Central Asian Survey

To cite this Article Clogg, Rachel (1995) 'Documents from the KGB archive in Sukhum. Abkhazia in the Stalin years', Central Asian Survey, 14: 1, 155 — 189

Central Asian Survey

To cite this Article Hewitt, B. G. (1996) 'Appendix to documents from the KGB archive in Sukhum. Abkhazia in the Stalin years', Central Asian Survey, 15: 2, 259 — 297

CA&CC Press® AB / Central Asia & Central Caucasus Press

(ИЗ ИСТОРИИ ВОЗНИКНОВЕНИЯ КАВКАЗСКОЙ ДИАСПОРЫ (АБХАЗЫ И АДЫГИ))

Gudisa Vardania, the State University of Abkhazia, 2007

ABSTRACT

The author takes a look into the past in order to shed light on some of the still painful issues relating to the emergence of the Abkhaz-Adighe element of the Caucasian diaspora, the ups and downs of the Caucasian War Russia waged in the Caucasus for many years, the deportation of huge numbers of local people, and their arduous integration into Ottoman Turkey.

Stephen Shenfield | Special to Abkhaz World

Background

In the period 1922—1930 Abkhazia enjoyed the status of a union republic associated with but not subordinate to Georgia. On February 19, 1931 the Sixth All-Georgian Congress of Soviets decided, presumably with Stalin’s consent, to deprive Abkhazia of this status and incorporate it into Georgia as an autonomous republic. In several Abkhaz villages there were mass protests against this change as well as against forced collectivization, then underway across the Soviet Union. Georgian leader Lavrenti Beria mobilized a security police detachment to suppress the protests, but Nestor Lakoba, the first leader of Soviet Abkhazia, managed to defuse the confrontation and avert bloodshed. 

Eurasianet -- You could call it poetic justice. Thrown out of his own boyhood home in Abkhazia on the orders of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Valery Mizadei now is responsible for maintaining all five of the former Soviet dictator’s residences in the sub-tropical Black Sea territory.