The War in Abkhazia, 1992–1993: A Critical Response to G. Zhorzholiani’s “Reliable Facts”, by Aslan Avidzba

By Aslan Avidzba
Historian and Doctor of Historical Sciences (2016). His research focuses on the modern history of Abkhazia. A participant in the 1992–1993 Patriotic War of Abkhazia, he was awarded the Medal “For Courage” in 2015. He graduated from the Abkhaz State University in 1996 and has since worked at the D. I. Gulia Abkhaz Institute for the Humanities, where he currently heads the Department of History. He has also served as a professor at the Abkhaz State University. Avidzba is the author of over 100 scholarly publications and a laureate of the G. A. Dzidzaria State Prize in Science (2014). He is an Honoured Scientist of the Republic of Abkhazia (2022) and Chair of the Abkhaz Historical Society Foundation.

Published in: Abkhazovedenie. Istoriya, arkheologiya, etnologiya, Issue 2, Sukhum, 2003, pp. 82–100. The article was written in June 2001.

Translated by AbkhazWorld

The War in Abkhazia, 1992–1993: A Critical Response to G. Zhorzholiani’s “Reliable Facts”

Countries and peoples between whom wars have taken place cannot for a long time overcome their mutual phobias and prejudices. Despite the saying that “all wars end in peace”, Abkhazia is still far from that point. Nearly eight years have passed since the end of large-scale military operations, yet it is impossible to speak of peace. Abkhazia has become one of the central arenas in which contradictions have clashed, leading to the formation of a geopolitical collapse in the Caucasus — a region that, for centuries, has remained one of the “powder kegs” threatening the stability of Europe and the wider world.

The formation of a multipolar world has resulted in the West being represented in the region by several independent actors. It is therefore quite possible that, in the near future, “the policy of the West towards the Abkhaz–Georgian confrontation will consist of the pursuit by its various representatives of their own interests.” For the moment, however, despite occasional minor inconsistencies in action, the West as a whole demonstrates a balanced approach to this problem.

The introduction, at the suggestion of the West, of the geographical term (with political overtones) “South Caucasus” into the political lexicon of the world’s elites serves as an eloquent indicator of the direction of its geopolitical interests. The term implies a division of the Caucasus into South and North; in this scheme, the “South Caucasus” is viewed as an unquestioned sphere of influence of the United States and the West, while the North is, for the time being, left to Russia — albeit with certain reservations regarding the question of Chechnya. The policies of the world’s influential elites are pursued without consideration for the interests of the peoples inhabiting the region.

The geopolitical games being played around Abkhazia, which have brought it to exhaustion, bode ill for both Abkhazia and Georgia alike. One might think that this should have encouraged both sides to seek to minimise the impact of external factors and to resolve their disagreements independently. As Erich Fromm once wisely remarked:

“So long as we do not dare to ‘acknowledge our own national guilt’, people will remain prisoners of stereotyped thinking, condemning the crimes of their enemies while being completely blind to the crimes of their own nation.” ¹

In Georgia today, the syndrome of the “aggressive separatism” of the Abkhazians — portrayed as enemies of the Georgian nation — has not yet been overcome. An important contribution to the reinforcement of this stereotype has been made by the works of many Georgian servants of the goddess Clio, who in the post-war period have revived pseudo-scientific theories about the history and culture of Abkhazia. A volume of essays entitled Razyskaniya po istorii Abkhazii /Gruziya (Research on the History of Abkhazia / Georgia) provides confirmation of this. ²

The newspaper Svobodnaya Gruziya (Free Georgia) published a review of that collection. ³ In it, the collection as a whole — and in particular an article by one of its editors, G. Zhorzholiani (a former employee of Communist-Party structures in Abkhazia and Georgia and a newly-minted “historian”) — received high praise. However, contrary to the reviewer’s claims, neither the collection as a whole nor G. Zhorzholiani’s article warrants such laudatory assessments.

As a contemporary of the events described, the author is forced to act as an objectified subject — a fact that complicates the researcher’s task but does not absolve him of the duty to approach the issues discussed impartially. In this, the author fails — indeed, it appears he never sought to succeed.

First and foremost, it should be noted that G. Zhorzholiani, in a manner wholly inappropriate for an author claiming objectivity, accuses the Abkhazians of “ultranationalism”, “separatism”, “extremism”, and so forth — and, what is even more inadmissible for a scholar, speaks in the name of the state structures of Georgia.

Already the very title of his scholarly article, “Istoricheskiye i politicheskiye korni konflikta v Abkhazii /Gruziya” (The Historical and Political Roots of the Conflict in Abkhazia / Georgia), reveals an inflation of the official political lexicon of Georgia’s ruling circles.

Firstly, the events of 1992–1993 in Abkhazia are called a “conflict”, whereas they should be qualified as a “war” — for it is precisely this term that conveys the essence of the events that took place in Abkhazia after 14 August 1992, that is, after the entry of the troops of the State Council of Georgia.

Secondly, the names Abkhazia and Georgia are written separated by a slash (“/”), which, according to its propagators, symbolises that Abkhazia is an inseparable part of Georgia — a claim that Zhorzholiani’s publication is designed to prove.

Throughout his article the author wages a campaign against the “myths” of “Abkhazia’s two-thousand-year-old statehood”, the “assimilationist policy of Georgia”, the “demographic expansion of the Georgians”, and the “oppression of the Abkhazians”. ⁴ Many of Zhorzholiani’s theses are a purely subjectivist reflection of his political views and therefore cannot serve as a basis for scholarly debate.

“In general, it must be said that he (G. Zhorzholiani — A.A.) at one moment calls upon the Abkhazians to friendship and brotherhood with the Georgians (pp. 438–439), then speaks of peace being enforced by non-military means (p. 437); following Ingorokva, he repeats the thesis of the Abkhazians’ late-mediaeval migration (p. 414), yet suddenly himself emphasises that the Abkhazians ‘have had and have no other homeland’ (p. 438). The key factor in restoring trust between the two peoples he considers to be ‘the raising of the national self-consciousness of the Abkhaz people’ (p. 439), without realising that he thereby offends the Abkhaz nation.” ⁵

Given the chronological framework of the present work, there is no need to dwell in greater detail on this stage of Zhorzholiani’s “creativity”. It will therefore focus instead on how some of the author’s so-called “reliable facts” from The Historical and Political Roots of the Conflict in Abkhazia / Georgia correspond to facts without quotation marks.

1. Zhorzholiani asserts that, despite the complications in Georgian–Abkhaz relations, **“the leadership of Georgia repeatedly acted as an initiator of the peaceful settlement of the conflict and called for dialogue.”**⁶

However, G. Nodia cites the following words of Z. Gamsakhurdia, spoken at one of his rallies:

“The Abkhaz demands for self-determination are just, but they have erred in their territory. They should be allowed to return to the North Caucasus, and we will support their struggle there.”⁷

Zhorzholiani, driven not by objective factors but by subjective interests and situational traditions, describes “the ultranationalist statements of the former president of the Republic of Georgia and his supporters (‘Apsua — the modern Abkhazians — are newcomers from the North Caucasus’, ‘there exists no Abkhaz nation’, etc.)” as *“though reactive, yet by no means justified.”*⁸

At the same time, he does not label as “unjustified” the statement by Chabua Amirejibi:

“The Abkhazians are a Georgian tribe.”⁹

Georgia experienced an outburst of ethnonationalism accompanied by waves of anti-Abkhaz sentiment. The leitmotif of these statements can be summarised in the following excerpts:

“The tribes that came as guests appropriated the name of the most ancient Georgian tribe — the Abkhazians — and, emboldened by our naïveté, even imposed the Adyghe language upon the Georgian tribe of the Abkhazians. Now the newcomer from beyond the mountains, entwining our national body like ivy, disputes our land... The time has come for vigorous and decisive action.”¹⁰

“The land upon which the Abkhaz lives so freely is Georgian land, and the Georgian people will not yield it to anyone.”¹¹

In my view, a particularly striking example is an issue of the journal Kritika (Critique). The organ of the Writers’ Union of Georgia, addressing the Abkhaz people, published the following words on its title page:

“Do not compel us to the point where one day we too shall take up arms; and if there is no justice for us, we shall take weapons and show the guest the road back to where he descended from the mountains a couple of centuries ago.”¹²

The futility of such theses about “guests”, “newcomers”, and “mountain folk” makes it pointless to engage them in polemics. It suffices to note that the Abkhazians’ aspiration to preserve their own identity threatened no one — least of all the Writers’ Union of Georgia.

Serving the interests of ethnonationalism was also the Georgian Church, which had become one of the pulpits of radical nationalism. The Catholicos of Georgia’s call that “a Georgian must not shoot a Georgian”, interpreted by his obedient flock as a licence to shoot non-Georgians, eloquently testified to the orientation of the Georgian Church’s activities at that time.

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