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Abkhaz World: Author's Reply by George Hewitt

posted by circassiankama on August, 2009 as Abkhazia


Author’s Reply

by

George Hewitt

Over a week has passed since the little article (‘Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a Year On’, on http:/www.opendemocracy.net) I was invited to contribute to the Open Democracy site to mark the anniversary of the events of August 2008 in S. Ossetia and Abkhazia was published, and, predictably, it seems to have occasioned a heated exchange of comments. When, as the first reactions came in, the moderator of the site asked me if I wanted the more personal remarks removed, I replied that it was best if everything was published exactly as submitted in order that unbiased readers might see for themselves the sort of reaction (including attempts to discredit the author) that any questioning at all of the standard Georgian position always evokes and thus reach their own conclusions about (i) which side has the stronger arguments and (ii) whether there is any value in engaging in this kind of debate, when representatives of one side see in a text what they want to see rather than what is actually written there. I had not intended to look at the comments attached to my article at all, but a few individuals have contacted me to urge me to do so, and so, having read the material posted there, I thought I would offer a few observations of my own, though I shall not name the individuals to whose views I am responding. The last time I looked, there were 24 such comments, and so, if any others have come in to increase that number, they will not be taken into account below.

Since ‘Georgia’ is a fluid concept, it is problematic to say definitively when I last set foot there. However, I have not visited Tbilisi since the end of 1987 and shall obviously not be doing so again. But, yes, I was lucky to be ‘in the right place at the right time’, namely two academic years spent in Soviet Georgia (1975-6; 1979-80) plus various stays there upto the mid-1980s, when the atmosphere was that of a happy-go-lucky, hail-fellow-well-met, and (in Soviet terms) prosperous society, whose only (privately expressed) rhetorical venom was directed against its northern controller — unless, of course, one was the Party Boss, Eduard Shevardnadze, for whom the sun notoriously rose in the north. The descent into the maelstrom of nationalism was alarmingly swift and horrible to watch. Sadly, the lesson seems not yet to have been learnt.

If my being married to an Abkhazian is irrelevant to the discussion, why mention it, though I normally do so myself in conversation in order not to be accused of witholding the fact? But, since it has been mentioned, the persons who did so (including the poet T’ariel Ch’ant’uria, who first cast this aspersion in 1989, as well as the other pro-Georgian ‘scholars’ [sic!] posting comments on my article) might like to know that my wife advised me back in May 1989, when I first proposed contributing to the Georgian-Abkhazian debate, not to do so, as she accurately foresaw the nature of the reaction — naively, I expected reason and common sense to prevail, but my wife predicted that it would not (and has not ever since).

How anyone who claims to be interested in linguistics can imagine that the existence of bilingual dictionaries is essential for, or in any way relevant to, the learning of a child’s mother-tongue is simply astonishing. It is not for me to defend the nature, value, or userfriendliness of my writings; I am quite happy for objective readers and posterity to make that judgment, and I know very well where the balance of opinion lies from the views either expressed by those who have made direct use of my linguistic publications on both Georgian and Abkhaz or brought back to me from Tbilisi by colleagues and/or students who, having contact with today’s Georgian linguistic community, have been told their opinion. If I had details of the charge that I strove to have my own works published at the expense of those of Georgian scholars, I would respond, but I have no idea how to proceed with regard to this manifestly gratuitous slur. As for supposing that an author has any say in how much his publishers should charge for his books, what does such a statement reveal about the commentator’s knowledge of the real world, and why should it even be mentioned in the context of the article in question? As for my lack of ‘love’ for the Georgian language, why, I wonder, is it that my wife and I should choose to continue communicating in a language some suppose me to hate?

The tossing off of generalised and unsubstantiated accusations should have no place in mature debate. I have in mind remarks of the kind that Abkhazia is a ‘Nazi pseudo-state’. As it happens, I have spoken to three European visitors over recent weeks who arrived here in Abkhazia from Georgia (or who had previously spent time in Georgia). All of them had been warned about visiting an Abkhazia described in precisely these terms. And all three could not believe how what they saw and experienced here for themselves could possibly merit such derogatory dismissal. I am reminded of a lecture delivered in London in 2008 by an ex-high ranking military man in NATO who simplistically spoke about the basic problem of Abkhazia residing in an unrepresentative élite simply wanting to hold on to the privileges of power. Had the speaker ever been in Abkhazia? No! Regrettably, so much of what emanates from Georgian sources bears absolutely no relation to reality. I do not have with me the appalling book ‘Conflict in the Caucasus’ by (if memory serves) Tatar art-expert Svetlana Chervonnaja (published originally in Russian under the title ‘Post-kommunisticheskaja Vandeja’) and so cannot check whether the quote ascribed to Abkhazia’s first president, Vladislav Ardzinba, to the effect that, if Georgians did not wish to be citizens of Abkhazia and did not leave voluntarily, they would be driven out’ actually appears in it as claimed, but, even if it is there, like many ‘facts’ in that work, it should be treated with the utmost caution and suspicion. The book was published under a scheme known as ‘vanity publishing’, which means that, if the cost of printing/distribution is provided by the author, the publisher publishes it, regardless of the merit of the work. Readers might like to note that the English translation was graced with a foreword by none other than Eduard Shevardnadze...

The term ‘Abkhaz(ia)’ is stated to derive from the Georgian /apxaz(eti)/ — what if it does? The traditional view, which is the only tenable one, is that the Georgian terms themselves derive from the Ancient Greek /Abasgoi/ ‘Abazgians’ or /Abasgia/ ‘Abazgia’, which in turn were adaptations of the local ethonym /Abaza/ — see my own  "The Valid and Non-valid Application of Philology to History", in: Revue des Etudes Géorgiennes et Caucasiennes 6-7, 1993, 247-264 for a rebuttal of Professor Tamaz Gamq’relidze’s tendentious attempt to make the Georgian terms the originals. In similar fashion the name of the most famous resort in northern Abkhazia, Pitsunda, came from the accusative case form of Ancient Greek’s designation for the spot /pityounta/ (from nominative /pityous/) ‘place of pines’, which also lies behind the Georgian toponym /bich’vinta/, whereas the Abkhazians have long had their own name for it, namely /A.mza.ra/ ‘the place of pines’ — for the etymology see my article "On the etymology of Bich’vinta (Pitsunda)", in: Revue des Etudes Géorgiennes et Caucasiennes, 6-7, 1993, 205-209. But Kartvelians (my suggested superordinate to refer globally to the Georgian, Mingrelian, Svan and Laz peoples) should be rather careful about drawing hasty conclusions based on the source of the most widely used name for this or that people/country/place. After all, the terms ‘Georgia’ = Russian ‘Gruzija’ = French ‘Géorgie’ = German ‘Gruzien’ = Turkish ‘Gürcistan’ etc... have nothing whatsoever to do with the Georgians’ self-designation for their land (viz. /sakartvelo/). So what is their origin?  Just as the old name for today’s eastern Georgia (Iberia/Iveria) is best explained as deriving from the Old Armenian phrase /i Virs/ ‘to the Georgians’, so the genitive plural case of the Armenian ethnonym seen in the expression /i Vrats/ ‘among the Georgian’ produced in Persian by way of a transformation of the troublesome (to Persians) consonant-complex /vr/ the term /gordzh/ , which in turn gave Turkish /gürc/, which then Italian visitors/merchants duly transposed to fit their own language’s requirements, producing a toponym homophonous with the English term. Hence the array of names for Georgia listed above, from which no conclusions at all can, of course, be drawn about the settlement or original ownership of the territory in question.

So, the war began on 14th August 1992 when Georgian troops were introduced to protect the railway-line that linked Georgia (and Armenia) to Russia from attacks by marauders, did it? If one bother to consult contemporary reports, one will see that those attacks by robbers and hijackers took place in Mingrelia (viz. on the Georgian side of the border). I can confirm this by reporting the following. In late June 1992 a German colleague returned with me by train from Maykop in the North Caucasus region of Adygheia to Abkhazia. He spent a night in Sukhum, while I went on to Ochamchira. He then came to spend a night with us in Ochamchira, before continuing his journey to Tbilisi. He told us that he had been advised by the leadership in Sukhum that he should reconsider his plans and fly from Sukhum because no-one could guarantee his safety once he crossed the R. Ingur into Mingrelia, where a civil war was actually raging between supporters of the ousted president Zviad Gamsakhurdia and those of the Military (later State) Council that had overthrown him in January. He decided to risk it, and we duly bade him a nervous farewell as he boarded the train in Ochamchira — he did, I am happy to report, reach his destination without mishap. There was no agreement, as is often claimed, between Ardzinba and Shevardnadze that Georgian troops of any kind could be introduced into Abkhazia. When the rabble that constituted the so-called National Guard (commanded by the sculptor [sic] T’engiz K’itovani) crossed the Ingur, they killed those manning the post by the bridge and some Abkhazians they met in the nearby village of Okhurei (taking hostages too). The head of the Abkhazian forces happened to be in T’qv’archal at the moment and had to race back to Sukhum as soon as he heard the news in order to help organise resistance.

I am accused of neglecting the Russian factor. Of course, if one looks back at Russian treatment of those Caucasians who resisted Russia’s southern advance in the 19th century (from northern Abkhazia across the North Caucasus, minus the North Ossetians, through into northern Daghestan), one would fully expect the Abkhazians to be implacable enemies of Russia. But the question that the Georgians prefer to ignore in this regard is this: what caused the Georgians to replace the Russians in Abkhazian disaffections? The shift started with the rush to colonise the regions of Abkhazia emptied as a result of the expulsions/migrations to Turkey in the 1860-70s by Kartvelians (largely Mingrelians). The subsequent occupation of Abkhazia by Georgian Menshevik forces in 1918, the erosion of Abkhazia’s status from full Soviet Republic in 1921 to Union-republic with Georgia in 1922 to Autonomous republic within Georgia in 1931, its swamping by ever more Kartvelians (largely, again, Mingrelians) from 1937 to 1953, and the subsequent questioning of the Abkhazians’ very historical presence in their homeland, which was (according to the Georgians’ most magnanimous theory) allegedly always a land with two autochthons (Abkhazians and Kartvelians) only confirmed it. Of course Russia has long had (and retains) an interest in what happens here — only last week Vladimir Putin stated that Russian actions in August 2008 were not dictated solely by altruism, and in that there is nothing surprising, for all powers behave in like fashion. But, in order to understand why various minorities in Soviet Georgia reacted from late 1988 negatively toward Georgian ambitions of independence, one has to do no more than simply read what Georgians themselves (political oppositionists like the late Mingrelians Merab K’ost’ava, Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Giorgi Ch’ant’uria, as well as a plethora of intellectuals, mostly historians and, I am ashamed to say, linguists) were saying about them and their right to reside as ‘guests’ on Georgian soil. But among the many instant-experts on Georgia who have sprouted from nowhere over recent years which ones have read (or have the necessary language-skills to enable them to read) all of the offensive material that was produced in those dark days across the whole Georgian-language media? Most observers are probably familiar with the slogan ‘Georgia for the Georgians’, which rang out from all sections of the nationalist movement; but, I have to say, I know of no individual, group or political party in Abkhazia unfurling parallel banners. This is why I say that the Georgians have only themselves to blame for the alienation of the minorities (particularly those, like the Abkhazians and S. Ossetians, with titular enclaves) living within Soviet Georgia’s boundaries and their subsequent wars; all the Russians had to do was sit back and enjoy the spectacle of Georgia’s descent into the self-inflicted chaos that duly ensued and which some voices (crying in the wilderness) actually predicted would result, if the country chose, as it did with such relish, the path of nationalism.

Reference is made to a letter written by members of the upper échelons of Abkhazian society on 23rd March 1870 in which they stated that Abkhazia formed a long-time constituent-part of Georgia, and this is taken at face-value as ‘proof’ of the Georgian stance on the historical relationship. The letter does indeed exist, but one needs to enquire why such a statement should have issued specifically from the pen of such individuals. The answer, like so many others, appears in the little book ‘Answer to Historians from Tbilisi’ (in Russian) by Stanislav Lak’oba (Sukhum, 2001). On p. 12 we read: ‘But since all Abkhazian peasants were proprietors of their own land and were not dependent economically on feudal overlords, they were obliged to pay redemption only for their personal emancipation. At the same time Georgian and Mingrelian princes and nobles were in receipt of huge sums of money also for land, which placed them in a considerably superior position to the Abkhazian privileged upper-class’. And so, it becomes clear that the aristocrats who put their name to the letter, which was composed with the help of Georgians, were prepared to falsify the historical position of Abkhazia’s relationship with Georgia for the base goal of seeking personal financial advantage.

The Abkhazians have no irredentist claims against Georgia. The earlier northern border of Abkhazia ran along the R. Khosta, to the north of the current border with Russia along the R. Psou, but one might reasonably conjecture that Abkhazia will not be presenting the Kremlin with demands to reclaim lost territory any time soon. Nor have Abkhazians been responsible for carrying out any terrorist acts on Georgian soil. The converse is patently not the case. Since the end of the war, hundreds have been killed in bombings and shootings, largely in the Gal District; indeed, during Putin’s visit last week, two people were killed in an explosion in Gagra, and another bomb exploded in the early evening of the same day in the capital, mercifully causing no casualties. In order to put pressure on the Mingrelian residents of Gal, those who are prepared to work with the Abkhazians have been targeted. At the time of the last presidential elections in 2004 one Davit Sigua was head of the Gal electoral commission. He was abducted and has not been heard of since... Compare this with the conduct of the Abkhazians in the operation to liberate the Upper K’odor Valley last August. The locals were given a guaranteed corridor and time to evacuate — it was not expected that Saak’ashvili’s troops would also take the opportunity to flee. As a result, there was not one casualty on the Kartvelian side, and, according to information received on the spot (in the high settlement of Azhara, meaning in Abkhaz ‘place of the ash-tree’) on Tuesday, 216 local Svan returnees have already been registered; I saw evidence in the Valley of bee-keeping and hay-making. Abkhazian troops in the area are under instructions to greet the locals but not to engage in conversation so as to avoid disputation. All Svans who did not take up arms against Abkhazia are free to return to their farms. As to the Mingrelians, whether in Abkhazia or Mingrelia, anyone familiar with my writings on this topic over the years should know that I have shewn far more concern for their language and culture than virtually anyone else (whether on the Abkhazian or Georgian side). Is it not interesting that, whilst the GEORGIAN refugees from last year’s fighting in/around S. Ossetia seem to have been provided with adequate housing within a year, many/most of the 1993 MINGRELIAN refugees from Abkhazia have been left more or less to take care of themselves and thus live in appalling conditions. If the Georgian leadership had in the summer of 1992 given a moment’s thought to the way that Abkhazians and Kartvelians lived in such intermingled settlements in so many parts of Abkhazia, they would never have dared putting at risk the apparent harmony existing in those communities by starting the war in the first place. And as for the popular view that the Kartvelian residents were ethnically cleansed, there exist two reports, one by the UN from November 1993, the other by the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples’ Organisation (UNPO) from December 1993, which state that they could find NO evidence of such an action. This would seem to be confirmed in the little book ‘The Pass of the Persecuted’ (Tbilisi, 2001) by the Mingrelian writer Guram Odisharia. He himself was one of those who fled via the K’odor Valley into Svanetia, and in the book he describes the horrors he experienced along the route. But two things stand out: (i) the flight of residents from the south of Sukhum took place BEFORE the arrival of Abkhazian troops after the fall of Sukhum on 27th September 1993 (and their attempt to travel along the highway into Mingrelia, which was the natural route to follow, was stopped by GEORGIAN forces, who ordered: ‘Go back, or we’ll kill all of you! Who gave you the order to leave the town!..’ (p. 9)); (ii) there were incidents of SVANS robbing their near destitute fellow-Kartvelian Mingrelians after they had survived the trials of passing over the mountain-pass — needless to say, this aspect of the flight of the refugees has hardly been reported and so is little known, because it does not fit the image of plucky Kartvelians pulling together to withstand the might of the Russian bear, but it happened all the same.

So, is it not plain which side’s arguments carry the greater weight of credibility? It is so easy to refute Georgian claims, if one knows where to look and takes the trouble to do so. Sadly, so many commentators cannot be bothered to make the effort.

http://www.abkhazworld.com/articles/analysis/278-a-reply-from-george-hewitt.html


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