli, and as the saiue coirclrrsiori has been arrived at. by F r. )I'r'rller and Zagarclli, it is not likely to be set aside by further investigation. Uslar-’s “ Carrcasiair Family " comprises the following three great divisions :— 1. Western Group. Typical races: Telicr-kessiaus and Abkhasians. 2. Eastern Group. Typical races: Tchetchenzcs and Lesglriarrs. 3. Southern Group. Typical 1'ace: Georgians. Here the term “ faiirily" iriust be taken in a far more elastic sense than when applied, for instance, to the Aryan, Scirritic, or E-asterir Polynesian divisions of iiraiikirid. Iirdeed, Uslar would perhaps be the first to admit that the fundamental uirity of the. three groups has irot yet been established, and that they present at lvalsli as wide diver-gencics as are forriid to exist between the Semitic and llamitic linguistic families, whose primitive relationship has not yet been defiiritely deterinirrcd. Thus, while the Abkhasian of group 1 is still at the agglrrtiiiatiirg, the Lesghian of group 2 has fair'l_v reached the inllecting_state, and the Georgian seems still to waver between the two. In consequence of these difI'ererit. stages of dr-velopmeiit, Uslar hesitates finally to fix the position of Geoigiaii in the family, regarding it as possibly a connecting link between groups 1 and :2, brit possibly also radically distinct from both. lnclirding all its iiuruerous ramifications, the Georgian or southern group occrrpies the greater part of Traiisearrcasia, reaching from about the neighbourliood of Batouin on the Errxiire eastwards to the Caspian, an-_l incrgiirg soutlrwards with the Arrnciiiairs of _r_vair stock. It comprises altogether nine subdivisions, as in the sub- joined table :— 1. The Gl-ZORGI.-‘.'S PROPER, who are the Iberians of the ancients and the G:-u.¢_r/a of the llussians. but who cazl themselves Ii'artha!im'ans. and who in IllL‘(lliB'{l.l times were iiiasiers of the lrlion and Upper Kur as far as its junction with the Alazan. T7‘.£.h:l']li1C I.ii;inri..'s, west of the Suram mountains as far as river Tzchenis-

5. The (irnraxs. between the Rion and Lazistan.

4. The L..i:s of Lazistan on the I-Zuxinc. -5. The S'.‘.'[T!llA‘.'S, S!['A2'S, or SWANIANS, on the Upper Iugur mid Tzelrenis- Tzelrali rivers. G. The .lixGi:i-:i.i.x<_. between rivers Tzchcnis-Tzchnli, Rion, Iiigur, and the Blpck Sea. '2); " about the hcirdstreams of the Alazau and 9. The Klll£'.:'L'l:S, Jom rivers‘ All these formed jointly the ancient kingdom of Iberia, whose mcp'7zé or “ king” resided at Mtzkhet till 469 A.D., when the seat of goveriiiucnt was removed to the neighbouring Tplrlissi or Tplrilis- kalaki, z'.c., “warm town,” so called from its thermal springs. This place has ever since. coiitiiiued to be the capital of the king- doin, and now bears the abbreviated name of Tifiis. The repre- sentative branch of the race have always been the Karthalinians, a name which the native Christian cliroiiielers profess to trace back to lihartlos, second son of Tlrargarnos, son of J apliet, son of Noah. 1-‘rein Thargaiiios all their tribes are by their writers called, collect- ively, Tliargamossiani, and from Khartlos their‘ country receives the name of Kartlrveli or Karthli. But no weight can be attached to these genealogies and ctyrnologies, which would doubtless never have been heard of brrt for the national desire to connect the race with the .los.iic aecouirt of the dispersion. It is now pretty well cstablislied that the Georgians are the descendants of the aborigiircs of the Parnbaki liiglrlauds, and that they found their way to their‘ ‘ 433 ago, possibly under pressure from the great waves of Aryan migra- tion tlowing from the liranian table-land westwards to Asia Minor aird Europe. The terriis Georgian and Grusya are simply corrup- tioirs of the Persian Gzcrj, as in Grrr'jistan=Grrrjlaiid= Georgia. The Georgians proper are limited on the east by the Alazan, on the north by the Caucasus, on the west by the Meskhian hills, separating them from the Iinciitiaris, and oil the south by the Kur river and the Karadagh and the l’ambaki iiiorriitains. Southwards, however, no hard and fast ethnical line can be drawn, for even inirirediately south of Tiflis, Georgians, Armenians, and Tatars are found inter- iningled confuscdly together. The Georgian race, which represents the oldest elements of civilization in the Caucasus, is distinguished by some excellent mental qualities, and is especially noted for personal courage and a passionate love of music. The people, however, are described as fierce and cruel, and addicted to the vice of inteniperancc, though You Tliieliiraiiii speaks of theiir as “ rather hard drinkers than drunkards.” Physically they are a fine athletic race of pure Carr- easian type ; lieuce during the Moslein asecndency Georgia supplied, next to Circassia, the largest iiuiirber of female slaves for the Turkish harems and of recruits for the Osmanli armies, more especially for Ilie select corps of the faiirous lllamelrrks. The social organization rested on a highly aristocratic basis, and the lowest classes were separated by several grades of vassalagc from the highest. Brit since their incorporation with the Russian em- pire, thcse relations have become greatly modified, and a more sharply defined middle class of nrerehairts, traders, and artisans has been developed. The power of life and death, formerly claimed and freely exercised by the nobles over their serfs, has also been expressly abolished. They are altogether at present in a fairly well-to-do con- dition, and it cannot be denied that under the Russian administra- tion they have become industrious, and have made considerable moral and material progress. ilissionaries sent by Constantine the Great introduced Christi- anity about the beginning of the 4th century. Their efforts were greatly aided by the exemplary life of a female slave named Nina, who came into Georgia during the i'cign of‘ King lliriain (265-318), and who occupies a prominent place in the ecclesiastical records of the country. Since that time the people have, rrnder severe pressure from surrounding Mahometan communities, remained faithful to the principles of Christiaiirty, and are still amongst the most devoted adherents of the orthodox Greek Church. Indeed it was their attachment to the national religion that caused tlicnr to call in the aid of the Christian Muscovites against the proselytizing attempts of the Shiite Per’siaiis—a step which ultimately brought about their political extinction. As already stated, the Karthli language is not only fundamentally distinct from the Aryan liiigrristic family, brrt cannot be shown to possess any clearly ascertained afiinities with either of the two north- ern Caucasian groups. It. reseiirblcs thenr chiefly in its phonetic system, so that according to Roseu (Spa-achr: dcr Lazcaz) all the lair- grrages of central and western Caucasus might be adequately rendered b__y the Georgian alphabet. Though certainly not so harsh as the Avar, Serglriari, and other Daghestan languages, it is very far from hcin g eriphoiiious, and the frequent recurrence of such sounds as ts, (ls, tli-:, kh, khh. gh (Arab. 5), Q (Arab. ‘_','), for all of which there are distinct characters, renders its articulation rather more energetic and rugged than is agreeable to cars accustomed to the softer tones of the Irenian and western Arvan tongues. It presents great facilities for composition, the laws of which are very regular. Its peculiar mor- phology, standing midway between agglutination and true inflexion, is well illustrated by its simple declension common to noun, adJec- tive, aird pronoun, and its more intricate verbal conjugation, with its personal endings, seven tenses, and incorporation of prononirual subject a.nd object, all showing decided progress towards the inflect- ing strrreture of the Aryan and Semitic tongues. Georgian is written in a native alphabet obviously based on the Armenian, and like it attributed to St Mesropius (Mesrob), he flourished in the 6th eeritrrry. Of this alphabet there are two forms, differing so greatly in orrtline and even in the number of the letters that they might alnrost be regarded as two distinct alphabetic systems. The first and oldest, used exclusively in the Bible and liturgical works, is the square or rrronrrnicntal Khittsuri, 1'. c. , “ sacer- dotal, ” consisting of 38 letters, approaching the Armenian in appear- ance. The second is the Jlkhcdriili Uiéli, i'.c., “ soldier’s hanr .” used in ordinary writing, and consisting of 40 letters, neatly shaped and full of curves, hence at first sight not unlike the modern Bur- iircsc foriir of the Pali. Of the Karthli language there are several varieties ; and, besides those comprised in the above table, mention should be made of the Kakhetian current in the historic province of Kakhctia. A dis- tinction is sometimes drawn between the Karthalinians proper :_1n_d the Kakhetians, brrt it rests on a purely political basis, having origi- natcd with the partition in 1424 of the ancient Iberian est_at_es into the three new kingdoms of Karthaliuia. Kakhetia, and liner-itia preseirt homes from the south—cast some four or five thousand years 1 On the other hand, both the Laz of Lazistan and the Swaiiiau pie.

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