Part 8

Shah Nadir usurped the crown of Persia in 1736, and freed Kartli and Kakheti from the Turkish yoke. A little before his accession, in 1732, Russia had renounced in favour of Persia all right to the land between the Terek and the Kura. Nadir ingratiated himself with the Georgian nobility, and always gave them the post of honour in the victorious campaigns for which his reign is famous. Almost all the great warriors of the land accompanied him on his Indian march of conquest, and his especial favourite was Irakli, the son of Teimuraz, King of Kartli and Kakheti. An interesting story is told concerning the young warrior, in connection with this expedition. Kandahar having been taken in 1737, Nadir was marching towards Scinde, when he arrived at a certain column bearing an inscription which foretold death to those who went beyond it. Irakli, at that time only nineteen years of age, solved the difficulty by ordering the stone to be placed on the back of an elephant, which was led before the army. Scinde was conquered, and Irakli was richly rewarded. The Shah endeavoured to persuade the young prince to renounce the Christian religion, but neither threats nor caresses prevailed. India having been conquered, Nadir dismissed Irakli in 1739, and then invaded Central Asia, taking Balkh, Bokhara, Samarkand, whence he returned to the Caucasus and made war on the Lesghians. Irakli continued to distinguish himself by great bravery. On the Aragva he defeated 2000 Turks and Lesghians, was the first to cross the swollen river under a heavy musketry fire, and killed the leader of the enemy with his own hand. For this service Nadir bestowed upon him the kingdom of Kakheti in 1744.

In 1747 Shah Nadir was assassinated, and a period of anarchy began in Persia. Aga Mahmad Khan, the chief eunuch, usurped the dignity of Shah. Teimuraz and Irakli saved Erivan from the Persians in 1748, and this city paid tribute to Georgia until 1800, when the people, not wishing to fall into the hands of Russia, invited Persia to take the place. In 1749 Irakli, with 3000 men, signally defeated 18,000 Persians at Karaboulakh and again saved Erivan; then Granja was taken, the Lesghians were dispersed, and an alliance was made with the Cherkesses. Teimuraz went to Russia in 1760; Tsaritsa Elizabeth received him with great honour, and promised to send troops to Georgia, but she died in 1761, and Teimuraz only survived her about a fortnight.

Irakli now succeeded to the throne of Kartli, and thus reunited this kingdom to Kakheti. The Catholicos Antoni, the most learned Georgian of his time, was recalled from exile in Russia and made patriarch; he founded at Tiflis and Telav schools where the "new philosophy" of Bacmeister was taught, translated many educational works into his native tongue, reformed the Church and encouraged literature.

A plot was formed against the king's life in 1765, under the following circumstances: Elizabeth, Irakli's sister, had been married for three years to a certain Giorgi, son of Dimitri Amilakhorishvili, who, for physical reasons, had been unable to consummate the marriage. Elizabeth applied for and obtained a divorce. Dimitri thought himself insulted in the person of his son, and he and his friends began to conspire with Paata, a natural son of Vakhtang V., who had been educated in Russia and England, and had just arrived in Georgia from the Persian court. Paata was to kill Irakli and proclaim himself king. The conspiracy was discovered in time, and all those who had taken part in it were punished with death or mutilation.

Solomon, king of Imereti, had, in the meantime, been driven from his throne by the treachery of some of his nobles, who delivered Kutais, Shorapan and other fortresses to the Turks. He appealed to Catherine of Russia for help. Count Todleben arrived in the Caucasus with 5000 men in 1769, and Kutais was taken back, and Imereti freed from the oppression of the Turks. In the following year a great plague devastated the whole of Transcaucasia, 5000 died in Tiflis alone. The Holy Spear from the Armenian Convent at Edchmiadzin was brought out, and the plague ceased; whereupon the Lesghians demanded that the precious relic should be sent to them also; a spear was made exactly like the holy one, and it produced the same beneficent effect. Todleben was succeeded by Sukhotin, and in 1772, peace having been restored, the Russians returned homeward. But no sooner were they gone than the Turks again invaded Imereti; King Solomon, however, defeated them with great slaughter, killing many with his own hand.

Irakli's kingdom enjoyed comparative peace and prosperity for a time, and advantage was taken of this to disband the regular army and organize a militia, for the defence of the country against the raids of the irrepressible Lesghians. The king and his sons set an example to the people by subjecting themselves to the same discipline as private individuals, and those who did not present themselves for service were sought out and beaten with sticks. In 1779 the Khan of Erivan refused to pay tribute, and strongly fortified the city; the Georgians took the place and carried off several Armenians, who were removed to Tiflis, Gori, and Signakh, where they now constitute the trading and money-lending community.

In 1795 happened the terrible catastrophe which was to bring about the ruin of Georgia--the destruction of Tiflis by the Shah Aga Mahmad. The Persians marched through Armenia in great force, and reached the banks of the Kura without meeting with any serious opposition. Their advanced guard was attacked by the Georgians just outside the city, and was defeated on the 10th of September. Speaking of this battle, the Shah himself said, "I never saw so valorous a foe." On the following day the main body arrived, and Tiflis was taken by storm. King Irakli was so overcome with grief that he must have fallen into the hands of the enemy had not a few faithful nobles forcibly removed him from the captured city and conveyed him to Mtiuleti, on the Aragva. Almost all the Georgian artillery, thirty-five guns, was taken, and the city and its environs were burnt to the ground.

For six days the work of destruction went on; women and young children were barbarously murdered, and the stench of rotting corpses made the place uninhabitable. A Persian historian says, "The brave Persian army showed the unbelieving Georgians what is in store for them at the day of judgment." All this havoc might have been prevented if Russia had sent the troops which she had solemnly promised by her treaties with Irakli, for the Shah had been making preparations for the invasion four months before it took place, and both Russia and Georgia were well aware of this.

Prince Giorgi, unworthy son of such a father, had been repeatedly ordered to bring his army to Tiflis, but he refused. No sooner did he hear of the fall of the capital than he prepared to flee from Signakh, although the place was strongly fortified, and there were many armed men there; but the inhabitants refused to let him go, and it was only by bribing his guards that he succeeded in escaping to Telav. Not one of Irakli's sons served him in the hour of his need.

Mtzkhet was captured and burnt, but the famous cathedral was spared, at the entreaty of the Khan of Nakhitshevan, who remonstrated against the desecration of the tomb of so many of Georgia's brave kings.

From Mtiuleti, Irakli proceeded to Ananur. The Shah sent after him 8000 men, guided by one of the king's own courtiers, but they were defeated. Aga Mahmad then offered to give up all the prisoners as well as the citadel of Tiflis if Irakli would renounce his treaty with Russia, and become tributary to Persia; but Irakli would not hear of any terms, however favourable, which would force him to be false to his alliance with Russia, although she, on her part, had forsaken him. He quickly assembled an army and marched to the southward, met the Persians between Kodjori and Krtsani and defeated them, re-taking Tiflis on the 6th of October.

A large Russian force now arrived and took Derbent, Shemakha, Baku, and several other fortresses in Daghestan, but the death of the Empress Catherine in 1796 put an end to the campaign, for Tsar Paul recalled all the troops from Transcaucasia. In 1797 Aga Mahmad Khan was again marching against Georgia, when he was fortunately assassinated, like his predecessor Nadir. Plague and famine came to slay those who had escaped the sword of the Persians, and, worst of all, the great Irakli died in January, 1798, at the age of eighty, after a career almost unparalleled in history. Frederick of Prussia might well say, "Moi en Europe, et en Asie l'invincible Hercule, roi de Géorgie."

Giorgi now succeeded to the throne, and entered into negotiations with Persia, but Tsar Paul heard of the proposed alliance and outbid the Shah. A treaty was signed, confirming the throne to the Bagratid dynasty for ever, and promising military aid whenever it might be necessary. Alexander, the king's brother, now raised a revolt, which was put down with the help of the Russians; after all he had a grievance, for Irakli's will declared that he was to succeed Giorgi, while the Russians had persuaded the king to appoint as his heir his son David, a major-general in the Russian army. Alexander now appealed to Persia for aid, which he obtained, and in a three hours' battle at Kakabeti, on the Iora, he and Omar Khan, with an army of 12,000 men, were defeated. Giorgi died in 1800, and Georgia was then formally incorporated in the Russian empire.

General Knorring, the first governor, proceeded to the country with 10,000 men, and in the following year, under Tsar Alexander I., the annexation was confirmed. In 1803 Prince Tsitsishvili, a Georgian, succeeded Knorring. By his advice all the royal family were summoned to Russia, "in order to prevent civil dissensions," and this removal was accompanied by a very unfortunate incident. Queen Maria, widow of Giorgi, refused to go; General Lazarev proceeded early one morning to the queen's sleeping apartments with some soldiers and attempted to force her to accompany him; she killed him with a dagger which she had concealed under her dress, and her young son and daughter stabbed some of the soldiers. They were, of course, overpowered and carried off; at Dariel, in the narrowest part of the pass, a few Tagaur Ossets made a vain attempt at a rescue. Queen Maria was kept imprisoned in a convent at Voronezh for seven years, and never saw her native land again.

Tsitsishvili set himself to improve the condition of the country as much as possible. He began the military road over the Caucasus in 1804. He succeeded in persuading King Solomon of Imereti to acknowledge the Tsar as his suzerain, but Solomon soon began to intrigue with the Turks again. After taking Gandja by storm, and subduing a rising of the mountaineers under Pharnavaz and Iulon, sons of Irakli, Tsitsishvili marched against Baku, where he was treacherously murdered by the Khan of that city in 1806.

Count Gudovich was now appointed commander-in-chief, and his courtesy won for him the friendship of the Georgian people. Kakheti voluntarily submitted to his rule. He defeated the Turks in several battles, but was unsuccessful in his attack on Erivan, where he lost 2000 men. He was then recalled and made governor-general of Moscow. General Tormasov was the next ruler of Georgia, and he continued the war against the Turks, who were aided by King Solomon of Imereti. Poti was taken in 1810, and Princess Nina of Mingreli, who was allied to the Russians, herself led her troops to the assault. Sukhum was also taken. King Solomon was persuaded to go to a certain village in Kartli to sign a treaty of peace with Russia. The Russians treacherously seized him by night, and carried him off to prison in Tiflis, but he escaped in disguise, and fled to Akhaltsikhe, where he was received by the Turks with great honour. He returned to Imereti, and the whole country rose in his favour. There were revolts in Kakheti, and even among the Ossets, but they were soon crushed by force of numbers. Then came a plague which carried off vast numbers of victims in Imereti.

Tormasov was replaced by Paulucci, who, after a few months, was, in his turn, superseded by Rtishtshef. In 1813 took place the famous storming of Lenkoran, on the Caspian, by General Kotliarevski, followed by the Gulistan Treaty of Peace, which was signed on behalf of Persia by Sir Gore Ouseley, British ambassador at Teheran.

King Solomon died at Trebizond in 1815, and with him ended the troublous existence of Imereti as an independent kingdom. In about three and a half centuries thirty kings had sat on the Imeretian throne, twenty-two of them were dethroned (one of them, Bagrat the Blind, eight times), seven died a violent death, three were blinded.

Yermolov became governor-general in 1816, and soon afterwards the Chechens and Daghestanians began to give the Russians serious trouble. Then the clergy raised a national movement in Imereti, in which Guri and Apkhazi joined, and in Mingreli, hitherto faithful, the Dadian's brother revolted. All these efforts to shake off the Russian yoke were, of course, fruitless, and they ended in 1822 with the capture of Zakatali from the Lesghians. Then the Cherkesses (Circassians) broke into rebellion, and in 1826 Persia again declared war against Russia and marched 60,000 men into Georgia. Aided by the Lesghians and the Kakhetians, under Alexander, son of Irakli, they were at first successful, but the tide turned, and Erivan, Tavriz, and other places saw Russia victorious.

Paskevich succeeded Yermolov in 1827, and the peace of Turkmenchai having been concluded with Persia, war was declared against Turkey. The Russians took Kars, Poti, Akhalkalaki, Akhaltsikhe, Bayazid from the Turks, and in 1829 the belligerents signed the treaty of Adrianople.

In 1830 Kasi-mullah began his revolt, and brought about a general rising among the Mahometan peoples of the Caucasus. Baron Rosen, who took the command of the army in 1831, captured Gimri, and Kasi-mullah was killed. Golovin (1837), Neidhart (1842), and Prince Vorontsov (1844-1854) enjoyed comparative peace, and were able to turn their attention to the internal condition of the country. Prince Vorontsov especially deserves credit for his honest and painstaking efforts to ameliorate the economic situation of Georgia, and it flatters our national pride to remember that that statesman was English by birth and education, if not by blood.

The pacification of Daghestan did not, as was expected, follow the death of Kasi-mullah. A greater prophet and warrior arose to take the place of the vanquished hero of Gimri. Shamil, after carrying on a guerilla warfare for about ten years, raised the whole of the Eastern Caucasus in 1843, and continued to inflict a series of crushing defeats on the Russian generals who were sent to oppose him. The declaration of war with Turkey in 1853 raised the hopes of the Lesghians, but the utter incapacity of the Turkish leaders in Armenia prevented the realization of those hopes. Everybody is familiar with the incidents of Shamil's career down to the capture at Gunib in 1859; but it seems to me that too little attention has been devoted to the remarkable religious system which inspired the Murids to their marvellous deeds of valour. It is surely a noteworthy fact that the mysticism of the Sufis should have been found to be compatible with a purely militant faith like Islam.

During the last thirty years little of interest has happened in Georgia. The appointment of the Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich to the lieutenancy of the Caucasus in 1862, the gradual freeing of the serfs, the construction of railway and telegraph lines of communication, the founding of one or two banks, schools, and other establishments of public utility, are the chief events which the annalist has to chronicle. "Free" Svaneti was conquered a few years ago, and, for the present, Russia's supremacy is undisputed as far as the frontiers of Turkey and Persia. Even the last war between Russia and Turkey was not accompanied by any visible commotion among the peoples of the Caucasus.

There is as yet no history of Georgia in the sense in which we now understand the word. Those works which are dignified with the name are merely more or less trustworthy collections of materials, which in their present form produce only a feeling of bewilderment in the reader. We trust that a man worthy of the task will seriously take the annals of his nation in hand, and present them to the world in an intelligible form; and we also cherish the hope that he will not finish his task without being able to chronicle the new birth of a strong, independent state worthy to maintain the fame of Irakli and Tamara.

THE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF GEORGIA.

The origin of the Kartlian or Kartvelian language is still involved in some doubt, but the general opinion of philologists seems to be that it does not belong to the Indo-European family, although it has been powerfully influenced by Zend, Sanskrit, Persian, and Armenian. The ancient speech of the country is preserved to us in the ecclesiastical rituals and books of devotion, which are written in characters differing very considerably from the civil alphabet, the "war hand," the invention of the latter being ascribed to King Pharnavaz I., a contemporary of Alexander the Great. The Khutsuri, or ecclesiastical character, bears a striking resemblance to Armenian; an excellent specimen of it may be seen in the British Museum Library, in the famous Moscow Bible of 1743, recently purchased. The number of letters is the same in both alphabets, viz. thirty-eight, and the modern alphabet is as follows:--

a b g d e v z é (short) th (not English th but t followed by sound of h) i (English ee) c l m n i (short) o p zh r s t u (oo) vi (vee) ph (p followed by sound of h) k gh (guttural) _ (something like a guttural k) sh ch tz dz ts dch kh khh j h ho

The orthography is purely phonetic. There is very little difference between the language of the sacred books and that of to-day, not nearly so much as between Anglo-Saxon and English; but many foreign words have been introduced in modern times.

The earliest specimens of Georgian literature which have come down to us are translations of the Scriptures, and theological works written under the influence of the Greek clergy, who, until the eleventh century, occupied almost all the high ecclesiastical offices in the land.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era the relations between Georgia and Greece were of the most intimate character. The young nobles of the court of King David the Renewer and his immediate successors frequented the schools of Athens, and brought back with them Platonic and Aristotelian teachings which exerted a very powerful influence on the intellectual and social life of that period, and prepared the way for the golden age of Georgian literature, which dawned on the accession of Queen Tamara. Sulkhan Orbeliani, in the preface to his dictionary, compiled early in the eighteenth century, says that he consulted translations of Proklus, Platonicus, Nemesis, Aristotle, Damascenus, Plato, Porphyry, and many other Greek writers. If these MSS. were still extant, they might prove valuable to classical scholars.

During the stormy times that soon followed, the countless lyrical pieces which were produced were nearly all lost, but the epic which is now looked upon as the greatest masterpiece in the language has escaped with but a few mutilations. This is "The Man in the Panther's Skin" (Vepkhvis Tkaosani) by Shota Rustaveli.

History tells us very little about Shota Rustaveli. We only know that he was born in the village of Rustavi, near Akhaltsikhe, that he received his education in Athens, returned to his native land, where he wrote his great work, was secretary to Queen Tamara, then became a monk, and died in the monastery of the Holy Cross, near Jerusalem, where his portrait may still be seen. Tradition says that the poet was passionately enamoured of his royal mistress, and this assertion seems to be borne out by many passages in the poem.

During nearly seven centuries of ceaseless struggles for freedom, the Georgians have kept this great work fresh in their minds. It has inspired them with hope and courage in the darkest hours, and at the present day it is as great a favourite as it ever was. Not only are many of its verses household words in cottage and hall, but there are not a few Georgians, especially among the women, who know every word of it by heart; indeed, there was a time when no woman was allowed to marry unless she could repeat the whole poem. The reason for this extraordinary popularity is to be found in the fact that the poem is a thoroughly national one in its smallest details. Although the heroes and heroines are described as Arabians, Indians, Chinese, they are all Georgians to the very finger tips.

The plot is of the simplest description possible. Rostevan, a patriarchal Eastern king, who has renounced the throne of Arabia in favour of his daughter Tinatina, is out hunting one day with Avtandil, one of his generals, when he sees a weeping youth of wondrous beauty, dressed in a panther's skin. The king orders his guards to seize the stranger, but the latter kills several of them and mysteriously escapes, whereupon the old king falls into a fit of sadness so deep that Tinatina at length promises her hand to the knight who will satisfy her father's curiosity. Avtandil sets out to seek the man in the panther's skin, wanders about for three years, meeting with wondrous adventures, before he finds the object of his search, who turns out to be Tariel, a young knight enamoured of Nestan Daredjan, daughter of the king of India, and then returns to claim the hand of his queen.

In Avtandil we have a Christian chevalier of the East who is worthy of comparison with our Rolands and Red Cross Knights, while Tariel is a wild Mussulman, whose passion drives him to excesses worthy of Amadis of Gaul.

The interest is powerfully sustained all through the poem, and its dramatic unity is never lost sight of; yet, however interesting the narrative may be, it is chiefly as a picture of life in Georgia in the days of Tamara that "The Man in the Panther's Skin" is valuable.

Tinatina, who is none other than Tamara herself, is described as follows:--

"One daughter only had the aged king, And she was fair as is the Eastern sun. He upon whom her gaze but once did rest Was ravish'd of his heart and soul and thought."

Tinatina is a beautiful type of womanhood, such as we might expect to find in the literature of Western Europe, but hardly in a little country standing alone amid the wild hordes of Asia. Her wisdom, her strength of character, the purity and loyalty of her love, have made her the model of many a generation of Rustaveli's countrywomen, who have ever behaved nobly alike in joy and sorrow.

Avtandil is thus portrayed:--