Causes
of War – Prospects for Peace
Patriarchate of Georgian Orthodox Church
Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation
Tbilisi, 2009
On December 2-3, 2008 the Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox
Church and the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation held a
scientific
conference on the theme: Causes of War - Prospects for
Peace.
The main purpose of the conference was to show
the essence of the
existing conflicts in Georgia and to prepare objective scientific and
information basis.
This book is a collection of conference reports
and discussion materials
that on the request of the editorial board has
been presented in
article format.
Publishers:
Metropolitan Ananya Japaridze
Katia Christina Plate
Bidzina Lebanidze
Nato Asatiani
Editorial board:
Archimandrite Adam
(Akhaladze), Tamaz Beradze, Rozeta
Gujejiani, Roland
Topchishvili, Mariam Lordkipanidze, Lela
Margiani, Tariel Putkaradze,
Bezhan Khorava
Reviewers:
Zurab Tvalchrelidze
Revaz Sherozia
Giorgi Cheishvili
Otar Janelidze
Printed by CGS ltd
/page 214/
The Geopolitical Role of the Caucasus
Mountains from the Historical Perspective
Giorgi Leon
Kavtaradze
If
we throw a glance through the main - Eurasian - part of the Eastern
Hemisphere we can easily find the Trans-Caucasus
located between the two seas. It has quite an extraordinary, I dare say, even
central position on the hemisphere. In North of it, across the Great Caucasian
Range, is situated Russia; in the South, genuine Near Eastern Turkey and Iran;
in the West, the Black Sea divides it from Eastern Europe, and in the East, the
Caspian Sea from Central Asia. Such an intermediate location of the Caucasus
should be the reason of its ethno-cultural diversity noticed already by
Greco-Roman authors.
Georgia
(ancient Colchis and Iberia),
the country of the Golden Fleece in Classical Greek mythology, is located in
the central and Western parts of the Trans-Caucasus. It is chained to the Caucasus
like Prometheus, who found his last abode in the same mountains. Even on the
former state emblem of Georgia, under the hoofs of the horse of Tetri (White) Giorgi (the image of
Georgia) the Caucasian mountains are depicted - instead of the dragon of St.
George's icon - a symbol of natural challenge of the country, representing the
link of its destiny with one of the main markers of the geographical,
ethno-cultural and political division of the world.
Georgia
and the Trans-Caucasus generally lie not only at the cross-roads of all four
sides of the world, but at the cross-roads also, from the temporal standpoint,
between the old and new worlds: the old world of totalitarianism and the new
world of democratic society. Both these cross-roads are intertwined with each
other. The areas North and East of the Caucasus
are still embodiments of totalitarian societies. The areas West and South,
embody societies with a democratic way of life or on the path of democratic
transformation.
Numerous
states were created in all parts of the world after the First and the Second
World Wars and also after the collapse of the Communistic system. In our days,
this process takes place mainly in new countries of the post-Soviet space and Georgia
is among them. The analogous situation was created already in Georgia,
due to the annihilation of the Russian Empire, when a new Democratic Republic
of Georgia was created. In three-years, in February-March of 1921, Georgia
was occupied by Soviet Russia, though the tradition of statehood in Georgia
counts thousands of years.
It
seems that the factors of geopolitical character caused not only the emergence
of statehood in Central Trans-Caucasus in the Classical period, but also
determined its historical development in Medieval, New and Newest times.
The
main purposes of the future studies are: at first,- to outline the possible
trends in political orientation of Georgia, against the background of existing
tendencies (in the political life of Georgia itself, of the Trans-Caucasus
generally, and of a much wider area adjacent to the basins of the Black and
Caspian seas) and the second, to study /p. 215/ the
character of interrelations among these trends.
Georgian
politicians and public carry out discussions on how to solve the triple choice,
which faces the country:
- Join the security system of the
CIS (i.e. Russia);
- Declare neutrality;
- Integrate within the
Euro-Atlantic democratic societies.
Pro-Russian
trend actually means turning back from the process of state creation to final
dissolution (though gradual) in the Russian maw
– the age-long dream of Russian political circles. In spite of the decisions made
on various summits, Russia
tries to retain by all means its military presence
in Georgia
and at the same time to widen its economic and political presence in the
country.
Neutral status is irrelevant for a
country lying on the highway of political processes and surrounded by
aggressive neighbours – primarily by Russia; Turkey
and Iran
to some extent, during the reinterpretation of their Caucasian policy after the
breakdown of the Soviet Empire, are trying to ensure peace and security of the
region, different from their old historical traditions.
The pro-Western trend seems the only
option, which can secure the independent development of Georgia. But
can we be sure that this choice answers to the national interests of the
country? Why the pro-Western orientation become a motto of Georgian society? How trustworthy are the fears spreading
among a part of Georgian public that, because of their pro-Western orientation,
the country and its population are under the unforeseeable and imminent threat
of punishment coming from rivals of the Western democratic societies and,
therefore, in the opinion of this part of public, the political orientation of
the country should be changed?
These
questions show how tense and uncertain the political situation in Georgia
is lately. I don’t think that there exists an easy answer to all questions, that
Georgian’s face today, but historians could try to make the situation more
understandable from the standpoint of the historical development of this
country.
Therefore,
we need to throw a glance from the historical perspective, to gain an insight
into the character of developments underlying modern processes. The pointer of the
political compass of Georgia was
directed to various sides of the world in different times, but what kind of
mechanism caused such a shift of orientation? Which point, having strong magnetic power, was most determinative
for the Georgian pointer throughout the history? These are the questions that
should be answered.
Unfortunately
nobody paid attention, in the special literature, to the interconnection
between the existence of the state power in Central Trans-Caucasus and the
necessity to control the passes through the Caucasus, indicated by the
historical development of the area. This is mainly due to the fact that, during
the last two hundred years, the Trans-Caucasus was incorporated in the Russian
and Soviet empires and no governmental employee, in charge of these
totalitarian states, would allow, or encourage even in a post-Soviet time, to
carry out such a study. Both these countries (the Russian /p. 216/ Empire
and the Soviet Union) succeeded
in total subjection of the Trans-Caucasian territory, which was of vital
importance for their expansionistic plans against the entire East
Mediterranean-Middle Eastern area. On the other hand, the fact, that no
Caucasian nation was represented on the political map of the world over the
last two centuries, with the above-mentioned short exception, is the main
reason why Caucasian history was actually neglected by Western specialists,
even when studying the areas adjacent to it.
The
breakdown of the Communist system gave specialists of countries belonging to
this system the possibility to use such methodological principles, far removed
from the dogmas of Marxism-Leninism and sometimes already obsolete in other
parts of the world. In connection with the early Caucasian political history,
the use of Arnold Toynbee's Challenge-and-Response
model seems preferable, as the emergence and development of the idea of
statehood in the Caucasus
finds its stimulus (Challenge) in the
reaction (Response) of the local
natural and social environment.
The
political history of Georgia,
like other Transcaucasian countries, was mainly dominated by the fact of the
geographical location of the Trans-Caucasus in the South of the Great Caucasian
mountainous chain, one of the most important watershed systems of the world.
These mountains form a fracture (something like a geological fault-line), not only from the
geographical and ethno-cultural points of view, but also from the geopolitical
division of the world. The key importance of the location of the Caucasus
was picturesquely stated by Pliny the Elder (Plinius Magnus), already two
thousand years ago, namely that the Caucasian
Gate (i.e. the Darial Pass,
crossing the central part of the Great Caucasian Range),
divides the world in two parts (n.h. 6,
30).
There
was always a need for a barrier to be erected by the world of reasonable men
against the world of barbarians, such as the Great
Wall of China or Hadrian's
Wall (Roman
Limes). The Caucasian Gate had
the same function for the Middle East. Since
immemorial times, it barred the descent of the Eurasian nomads into the
civilised world of common interest: the Mediterranean-Middle Eastern oikoumene.
The
Caucasian Gate is frequently called
the Pillars, Stronghold or Iron
Gate of
Alexander the Great by the Classical (Greco-Roman) authors. The linkage of Alexander's name with
the emergence of the Iberian statehood, known from old Armenian and Georgian
chronicles, indicates the raison d'être
of this state, namely to be the outpost of the civilised world in its struggle
with the realm of Gog and Magog lying beyond the Caucasian Gate.
The
above-mentioned emblem of Georgia bears
the sun, the moon and the five stars, supposedly bestowed on the Georgians by
the legendary image of Alexander of old Georgian chronicles, as an ideological
basis of their state religion. Thus, the concept of Alexander’s Iron Gate
was the reflection of the concrete political function of the Georgian State:
control over one of the most important strategic passes of the world.
This function seems to have been one
of the main decisive factors that challenged the emergence of the Georgian State
in the central part of Trans-Caucasus in the Early Hellenistic period. The
location of Georgia,
South of the Great Caucasian Range, /p. 217/ in
the contact zone of Eurasian nomads and Middle Eastern civilised societies, had
predetermined the continual external pressure from the North. A Challenge, which for its part caused a Response: the creation of a state (i.e.
the Iberian Kingdom)
in Central Trans-Caucasus. It is interesting that the period of replacement of
the Pax Achaemenia by the Pax Macedonica marks
out the emergence of Iberian (East Georgian) Kingdom.
The raison d'être not only of Iberia,
but also of other new states of the Classical period, Albania
and Lazica (the successive state of Colchis),
were to become stronghols of the civilised world (Greek oikoumene or Roman orbis
terarrum) in its struggle with the barbarian Realm of Darkness beyond the Caucasian Gate. However, there was
undoubtedly a difference between the Western political orientation (the Greek
states, Roman and Byzantine empires) of Iberia
and also, to a certain degree, of Lazica on the one hand, and the Eastern
orientation (Persia, Parthia)
of Albania
(together with Armenia),
on the other.
The
control of the Caucasian passes could create the most favourable opportunity
for the preservation of Pax Romana in
the Middle East. The Iberians
were the most important allies of the
Romans in the region, having supremacy over the Caucasian Gate. The close collaboration between the Romans and the
Iberians, based on their joint strategic interests as parts of one and the same
orbis terarrum, was the leit-motif of their interrelations.
At
the same time, the rulers of the Iberian Kingdom
successfully used the favourable strategic location of their country to balance
the pressure of the powers, coming from all sides of the world, often changing
the direction of their orientation. Already Tacitus noted that the Iberians
were "masters of various positions" and could suddenly
"pour" mercenaries from across the Caucasus
against their Southern enemies (Ann.
6, 33).
The long-term aspiration of the medieval
Georgian monarchy, going back presumably to the times of the Roman Empire, to
bring under its sovereignty not only the Caucasian
Gate, but all existing Caucasian passes from the Black to the Caspian Sea,
is expressed by the formula of its territorial integrity in the Georgian
chronicle of the 11th century the "Life of Georgia": "from
Nikopsia to Daruband", i.e.
from the North-Eastern Black Sea littoral to the Derbent gateway (the second
important pass of the Caucasus), on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. This
formula, emphasising especially the northern borderline along the Caucasus,
enables us to interpret the main function of that kingdom in a more general
context.
Faced with the necessity of effective
control of the Caucasian passes, which barred the way of the northern invaders,
the rulers of the states of the Eastern Mediterranean-Middle Eastern area were
always eager to have in Central Trans-Caucasus - in Iberia -
a political organisation with sufficient strength to fulfil such a defensive function.
The concept of the Caucasian Gate predetermined the fate of the Georgian State from the Early Hellenistic time
till the beginning of the 19th century when Georgia's annexation by Russia meant the loss of this important
function of this state. I
think this function is the reason why Georgia, as pointed out by Cyril Toumanoff,
is the only country of Christendom where socio-political and cultural
development ran an uninterrupted /p. 218/ course from the Classical period to the
beginning of the 19th century.
This overwhelming interest of the
Near Eastern-Mediterranean societies towards Georgia
was caused not only by the abstract defensive function of this country, but
mainly by its concrete location at the edge of the civilised and barbarian
worlds. Though Georgia and the Trans-Caucasus were open to the influences of
these two opposite models of historical development, the factor of the Great
Caucasian Range determined its destination to be the stronghold of the highly
developed and prosperous Middle Eastern-Mediterranean oikoumene, against the vast area of Eurasian steppes: an embodiment
of the powerful and aggressive forces with their slow rate of social,
political, economic and cultural development. Or in other words, to be the
stronghold of the civilised South and West against the barbarian North and
East. On the other hand, the northern nomads required a bridgehead for their
raids towards the Middle East.
The territories of Georgia
and the Trans-Caucasus represented the best opportunities for this task.
The constant opposition between the
barbarian and civilised peoples, aggressors and producers, brigands and
creators, were two firestones with the help of which the fire of statehood
south of the central part of the Great Caucasian Range, in Central Trans-Caucasus,
was kindled.
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