On the Demographic Expansion of Abkhazia (1937 - Mid-1950s), by Adgur E. Agrba

The Abkhaz population suffered significant losses due to the forced exiles following the Russo-Caucasus War in 1864 and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. In 1864, after the Russo-Caucasian War, around 25,000 Abkhazians, mostly from the Sadz, Akhchipsy, Aibga, and Pskhu regions, were forced to leave. Major uprisings in Abkhazia occurred in 1821-27, 1840-45, 1861, 1866, and 1877, each leading to significant exiles of Abkhazians to the Ottoman Empire. The situation culminated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. In total, approximately 135,000 Abkhazians, constituting most of the Abkhazian population, were deported. It was during this period that the colonisation of Abkhazia by Georgians, particularly Mingrelians, first began. This process intensified in the 1930s during the Stalin and Beria era, reaching its peak through a deliberate policy of forced resettlement and assimilation. Between 1937 and 1953, tens of thousands of peasants from Western Georgia were resettled in Abkhazia, shifting the ethno-demographic balance further against the Abkhaz and making the Abkhazians a minority in their own homeland.

The article, which examines this critical period of demographic expansion, was originally published in 'Аҧсуаҭҵаара' / Abkhaz Studies, no. 11, and has been translated from Russian to English.

Agrba, A. E. "On the Demographic Expansion of Abkhazia (1937 – Mid-1950s) (Towards Framing the Issue)." Аҧсуаҭҵаара / Abkhaz Studies, no. 11, 2018, pp. 90-96. Abkhaz Institute of Humanitarian Research Named after D.I. Gulia, Academy of Sciences of Abkhazia.

The settlement of Abkhazia by non-Abkhaz populations began around 1810, when approximately five thousand people were forced to leave its territory. These were mainly those opposed to the influence of the Russian Empire, which Abkhazia became part of in 1810. Written sources from the 19th century, including Georgian ones, did not question the indigenous status of the Domuhajir (before the exile during the Russo-Caucasus and Russo-Ottoman wars) Abkhaz population. For instance, the Georgian journal Iveria, in its 1881 issue (No. 11, p. 95), noted that "Four years ago, Abkhazians lived in Abkhazia." Two years later, the newspaper Droeba stated that "Abkhazia, as the name of the region itself suggests, belonged to and still belongs to the Abkhazians"[1].

However, the events that followed 1810, as well as the periods of Abkhaz deportations that continued until the 1990s, intensified the migration wave from Georgian territory. This eventually led to a modern transformation in the ethnic composition of Abkhazia, and consequently altered the new population's understanding of its history.

With the restoration of Soviet statehood for the Abkhazians on 31 March 1921, in the form of the Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) of Abkhazia, there was hope for the ethnic, cultural, and demographic revival of the indigenous people of the country. However, political, migratory, "cultural-educational," and other processes in Abkhazia's subsequent history threatened the future of the Abkhaz ethnic group. The situation concerning the settlement of Georgians in Abkhazia changed radically after the incorporation of Abkhazia as an autonomous republic within the Georgian SSR (1931), particularly in the second half of the 1930s, following the poisoning of the republic’s leader, N[estor] A. Lakoba, in Tbilisi (December 1936). Finally, the Georgian authorities were given the opportunity to realise the dream of previous generations of Georgian chauvinists—mass ethnic colonisation of Abkhazia.

A qualitatively new phase of systematic mass resettlement of Georgians into Abkhazia began in 1937, under the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the Georgian SSR, during a wave of repressive hysteria, when almost all of Abkhazia's leadership was eliminated and replaced with Georgian officials. This time, the initiator of this crime was the infamous leader of the Georgian communists, L[avrenty]. P. Beria[2], the poisoner of N. A. Lakoba.

The powerful resettlement structure he created, the “Abkhazpereselenstroy” (“Abkhazia Resettlement Construction” ―Ed.) trust, began constructing monoethnic Georgian special settlements. In addition to vacant lands, plots were seized from Abkhaz villages, in violation of existing laws, and resettled with peasant migrants from various regions of Georgia. The resettlement was both voluntary and forced.

From 1937 to 1941, 10 resettlement kolkhozes (collective farms ―Ed.) were organised. The result of the resettlement policy pursued by the Georgian leadership from the 1930s onwards in Abkhazia was that, by the early 1990s, the Abkhazians found themselves a minority on their own historical homeland compared to the Georgian population. The Georgian authorities sought to seize Abkhaz lands and assimilate the Abkhazians into the growing Georgian ethno-cultural mass through resettlement. The newly established “masters” of Abkhazia, of Georgian nationality, were keen to obscure the fact that just half a century earlier, the indigenous inhabitants—Abkhazians—had been deported from these lands, and they considered the "great achievement" to be the development of "centuries-untouched" lands.

The film-clip (from a 30-minute documentary on Abkhazia shot in 1941) talks of settlements having been created in the Gagra, Gudauta and Ochamchira districts and shows incomers travelling on carts and the building of their homes.

+ Ethno-demographic history of Abkhazia, 1886 - 1989, by Daniel Müller

+ The ethno-demographic aspect of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, by Teymuraz A. Achugba

+ The Stalin-Beria Terror in Abkhazia, 1936-1953, by Stephen D. Shenfield

+ Documents from the KGB archive in Sukhum. Abkhazia in the Stalin years, by Rachel Clogg

"At the initiative of the beloved son of the Georgian people, Comrade L. P. Beria," states one of the documents from that period, "thousands of peasant households from the land-poor regions of Georgia are being resettled in Abkhazia, where they are mastering vast quantities of 'centuries-untouched lands'"[3]. Within two years, seven resettlement kolkhozes were established in Abkhazia.

Between the end of 1937 and 1 January 1940, seven resettlement kolkhozes were organised along the Black Sea coast of Abkhazia, with 990 houses built, into which 609 peasant families from various regions of Georgia were settled[4].

No expense was spared for the resettlement. For instance, 1,248,950 roubles were spent on constructing the aforementioned houses and establishing special settlements. This included 297,500 roubles for road construction, 306,200 roubles for clearing the land, 144,500 roubles for reclamation works, 122,800 roubles for drafting the master plan and "surveys," and 227,900 roubles for the resettlement process. In addition, 567,100 roubles were allocated for the economic arrangement of the peasants, bringing the total amount to 13,056,600 roubles. Among the resettlement settlements, the kolkhozes that stood out for the number of settlers were: the L. Beria kolkhoz in the village of Kindgi in the Ochamchira district (180 families, 810 people); the Bakradze kolkhoz in the village of Adzyubzha in the same district (260 families, 1,126 people); and the Ordzhonikidze kolkhoz in the village of Bambora in the Gudauta district (100 families, 450 people)[5].

When discussing mass expulsions, it should be noted that, under the orders of Stalin and his team, purges were carried out not only in Abkhazia but also in other regions of the USSR. For instance, in 1942, Greeks and foreign nationals were expelled from the Krasnodar Krai, the Rostov region, and parts of Crimea—8,300 people[6]. In conducting ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia, Georgians expelled not only Greeks and Turks but also Russians and Ukrainians, and by the 1950s, Russian-Ukrainian villages in Abkhazia, such as Pologi and Chernigovskoye, had effectively ceased to exist. Therefore, it must be said that the above facts indicate the expulsion of not only Abkhazians but also other nationalities from Abkhazia.

The key government documents that laid the foundation for the mass resettlement policy were the resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR from 17 May 1939, "On the Creation of a Resettlement Administration under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR." Resettlement departments were established under the Councils of People's Commissars of the union and autonomous republics. A[vksentiy] Rapava was appointed as the head of such a department under the Council of People's Commissars of Georgia, and Djkandjava under the Council of People's Commissars of the Abkhaz ASSR.

Under the chairmanship of V[alerian] Bakradze, the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR, a project for the agricultural resettlement plan for 1940 in the land-rich areas of the Abkhaz ASSR was reviewed on 20 October 1939. According to this plan, the resettlement of 700 households into Abkhazia was envisaged, with the costs associated with this amounting to 28.9 million roubles.

+ Who should be settled in Abkhazia? By Jakob Gogebashvili (1877)

+ Georgii Tsereteli (1879): It’s time that we grab new territories in the Caucasus

+ From Lord Curzon, Foreign Secretary, to General Officer in Command (1919)

+ The solitude of Abkhazia, by Douglas W. Freshfield (1896)

It should be emphasised that, with Stalin's support, the Georgian government did not hesitate to allocate substantial funds for the planned assimilation of Abkhazia. In the explanatory note to the 1940 resettlement plan, it was stated: "The resettlement of kolkhoz farmers and individual farmers into the Abkhaz ASSR is carried out in order to utilise large quantities of free land, which cannot be developed by the local population due to a lack of labour resources." In 1940, it was planned to settle the existing and newly organised kolkhoz settlements in Abkhazia, specifically in the villages of Kindgi, Adzyubzha, Atara in the Abkhaz region, Akvaska in the Ochamchira district, and villages in other regions of Abkhazia. Additionally, to accommodate the ongoing influx of settlers, forests were being cleared, and swamps drained.

It is important to clarify the nature, form, and methods of implementing the resettlement activities. From the very beginning of the mass resettlement, the leaders of the Georgian Communist Party and the Council of People's Commissars of the republic faced serious difficulties—there was very little free land. The organisers of this operation had failed to take into account one important factor: two-thirds of Abkhazia's territory was covered by mountains.

In the first 2-3 years of the initial stages of Georgian migration into the Abkhaz ASSR, all the available free land was exhausted. However, retreating from the set objectives was not an option, as the issue was under the special supervision of the NKVD of the USSR and personally of Beria.

With the continued mass resettlement from Georgian territory, the question arises: was this process voluntary? Did the settlers themselves want to leave the lands where their families had lived for generations? Certainly not! The resettlement was enforced with increasingly overt coercive methods. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, along with the governments of the Georgian SSR and the Abkhaz ASSR, carried out extensive propaganda and organisational work among the residents of the western regions of Georgia. For example, the party and Soviet organs of Abkhazia, led by Varamia and Chichinadze, wrote in one of their letters to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia and the Council of People's Commissars of the republic: "We request instructions be given to the districts of Western Georgia wishing to resettle in Abkhazia to not create obstacles and, if possible, to assist in providing transportation and in the sale of their property." There were numerous such instances, demonstrating the illegal nature of the resettlement in Abkhazia. For instance, Narsiya, the head of the main administration of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Georgian SSR for resettlement, reported that the rules for selecting the contingent of settlers were grossly violated, and that the principle of voluntariness was often disregarded[7]. In addition to these facts about forced resettlement in Abkhazia, many settlers fled back to their native regions without repaying the state for the expenses incurred in building their resettlement houses.

In a letter dated 14 April 1942 from the Council of People's Commissars of Abkhazia to the government of the Georgian SSR, it was stated that, as of 1 March 1942, 152 resettled households had returned to their homelands, leaving behind a debt of 97,920 roubles and 46 tonnes of corn[8]. Additionally, 83,700 roubles from the Abkhaz ASSR budget had been spent on transporting these households. The Council of People's Commissars of Abkhazia asked the government of Georgia to take appropriate measures not only to recover these expenses but also to place all the blame for the mass departure of the settlers, without any justification, on the Ochamchira and Gudauta district executive committees.

The planned resettlement from Georgian territory into Abkhazia continued until the mid-1950s. The process of Georgian migration did not stop even during the Great Patriotic War. For example, on 2 September 1941, amid fierce fighting with the German occupiers, the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR adopted a resolution "On the removal of unused lands from 12 kolkhozes in the Abkhaz ASSR and their transfer to newly established kolkhozes formed from resettled households"[9]. It is noteworthy that this resolution required confirmation from the union government, which was immediately and positively granted by "Stalinist" Moscow. The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, by Order No. 9821 of 10 October 1941, allowed the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR to "seize 4,544.69 hectares of unused land from 12 kolkhozes in the Ochamchira and Gudauta districts of the Abkhaz ASSR to allocate to newly organised kolkhozes from resettled households"[10].

Based on this document, the kolkhozes Krasnaya Zvezda and Krasnaya Adzyubzha in the Adzyubzha village council of the Ochamchira district were stripped of 89.75 hectares and 68 hectares, respectively, in favour of the resettlement kolkhoz named after Bakradze, including 18.85 hectares of tung plantations. The kolkhozes Krasnaya Akvaska and Tskenis Tskali in the Akvaska village council transferred 389.05 hectares (including 20.4 hectares of tea plantations) and 511 hectares of land, respectively, to the newly established resettlement kolkhozes[11]. Even more affected was the Krasny Kindgi kolkhoz in the Kindgi village council, which transferred 1,566.8 hectares to the newly organised resettlement kolkhoz.

Similarly, lands were confiscated from Abkhaz villages in the Gudauta district. For example, the Alashara kolkhoz in the Mgudzurkh village council transferred 562.71 hectares of land to the resettlement kolkhoz named after Ordzhonikidze. The kolkhoz named after Beria in the Zvandrypsh village council was forced to cede 208.66 hectares, including 1 hectare of tung plantations, 0.5 hectares of fruit orchards, and 5 hectares of vineyards, to the resettlement kolkhoz named after Stalin[12]. Other villages, which were still compactly populated by Abkhazians at that time, also suffered. Typically, these confiscated plots were transferred to the settlers “for permanent use,” as indicated in official documents. This resolution, along with other similar decisions from the highest directive bodies of power, significantly restricted the opportunities for the Abkhaz indigenous population to sustain a normal livelihood.

+ Demographic change in Abkhazia 1886–1989

+ Pre-Soviet Abkhazia: Russian Imperialism, Makhadzhirstvo, and Menshevik Georgia

+ Thirty years of "guilt" (1877-1907), by Stanislav Lakoba

+ What’s Yours Is Mine: Nation-Building and Extraterritorial Nationhood Inside the South Caucasus, by Krista A. Goff

During the war, on 12 January 1942, the Secretary of the Abkhaz Regional Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia, M. Baramidze, and the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Abkhaz ASSR, K. Chichinadze, appealed to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia, K[onstantin] Charkviani, and the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Georgia, V[alerian] Bakradze, with a request to intensify measures for the selection and resettlement of people from Georgia to Abkhazia[13]. From the same document, it is clear that, by that time, 111 houses in various resettlement kolkhozes in Abkhazia were ready to accommodate new settlers, and 226 houses were nearing completion. Moreover, in the Sukhum district, 88 houses that had previously belonged to German peasants, who had been expelled from Abkhazia, were kept in reserve. Despite the efforts of the Abkhazian and Georgian authorities, the resettlement process faced significant difficulties during the war, but this did not stop the Georgian leadership[14].

The fact that the leadership of Georgia and Abkhazia, despite both objective and subjective obstacles, persisted in continuing the resettlement process during the war is further evidenced by the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR No. 662 of 14 June 1944 "On the Agricultural Resettlement Plan for 1944" and the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the Abkhaz ASSR No. 413 of 29 August 1944 "On the Resettlement Measures Plan for the Abkhaz ASSR for 1944," among others.

Following the end of the Great Patriotic War (World War II ―Ed.), the resettlement of Georgians in Abkhazia intensified significantly. In one of the secret letters dated 30 May 1945, the People's Commissar for State Security of Abkhazia, I[llarion] A. Gagua reported that, during 1945–1946, 1,500 families from Georgia would be resettled in the Ochamchira, Gudauta, Gagra, and partially Sukhum districts[15].

On 17 August 1945, the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR and the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia adopted a resolution "On the Development of Perennial Crops in the Resettlement Kolkhozes of Abkhazia." Based on this document, due to the increasing number of settlers from Georgia, land was again confiscated from local Abkhaz villages and transferred to the resettlement kolkhozes for the planting of new citrus groves and other perennial crops. According to the same resolution, on 12 January 1946, the Council of People's Commissars of the Abkhaz ASSR seized 11.0 hectare of land from the Alashara kolkhoz in the Mgudzurkh village council and transferred it to the resettlement kolkhoz named after Rustaveli in the Akhali-Sopeli village council for the placement of new citrus plantations.

As a rule, due to the insolvency of the resettlement kolkhozes, land transfers were carried out without compensation. By a decree dated 9 April 1946, the Council of People's Commissars of the Abkhaz ASSR expropriated 10.0 hectares of land from the Bolshevik kolkhoz of the Mokva village council in the Ochamchira district for the free transfer to the resettlement kolkhoz named after V[yacheslav] M. Molotov in the Tsager village council, for the establishment of new citrus plantations[16].

The last wave of settlers arrived in the Abkhaz ASSR in 1956, consisting of 145 households. These were settlers from the Kabardino-Balkar ASSR and the regions of the Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Oblast, where they had previously been resettled under Beria's orders. By a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Abkhaz ASSR on 27 April 1967, their outstanding debts, amounting to over 136,000 roubles for unpaid loans used for house construction, were written off.

Between 1937 and 1953, long-term loans from the Agricultural Bank totalling 191 million roubles were used for the construction of houses for the settlers. As of 1 January 1954, 37 million roubles were still owed by the settlers, including 18 million in overdue debt. During this period, Abkhazpereselenstroy alone built 3,378 houses, 4 schools, 6 kolkhoz administration buildings, and installed 14 water pipelines spanning 102 km, along with 143.4 km of roads[17].

The geography and structure of Georgian resettlement settlements in predominantly Abkhaz-populated areas, particularly their compactness, monoethnic composition, and their placement between and within Abkhaz villages, along key roads and railway lines, were strategically designed to facilitate the de-ethnicization of the indigenous population under peaceful conditions. In the event of Abkhaz resistance to the assimilationist policies of the Georgian authorities, these settlements were intended to serve military-strategic purposes. According to modern international law, such actions are classified as genocide. The situation of the Abkhaz people was further aggravated by the fact that, by this period, the entire intellectual elite of the nation had been effectively repressed. The functioning of Abkhaz schools was banned, newspapers and magazines were closed, Abkhazian toponyms were eradicated, and a falsified version of Abkhaz history was widely fabricated[18].

Thus, during the period under review in Abkhazia’s history, a policy aimed at the artificial assimilation of the Abkhaz population was implemented, which led to the Abkhazians becoming an absolute minority in their own historical homeland. Due to the small size of the titular nation, issues related to Georgia's territorial claims continue to arise to this day.

_________________________

1. Bagapsh, N. V. Ethno-demographic Development of Abkhazia: Territorial Aspect. Moscow, 2010, p. 55.
2. Soviet Abkhazia newspaper, 26, 27, 30 June 1940 // Abkhazia: Documents Testify 1937-1953. A Collection of Materials. Sukhum, 1992, p. 75.
3. Abkhazia: Documents Testify 1937-1953. A Collection of Materials. Sukhum, 1992, pp. 51-52.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., p. 66.
6. Achugba, T. A. On the Justification of the Status of "Georgian Refugees". Sukhum, 2006, p. 16.
7. Menteshashvili, A., Surguladze, A. Only Facts and Documents // Literary Georgia, 1989, No. 11, p. 8.
8. Abkhazia: Documents Testify...1937-1953. Sukhum, 1992, p. 99.
9. Ibid., p. 100.
10. Ibid., p. 105.
11. Achugba, T. A. Ethnic History of the Abkhazians, 11th-20th Centuries.
12. Ibid.
13. Abkhazia: Documents Testify 1937-1953. pp. 106-107.
14. Abkhazian Archive. 20th Century. Vol. 1. Compiled by Lakoba, S. Z., Anchabadze, Y. D. Moscow, 2002, p. 102.
15. Abkhazian Archive, p. 105.
16. Zukhba, M. I. On the Features of the Formation of the National Liberation Struggle of the Abkhaz People for Independence (1931-1989).
17. Achugba, T. A. Ethnic History of the Abkhazians, 11th-20th Centuries.
18. History of Abkhazia. Sukhum, 1991, pp. 358-360.