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11.06.2012

REALITY OF TBILISI: ON ARMENIAN-GEORGIAN CONTRADICTIONS

   

Tamara Vardanyan
Expert at the Center of the Armenian Studies, “Noravank” Foundation, Candidate of Science (History)



Introduction

Last year “Internews Georgia” organization has carried out monitoring of tolerance and human rights issues in local media. They studied the number and content of publications on ethnic and religious (as well as sexual) minorities in printed media. As a result it turned out that the total number of the materials full of hate towards minorities exceeds the articles with positive or neutral coloring, which proves the high level intolerance towards minorities in the country.

Let us turn to the figures referring to ethnic and religious minorities. The analysis of the materials concerning ethnic minorities proves that 43% of the articles are of negative shading and only 13% are of positive coloring (44% are neutral)1.

Though it is known that the language nationalism is deeply rooted in the Georgian society, on this historical stage it seeds to the religious segment of nationalism. The numbers also prove this. Thus, the Georgian society is more intolerant in regard to the religious minorities: 54% of the articles referring to the latter is of negative shade and only 6% are positive.

The figures according to the ethnic groups are the most remarkable ones. The overwhelming majority of the published materials on ethnic minorities – 60% - are devoted to the Armenians. At the same time only 11% of the publications are devoted to the Abkhazians with whom the Georgians had two wars. The rest of the figures are distributes as follows: Azerbaijanis – 7%, Meskhetin Turks – 7%, Ossethians – 5%, etc. The Armenians are the most frequently mentioned religious minority – 47%, meanwhile Muslims are mentioned only in 24% of publications2.

The phenomenon of anti-Armenian moods

Judging by the figures, the Armenians are in the spotlight of the Georgian society. The anti-Armenian segment of the Georgian nationalism does not yield to the problems with other nations even under the conditions when:

a) in consequence of wars and confrontations with the Abkhazians and Ossethians Georgia suffered territorial, human and economic losses;

b) as a result of high birth rate among the Azerbaijanis they take the first place among the national minorities. Let us mention that before the 2002 census the first place had been occupied by the Armenians.

Anyway, the materials spreading anti-Armenian moods outnumber and overshadow by their radicalism problems with other minorities. Why does the Armenian factor bother Georgian society to that extent? This phenomenon, which seems to be rather surprising at the first sight, has its explanation. Historic memory plays great role in the formation of interethnic relations. The image of any nation as a competitor (ally, enemy) in the traditional perceptions is changing slowly as a rule. It was formed in the late 19th century and early 20th century and became stronger during short Armenian-Georgian war in 1918-1919 which was the only one over the long history of these nations.

The Roots of the Armenian-Georgian Contradictions

Back in the late 19th century and early 20th century alongside with the development of the capitalistic relations in Russia, serious shifts took place not only in social and economic but also in interethnic plane.

Before the development of capitalism the positions of the Georgian nobility in Transcaucasia were rather strong, but in consequence of the development of capitalism they had been losing their grounds. As for the Armenians, new changes played into their hands. Unlike Georgians and Tatars, the Armenians managed to get involved quickly in new commercial and production relations. The shift from villages to big cities, where there a fertile ground for the development of commerce and industry could be found, took place. The Armenians living in the cities had grown and became powerful, thus forming the bourgeoisie. But, unfortunately the Armenian capital had grown into the soil not in Yerevan, Kars, Aleksandrapol but rather in Tbilisi, Baku and partially in Batumi.

The higher level of involvement of the Armenians in capitalistic relations as compared with the Georgians and Tatars was conditioned by the fact that the Armenians who had no lands, unlike Georgian and Tatar landlords who could not get rid of their lands and move to the cities, were engaged in the commercial and industrial activity. At the beginning of the century the Georgian nobility constituted about 41.5% of the entire nobility in the Caucasus, the Turk-Tatar nobility – 27.5%, and the Armenian nobility only 5.46%3. Thus, 2/5 of the noblemen living in the Caucasus were Georgians.

Thus the demand in the commercial and industrial field was met by the Armenians for whom the trade and industry were the only means of living. Besides, the Armenians, living at the crossroads of civilizations and trade routes, had been involved in commerce from long ago and they had been known for their success in that field. They managed to establish connections by means of transitional trade routes not only between East and West but also between North and South. The geographic position of the Armenian Highlands, being at the crossroads of the civilizations, has contributed to some extent to the development of such qualities as mobility, knowledge of commercial skills and nuances, ability to accommodate themselves to strange places and peoples, flexibility, knowledge of languages, etc.

Ruin of the Georgian nobility and flourishing of the Armenian capital

It is known that the nobility was the social backbone of Tsarism and Tsarist regime, in its turn, tended to support it by means of some measures. Thus in 1844 tsar’s vicegerent Vorontsov established the Transcaucasian Department of Public Assistance, which aimed to credit the Georgian nobility at a low rate4. The Georgian princes and noblemen hurried to mortgage their lands and receiving their sums, instead of making investments, began wasting it. Running into debts over the years they, of course, appeared in dependence from the vicegerent and authorities. And the latter spread the payments of the credits at the expense of the treasury or simply wrote off the debts. But those careless years did not last long as the aforementioned Department was dissolved and instead many credit organizations were opened, which did not kindly rebate the Georgian noblemen. At that point the economic situation of the Georgian wealthy class worsened. Their debts to the credit organizations, according to official information, constituted 80% of the mortgaged lands and the debts of the Imereti landlords – 55%5. And the Armenian merchants and manufacturers managed to generate considerable sums of money by that time and wanted to turn them into a capital. Thus, the process of decay of the Georgian nobility and buying of the lands in Tiflis province was initiated. The broken Georgian landlords turned to the Armenian capitalists with the request to loan them at bearing interest which coincided with the demand of the Armenians to multiply their money. The debts of the Georgian nobility was gradually growing as it was rather difficult to pay down the interests under the conditions when the serfdom was abolished in 1861 and landlords had no opportunity to exploit peasants broadly. Many Georgian and Imeriti estates were mortgaged to the Armenians and as a result Georgian noblemen and princes lost them. Thus, most of the vineyards in Kakhetia were mortgaged to the Armenians who came to Telavi (center of the Kakhetia province) for harvest and managing the profits6.

B. Ishkhanyan wrote about those processes: “All that was not implemented in Russia and particularly in the Caucasus by political means – annihilation of the nobility and minimization of its influence – was carried out spontaneously on the grounds of economic struggle. Medieval subsistence economy must make way for the technical industry” 7.

Thus, accumulation of the capital by the Armenian wealthy took place alongside with and partially even at the expense of ruining of the Georgian landlords.

Anti-Armenian manifestations

Over the aforementioned period a belief was ingrained among the Georgians that their weakening was conditioned by the success of the Armenians who were doing well in commerce and who accumulated considerable financial means which allowed them buying estate of the decaying Georgian nobility. Let us also mention that the Armenians managed to occupy rather high positions in the system of administration of Tbilisi either.

Over that period the nationalist segment of the Georgian nobility grabbed any opportunity to disseminate anti-Armenian moods in the society. That resentment was broadly covered by the local press.

In the late 19th and early 20th century the periodicals of clearly anti-Armenian orientation – “Tsnobis Purtseli” (“Information paper”), “Akhali Droeba” (“New Time”) (all in Gerogian), “Iveria”, “Kavkaz” (in Russian) – which spread antipathy towards Armenians blaming them in the economic decay of the Georgians, were published. The contemporary researcher of the ethnic psychology G. U. Soldatova mentioned that under the critical conditions “a number of mechanisms of social perceptions among which are e.g. conditioning the shortcomings and failure of their own group by the external factors..., shifting a blame and responsibility for the failure in economic and social sphere to other ethnic group” work 8.

Similar situation was formed at the beginning of the 20th century in the Georgian society. Editor of “Tsnobis Purtseli” (1886-1906) newspaper V. Gunia who was well-known for his ant-Armenian articles, wrote in the Russian-language “Kavkaz”: “It is not a secret for anyone... that for the recent 1.5-2 decades the Armenians periodically have expelled Georgians from the city administration... The Georgian press within its compass has constantly pointed out this unnatural situation – the Armenian dominance in the ancient capital of Georgia and unjust attitude of Duma towards the Georgians” 9.

It is difficult to say whether the press expressed the opinion of the Georgian society or just visa versa, it tended to form that opinion. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the publications which aimed to deepen Armenian-Georgian contradictions and excite enmity did not have a widespread response among the broad masses of the Georgian society. Those contradictions found response among mainly competing representatives of higher classes. A. Gulkhandaryan, describing the pogroms of the Armenians by the Tatars in Baku, initiated and provoked by the Tsarist authorities in 1905, wrote: “The same flagitious hands started spreading leaflets in Tiflis in which they warned the Georgians that the Armenians were going to massacre them. Thus, efforts were carried out to prejudice against Armenians not only Tatars but also Georgians. Naturally, the Armenian and Georgian population of Tiflis acknowledged that the leaflets were spread either by the police or the public scoundrels for whom it was advantageous and desirable to initiate Armenian-Georgian collisions”10.

In fact, exciting enmity and stirring up hatred between the Armenians and Georgians anti-Armenian press in Tiflis at that historical stage did not attain its aims. But it managed to some extent enroot in the ideology of the Georgian nationalism a stressed anti-Armenian component.

Conclusion

Drawing parallels with today’s reality, one can mention that current anti-Armenian moods in the Georgian media have no root causes, but the tradition which was formed in the past, when the Armenians were considered as competitors, lasts to the present day. They connected the natural decay of the Georgian nobility at the beginning of the last century with the growth of the Armenian capital but this phenomenon was a process which was in accord with the logic and rules of the economic development. Nevertheless, some Georgian- and Russian-language printed media managed to direct this discontent in anti-Armenian direction.

And today, 60% of materials about the ethnic minorities in Georgian printed media are devoted to the Armenians and most of them are with negative shading. Those media are “Asaval-dasavali”, “Akhali Taoba”, “Alia”, “Kviris Khronika”, Kviris Palitra”, “Versia”, “Rezonansi”, etc. Taking into consideration Abkhazian, Ossethian and growing Azerbaijani factors, such a situation on the one hand, of course, is a continuation of traditions coming from the past, but, on the other hand, it is a result of deliberate activity of some anti-Armenian powers from inside.

1 Tabagari Giorgi, Chachua Diana, Monitoring of Media Coverage Ethnic, Religious and Sexual Minorities in Georgian Printed Media, Internews Georgia, 1 May 2011 – 31 July 2011.

2 Ibid.

3 Իշխանյան Բ., «Կովկասյան ժողովուրդների ազգաբնակչության կազմը, պրոֆեսիոնալ խմբավորումը», Tiflis, 1904, p. 192։

4 Н.Н. М-ко, «Грузино-армянские претензии и Закавказская революция», Киев, 1906, p. 7

5 Ibid, p. 8։

6 Ibid, p. 8։

7 Իշխանյան Բ., the aforementioned work., p. 193։

8 Солдатова Г.У., «Психология межэтнической напряженности» (Գ.Ու. Սոլդատովա, «Ազգամիջյան լարվածության հոգեբանությունը»), М., 1998, էջ 160-161։

9 «Кавказ» («Kavkaz»), Tiflis, 1897, N 3։

10 Ա.Գյուլխանդանյան, «Հայ-թաթարական ընդհարումները Բագուի մեջ», «Hayrenik», Boston, 1932, No 1, p. 126-127։

“Globus” analytical journal, # 5, 2012

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