Problems of the History of Abkhazia in the Soviet Period in the Works of Zurab Anchabadze, by Arvelod E. Kuprava

​​Questions of the History of the Peoples of the Caucasus
(collection of articles dedicated to the memory of Z[urab].V. Anchabadze) 

Tbilisi, 1988
pp.42-48

Translated by AbkhazWorld

Arvelod E. Kuprava
(14 October 1924 – 9 October 2019) was a Doctor of Historical Sciences (1970), Professor (1974), Academician of the Abkhazian National Academy (2008), Honoured Worker of Culture of the Abkhazian ASSR (1967), Honoured Scientist of the Abkhazian ASSR (1979) and of the Georgian SSR (1982), and a veteran of the Great Patriotic War; author of more than 460 works, including 25 monographs, and a leading specialist on the agrarian history and cultural history of Soviet Abkhazia.

Problems of the History of Abkhazia in the Soviet Period in the Works of Z.V. Anchabadze

A wide thematic, geographical, and chronological range characterises the scholarly interests of the well-known Soviet historian Zurab Vianorovich Anchabadze. More than one hundred scholarly works belong to his pen, each representing a milestone in the creative biography of the scholar. In all of them are embodied his remarkable talent, breadth of erudition, and rich experience. The foundation of his diverse scholarly output consists of irrefutable facts and Marxist-Leninist methodology.

One of the leading places in the scholarly activity of Z.V. Anchabadze is occupied by the history of Abkhazia. He has made a significant contribution to the elaboration of a number of complex problems relating to ancient and medieval Abkhazia. His monograph Iz istorii srednevekovoi Abkhazii (V—XVII vv.) (From the History of Medieval Abkhazia, 5th–17th Centuries) (Sukhum, 1959) was the first fundamental work in which, on the basis of a broad range of sources, the problem of the ethnic development of the Abkhazian people in the feudal epoch, as well as their relations with the Georgian people, is examined. He demonstrated convincingly the autochthonousness of the Abkhazian people and worked out the question of the time and conditions of the formation of a unified Abkhazian nationality. At the same time, he provided wide coverage of the inseparable common historical destiny and age-old bonds of cooperation between the two fraternal peoples, the Georgian and the Abkhazian.

As a further development of this latter thesis there appeared the jointly authored book Druzhba izvechnaia, nerushimaia (Eternal, Unbreakable Friendship). Ocherk iz istorii gruzino-abkhazskikh otnoshenii (Sukhum, 1972), written together with G.A. Dzidzaria. Its foreword emphasises: “These two peoples, living side by side, traversed a long historical path together, stretching back to remote antiquity, a path full of heroic feats and hardships, joys and sorrows. The multifaceted and most intimate ties and the traditional friendship and brotherhood of the Georgian and Abkhazian peoples, forged through labour and blood in the struggle for their land and freedom, determined their relations in the future as well” (p. 3). This proposition is revealed in the book deeply and convincingly.

In the monograph Istoriia i kul’tura drevnei Abkhazii (History and Culture of Ancient Abkhazia) (Moscow, 1964), the principal problems of the history and culture of Abkhazia from the earliest times to the fifth century are illuminated for the first time in Soviet historiography through the wide use of historical-archaeological and ethnographic research. Special attention is devoted to the origin of the ancient Abkhazian tribes, and the profound antiquity of the Abkhazian ethnos on the territory of historical Abkhazia is substantiated.

A number of works by Z.V. Anchabadze are devoted to the history of culture and to the historiography of Abkhazia. Noteworthy among them are the articles “Questions of the History of Abkhazia in the Works of Academician S.N. Djanania” (1954) and “Questions of the History of Abkhazia in the Book by L. Nigrovek, ‘Georgi Merchule, a Georgian Writer of the Tenth Century’” (1958), among others.

Z.V. Anchabadze played a significant role in the creation of the two-volume Ocherki istorii Abkhazskoi ASSR (Essays on the History of the Abkhazian ASSR) (Sukhum, 1960; 1964), which represents the first summarising Marxist study of the history of Abkhazia from the earliest times to the mid-1960s. He was co-author of Istoriia Abkhazii (History of Abkhazia), the first university-level textbook (together with G.A. Dzidzaria and A.E. Kuprava).

Young Zurab Anchabadze in Sukhum near the Drama Theatre © Photo / from the Anchabadze (Achba) family archive.

Great attention was given by Z.V. Anchabadze to the history of Abkhazia in the Soviet period. He was the academic supervisor of the first candidate dissertations devoted to various problems of the history of Soviet Abkhazia. He authored the historical essay on Abkhazia (Soviet period) in the article “Abkhazian ASSR”, written together with Academician S.N. Djanania for the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia (BSE), vol. 1, 3rd ed., pp. 45–57. Most comprehensively, Z.V. Anchabadze investigated the ethnic development of the Abkhazian people in the Soviet period in his summarising work Ocherk etnicheskoi istorii abkhazskogo naroda (Essay on the Ethnic History of the Abkhazian People) (Sukhum, 1976), in which he draws together the results of his many years of research.

A scholar researching the history of a specific ethnos must possess profound knowledge of the theory and methodology of ethnogenetic studies, as well as of the history and ethnography of the given people. He must dispose of diverse material produced by scholars from a range of disciplines, historians, economists, linguists, ethnographers, archaeologists, anthropologists, folklorists, art historians, and others. It is precisely this comprehensive approach that distinguishes the book Ocherk etnicheskoi istorii abkhazskogo naroda, in which the ethnic development of the people is traced from the most ancient times to the present.

His profound theoretical erudition is revealed in the analysis of the constituent elements of ethnic history. Of particular interest is his interpretation of the concept “ethnic community” in both narrow and broad senses, as well as his characterisation of the main types of ethnic community (tribe, nationality/people, nation), which differ from each other both in their level of socio-economic development and in the degree of stability of their ethnic characteristics.

Alongside the basic historical types of ethnic community in the past and in the contemporary epoch, there is also a non-basic type, usually termed an ethnic (national) group. As Z.V. Anchabadze rightly notes, such a group, residing within the territory of another ethnic community and often lacking its own language, nevertheless preserves certain features of its culture and psychological makeup, and above all, the consciousness of its ethnic individuality. For example, the Abkhazians abroad, according to the author, constitute separate ethnic groups.

Z.V. Anchabadze also addresses intra-ethnic categories, i.e. local groups within an ethnic community (nationality, nation). For instance, he points out that in Abkhazia in the pre-capitalist epoch, the principal intra-ethnic category consisted of local tribes (the Pskhu or Dal, within the Abkhazian feudal nationality), while in the bourgeois epoch, these were ethnographic groups (the Abzhui, Bzyb, and Samurzakan groups).

As is well known, the concrete ethnic development of a people in any given epoch unfolds under various favourable or unfavourable historical conditions, and not infrequently in extremely complex and contradictory historical situations. Naturally, all this shapes its development, producing different ethnic processes. Z.V. Anchabadze offers a concise yet profound scholarly characterisation of ethnic processes. He distinguishes two principal ethnic processes, ethnic consolidation (formation) and ethnic decay (decline), which are opposite in nature and in their ethnic consequences. The process of ethnic consolidation consists of a combination of partial ethnic processes expressing the development of specific ethnic features, common economy, territory, language, and culture. The process of decline constitutes the reverse development of the ethnos, its gradual dying out and disappearance from the historical stage.

Z.V. Anchabadze also defines other ethnic processes, ethnic integration (merging), ethnic differentiation (splitting), and ethnic transformation, and characterises assimilatory and dissimilatory processes. In researching the ethnic history of the Abkhazians, he traces the development and complex interaction of these processes in connection with the changing historical conditions at different stages of ethnos development.

+ History and Culture of Ancient Abkhazia, by Zurab V. Anchabadze (Achba)

+ From the History of Abkhazia in the Middle Ages (VI-XVIIth Centuries), by Zurab V. Anchabadze (Achba)

+ Questions of Abkhazian history in the book by P. Ingorokva ‘Georgi Merchule - Georgian writer of the 10th century’, by Zurab V. Anchabadze

+ Vainakhs, Alans and Adyghes in the 6th–8th Centuries, by Zurab Anchabadze / Achba

Studying the ethnic development of the Abkhazian people in the socialist epoch, Z.V. Anchabadze advances a number of new propositions concerning the development of small Soviet nationalities and nations. In his view, pre-Soviet nationalities which had not yet managed to form into nations began, after the victory of the socialist revolution, to develop initially into socialist nationalities, and then on that basis into socialist nations. The transformation of a feudal nationality into a socialist nationality he regards as a necessary stage in the formation of small socialist nations.

Z.V. Anchabadze generally accepts the widely used Soviet scholarly definition of the nation. He defines the socialist nation as “a historically constituted ethnic community of the socialist epoch, arising on the basis of a firm and stable commonality of economic life, territory, language, and culture, reflected in its national consciousness”.¹ He does not consider psychological makeup (national character) to be an independent ethnic indicator of a nation, since it manifests itself through the commonality of culture (everyday culture, behaviour, interpersonal relations, etc.). Ethnic (national) self-consciousness, in his view, “is not an objective ethnic indicator but represents the subjective awareness of people of their belonging to a given ethnic community”.²

Z.V. Anchabadze emphasises that the socialist nation constitutes the highest form of ethnic development of a national community in the first socialist phase of the communist formation. Possessing the same four indicators as the bourgeois nation, it is, as he rightly notes, fundamentally different in essence, a nation of a new type, a nation without antagonistic classes, a nation of a high ideological-political and cultural level, imbued with the spirit of internationalism.

He subjects to justified criticism the views of those scholars who believe, based on quantitative criteria, that an ethnos numbering fewer than 100,000 cannot be regarded as a nation. The principal factor in identifying a nation, he observes, is the presence of all the main ethnic indicators. Consequently, a small ethnos, if it possesses the principal ethnic indicators of a nation, also constitutes a nation. Anchabadze demonstrates this convincingly using the example of the Abkhazian socialist nation.

Z.V. Anchabadze divides the development of the Abkhazian national community in the socialist epoch into three stages (p. 113):

1. the formation of the socialist nationality (1921 — late 1930s);
   
   
2. the formation of the socialist nation (late 1930s — late 1950s);
   
   
3. the development of the Abkhazian socialist nation (from the late 1950s).
   
   

His judgements concerning the Abkhazian socialist nationality merit attention, though they require further in-depth study and substantiation. For example, B.E. Sagaria and A.E. Kuprava, unlike Z.V. Anchabadze, consider that in Abkhazia, from the moment of the establishment of Soviet power, the process of consolidation of the Abkhazian nationality into a socialist nation began, and that it unfolded primarily within the framework of the transitional period. In their view, the formation of the Abkhazian socialist nation coincides generally with the victory of socialism, although this process had not yet been fully completed.

As Z.V. Anchabadze rightly notes, the creation and development of Soviet socialist statehood in Abkhazia played an enormous role in the ethnic history of the Abkhazian people, becoming an important lever in the process of forming the socialist nation. The consolidation of the Abkhazian nationality into a socialist nation was facilitated not only by the existence of national Soviet statehood, but, to a decisive degree, by the formation of the USSR. As Anchabadze shows with reference to the Abkhazian ASSR, the Union-wide state became a most important factor of mutual assistance among nations and nationalities, a powerful lever in overcoming actual inequality, and in the advancement of formerly oppressed and socio-economically backward peoples who, for the first time, obtained the possibility of forming into nations.

Z.V. Anchabadze examines in detail the economic, political, linguistic, and cultural foundations of the formation of the Abkhazian socialist nation. Considering the process of national consolidation of the Abkhazians in close connection with the development of the socialist economy and culture, he traces changes in the social structure, the emergence of a national working class, and its leading role in the formation of the Abkhazian socialist nation. He shows how, in the course of industrialisation and collectivisation, the social nature of the classes changed fundamentally. A working class of socialist society emerged. The collective-farm peasantry, which previously did not have a socialist economic position or social nature, fully entered the composition of the working class. To them was joined the national socialist intelligentsia. All of these groups were fused together on a common socialist basis.

Z.V. Anchabadze investigates the cultural origins of the Abkhazian socialist nation. In the Soviet epoch the Abkhazian people obtained the opportunity to establish and develop a national school, press, literature, theatre, scholarship — including Abkhaz studies. Providing a rigorous analysis of the development of Abkhazian culture, Z.V. Anchabadze shows how, in the course of the cultural revolution, a new cultural community was formed, a unified socialist culture which constitutes the possession of all social strata. Socialist ideology cemented spiritually and united all social groups of society. He vividly evaluates the flourishing of the culture of the Abkhazian people, socialist in content, national in form, and internationalist in spirit and character.

Characterising the linguistic basis of the Abkhazian socialist nation, Z.V. Anchabadze discusses the improvement and development of the Abkhazian literary language, its broad and profound dissemination among the masses of the Abkhazian people, and notes that the social functions of the native language show a stable tendency toward expansion and growth. According to the 1970 census, 97.8% of Abkhazians declared the language of their nationality to be their mother tongue (p. 152).

While emphasising the linguistic unity of the Abkhazians, Z.V. Anchabadze nonetheless notes that the Abkhazian nation, like many other Soviet nations, is bilingual. According to the same census, 60% of Abkhazians freely command the Russian language, considering it their second mother tongue. The further regular development of this process in no way means that the position of the native language will be undermined. It will continue to serve as the source of the development of Abkhazian socialist culture in its national form. The example of the Abkhazians once again demonstrates the baselessness of the assertions of “bourgeois propaganda” that “linguistic Russification” of small peoples is occurring in the Soviet Union.

Z.V. Anchabadze touches upon the development of the Abkhazian socialist nation in the contemporary stage and draws the correct conclusion that it possesses all the main ethnic indicators in a stable condition. Its most important feature, as with every nation and nationality in our country, is that it represents an organic part of the Soviet people, a single internationalist community. Emphasising the immense significance of this achievement of socialism, he reveals how this circumstance influences the principal ethnic indicators of the Abkhazian socialist nation, imparting to them certain characteristics.

The ethnic development of the Abkhazian people unfolds in conditions of their constant organic contact with the rest of the population of multinational Soviet Abkhazia and of the entire country. In connection with this, Z.V. Anchabadze notes the process of the internationalisation of social life. “The culture of the population of our republic,” he writes, “has acquired genuinely internationalist features. In every scholarly, educational, and other cultural institution, just as in industrial collectives, representatives of different nationalities inhabiting Abkhazia work together in friendship. Abkhazian scholars, writers, and cultural figures work in close collaboration with their colleagues, representatives of other nationalities living in Abkhazia, and also enjoy the constant support of the cultural and scholarly figures of the Georgian, Russian, and other peoples of the USSR” (p. 155). Having emphasised the enormous importance of internationalist education of workers in the conditions of a multinational republic, Z.V. Anchabadze elucidates the content, forms, and methods of the work of Party and social organisations in this direction.

Z.V. Anchabadze examines the principal questions of the ethnic history of the Abkhazians in close connection with their socio-economic and political development, as well as with the history of socialist construction in the USSR; and on extensive material he demonstrates the fraternal assistance rendered to the Abkhazian people during the course of socialist construction.

Such are some of the questions of the history of Abkhazia in the Soviet period that have received coverage in the works of Z.V. Anchabadze.