Tell me about the Georgian Golden Age

To understand the situation of Georgia, it is easier to look back to the 11th century. During this chaotic time, the Georgians fought the invading Seljuk Turks fiercely, but in the aftermath of Manzikert their forces were sorely outnumbered and demoralized and they were crushed, much of Armenia and eastern Georgia falling to the Seljuks. However, most of western Georgia and Akbhazia remained intact, albeit in fragmented kingdoms struggling to pick up the pieces.

The Seljuk Hegemony did not last, however; in the last 1000s a particularly powerful ruler by the name of David IV managed to unite these quarreling kingdoms and take the reins of Georgia. Had the Seljuks had their hands free, they likely would have crushed him as he prepared his troops, but there were far more important matters for them to deal with in the Levant, specifically the crusaders. Thus David IV led a powerful force against them, seizing much of the interior of the Georgian heartland and in 1122 seizing Tbilisi from the Seljuks, and making it his capital. In the following years he reorganized the state and brought in Kipchaks (A Turkic group) and settled them within the depopulated interior to supplement his cavalry. The combined Georgian-Kipchak army became the most powerful military in the entire Caucasus, worrying their Muslim neighbors to the south. Fearing a Georgian crusade, the Ortuqids, a southern Turkish Muslim dynasty declared a Jihad and gathered a sizable amount of men to fight them.

Truly absurd figures of 250,000 have been suggested, but it is more likely that the combined Muslim army was around 20-30,000, with similar, though probably less, for the Georgians. Since Georgia is a relatively obscure area and Muslim sources are lacking, it seems that the only possible fact that can be stated with confidence is that David IV defeated the Muslims.

There are hints to an Ortuqid weakening following the failure of the Jihad, hinting that his defeat was particularly crippling. It lessened the load for a time on the Crusader county of Edessa, allowing it to have enough breathing room to start bickering with the Principality of Antioch instead of fighting Muslim raiders.

The succeeding decades were one of progress and unchallenged expansion. The grandson of David IV, George III, brought under his heel most of Armenia, at that time under the control of petty Muslim princes and emirs. Much of this era was one of the consolidation of the Georgian state and the expansion of its culture outwards. The Orthodox state church flourished throughout this era and Georgian culture bloomed. Georgia created its own identity separate of Byzantium’s, even challenging it several times on matters of trade or political dominance. Most of the time, however, they worked in tandem to fight the Turks.

The daughter of George III, Tamar, was to be the greatest Georgian ruler to have ever lived. Under her the state reached the epitome of its power and influence. In the end, she turned Georgia from a state playing second fiddle to Byzantium to a power that was the strongest in the region and perhaps helped inspire the myths of ‘Prestor John’ the presumed Orthodox King who was going to assist the crusaders from the east by attacking the Muslims from the other direction.

As a woman, Tamar’s early reign was characterized by her challenging the aristocracy who saw her as weak or unfit to rule. Many of them did not trust her regardless of the blessings of her Father and co-regent, George III. The nobles exerted considerable control over her, and since George III had antagonized them during his later reign by refusing to recant his decision to make Tamar the leader of Georgia, they demanded that she replace the chancellor that was loyal to George III with one more amiable to the noble interests. Tamar grudgingly agreed.

With the death of the chancellor they forced her to appoint, however, Tamar was able to subvert the nobility in a swift move, marrying a loyal noble to cement her position. She made sure that the nobility was now moved from any position of power, and with her little game within Georgia completed, she could now consolidate her forces and look outwards. Her husband, David Soslan, assisted her in these campaigns and allowed her military might to expand with such speed, as he was a competent commander, much more so than those of their Muslim neighbors.

Previously, the dynastic confusion combined with the danger of the post-Seljuk Azeri emirates had stopped the Georgian state from any sort of real, competent expansion, but under Tamar the Georgians were able to advance yet again. Her first targets were the states in eastern Azerbaijian, and she soon challenged them on the field of battle. First the Ildenizids fell to their forces, with their sultan only able to resume his reign a few years later as a pitiless vassal to the dynamic Queen, and then the Shirvanshahs of Baku collapsed under her attacks, sharing the fate of their Ildenizid neighbors.

Though Tamar had expected to end there and leave it at that, an unexpected ally came to assist her in her quest: Two Armenian brothers with great military prowess brought their own personal armies to bear against the Muslims of Armenia, seizing the city of Ani and the Queen allowed them to have it as their personal fief. The brothers had a certain strength and charisma around themselves, and they did not stop there; they took back Dvin, one of the larger cities of Armenia, back in 1203, practically completing the conquest of the land and expanding the Kingdom of Georgia to new heights. It now stretched from the Black sea to the Caspian and controlled both the Armenian highlands and the valleys of Georgia, a task not done by a native ruler since Tigranes.

the most irrelevant country in the world that only became succesful under an armenian dynasty

The Seljuks of Rum, resurgent under their powerful new ruler Suleymanshah II, organized an attack against Tamar to curb Georgia. The new ruler was arrogant, however, and underestimated the intelligence of David Soslan, who defeated his forces near Erzurum and shocking the Muslim world. One of the strongest powers in the region had been defeated by an upstart, and a Christian one, no less. From this point on, there were no significant threats to Georgia, as Suleymanshah II died later in 1203.

Georgia was now forced to look to Constantinople now, though, as in the fateful year of 1204 the city of Constantinople fell to a crusader army. Tamar, always eying the land of Trebizond in Pontus as her own, took the opportunity with open arms: she invaded the region to keep it out of the hands of the opportunistic Latins and Seljuks, who while in chaos following Suleymanshah’s death could still pose a considerable threat to her newly constructed empire. She allowed Alexios Comnenus to set up his satellite state in the area. She now had some 6 million subjects and 250k+ square miles of territory.

This was the classical era of Georgia’s culture, and the nation thrived as a whole. Feudal restrictions were relaxed in many areas, and where they weren’t, the richness of the peasants allowed a fairly un-oppressive and stable atmosphere to develop. Georgia's defeat of the Seljuks meant they did not need to worry about raiders attacking the border farms or build a large castle network. Unfortunately this laxity was to be her downfall.

Tamar’s death in 1213 aroused much sorrow within the Georgian state, but for a time things seemed to be stable. George IV, her son, seemed to be a competent ruler, and for a time it seemed as though Georgia might even organize an expedition to assist the crusaders in the Fifth Crusade, which would double the size of the Crusading force and basically ensure Christian victory in the Holy Land.

Then the Mongols came into view.

What’s the difference between Georgians and Armenians? Is it like the difference between Portuguese and Spaniards or is there actual differences?

>they pretend to sue for peace and then just slaughter all the commanders

The Mongols had come into the area by curiosity: They had been chasing the Shah of Khwarizm, Muhammad II to the Caspian, and upon his ousting, had the consent of Genghis khan to launch a reconnaissance mission into Armenia. At the battle of Khunan in central Armenia, they defeated a surprisingly large Georgian force, severely wounding the Georgian King. However, they did not stay in Georgia, as events to the south demanded their attention.

This eventually took them to Alania and the Rus, where they fought against them, defeating them handily. The Georgians were left disoriented and confused, and with the death of Georgia IV in 1223, they had little fight left in them, Rusudan, his weak sister, took to the throne, but was unable to muster any power to fight the Mongols. Indeed, the Georgians didn’t even seem to understand who their enemy was: They had assumed they were Christian because they fought Muslims, but later realized that they were in fact Pagans of an origin on the steppe.

Amusingly, the greatest blow to Georgia was not done by the Mongols, but by Jalal ad-din, the aforementioned heir to Khwarizm. In his attempts to flee the Mongols, he saw the weakened Georgians as an excellent target and as a way for him to gain prestige in the Muslim world, thereby having other leaders in the area support him. He defeated the Georgians handily at the Battle of Garni, and took Tbilisi from the Georgians in 1226, massacring the entire population when they refused to convert to Islam. However, Jalal ad-din’s attacks raised anger in the Sultanate of Rum, which had been attempting to use Georgia as a screen against the Mongols. Forging an alliance with Georgia, they defeated Jalal in Armenia, and he withdrew. He was defeated conclusively by the Seljuks in 1230.

The side effect of these conflicts was, not surprisingly, that there was no barrier to protect Georgia against the Mongols. The Mongols came in 1236, and most of devastated Georgia fell to them easily.

Throughout the rest of the 13th century, massive amounts of Georgian men were forced to fight for the Mongols at such battles as Baghdad and Terek, causing tax revolts and noble rebellion, encouraging heavy handed Mongol retaliation. Georgia was a devastated land demographically, psychologically, and culturally, but during the rise of the Il-khans Georgia was able to regain its independence, and under such leaders as King Georgi IV in the 1330s, but even then it was a shadow of its former self. The west now took the dominant role, with the east being tax-starved and devastated a symbol of the terror of the past.

Unfortunately, Georgia was not quite finished with its dilapidation. The Timurid Empire in the late 1300s utterly devastated the slowly recovering Georgian state, deporting tens of thousands to Persia and Iraq and destroying the Georgian identity after he had defeated it easily in several battles. Timur settled a number of nomadic tribes within Georgia, introducing instability and competition between these tribes and the native Georgians, creating difficulties for any leader who wanted to rebuild it.

Not that any got a chance, however: Georgia was humiliated by the Persians and the Ottomans, and soon became a battleground between these two. It switched hands multiple times until finally the Russians seized it and deposed the royal family, deporting them to various unpleasant destinations. It was under the Russians for over a hundred years and the rest, as we know it, is history.

I'm curious about these nomadic tribes (who I assume were Turkic in origin). What is there current status in Georgia? Do they exist as a sort of parallel society like Roma in Europe or Irish travellers or were they intergrated over time? Do they have anything to do with Ossetia or Abkhazia?

Very informative posts btw.

>Do they exist as a sort of parallel society like Roma in Europe or Irish travellers or were they intergrated over time? Do they have anything to do with Ossetia or Abkhazia?
From what I know, the Ossetians are descendants of the Alans (Iranic, not Turkic, though most of Timur's men were Turkic), who were among the peoples settled in that area by Timur (in greater numbers; they were already there in smaller numbers having been driven there by the Mongol conquests 150 years prior).

It was ended in 1991. Georgia was recreational area of country with 294 million people

Excellent thread

Its just me or history is full of this - some backwater nation suddenly become power house and bring prosperity only to crumble and never be well again?

>50.000 georgians vs 300.000-400.000 turks
>georgians win and slaughter them all

Any more based nation?

Armenians speak an Indo-European language and Georgians speak a Caucasian language. Culturally, they're somewhat similar, except the Armenians are probably a bit more influenced by the middle east. Also, Georgian food is fucking delicious and objectively superior to Armenian food.

>mfw a gogi tries to cuck into the EU again
le 76% face