Georgia – national flag
The Georgian national flag is the so-called five-cross flag, which was introduced in January 2004 after the Rose Revolution. The flag is white with a large red cross, in whose four squares are four small, straight-armed crosses. It is known from the 1300’s; the great cross is a Georgian cross, with St. George being the patron saint of Georgia.
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Georgia (History)
According to a2zgov, Georgia has only rarely emerged as a single political entity; historically, the country is characterized by a pronounced regionalization. The Likhi chain, which connects the Great and Little Caucasus, thus forms a clear divide between the western parts of the country, ie. Imereti, Mingrelien, Meskhetien, Svanetien and Gurien, and the eastern ones, Kartli (Kartvelien) and Kakhetien, and this has meant that West Georgia has been the subject of cultural influence from the Mediterranean via the Black Sea, while East Georgia has received decisive influence from the Iranian plateau via Kurad. Finally, the geopolitical location of the Caucasus region has meant that Georgia has generally been dominated by larger empires rooted in Anatolia or Persia.
The first traces of people in Georgia date back to the Early Stone Age. Finds from the Neolithic testify to settled tribes engaged in cattle ranching and agriculture. From 3000-tkKr. there are signs of metal processing in bronze and from the 1500’s. in iron. Assyrian sources refer to a number of Uruguayan tribes, such as in the early 1000’s BC. settled in Anatolia and on the eastern Black Sea coast. This area is known from Greek mythology as Kolkhis, which came under Greek domination quite early. I 600-tfKr. forced other tribes, in Greek called Iber, from Anatolia through the Upper Kuradal Valley and established a monarchy in the province of Kartli, which the Greeks called Iberia. In 65 BC. Iberia came under the rule of Rome, but Roman law did not prevail.
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In the beginning of 300-teKr. the king of Kartli adopted Christianity as a counterweight to the Persian influence, and in the following centuries the Georgian lands constituted a permanent zone of conflict between the Byzantine Empire and Persia. Under this, the Black Sea region became more closely linked to the Byzantine Empire, while Kartli came under Persian domination. In turn, the Kartli dialect became the basis for the ecclesiastical written language. Only at the end of 400-t. Vakhtang Gorgasali succeeded in re-establishing an independent monarchy, but already in the mid-500’s. local petty princes again ruled under either Persian or Greek supremacy until the Arabs in 654 invaded from the Kura Valley and conquered all of East Georgia.
I 800-t. began the first real kingdom assembly of the Georgian lands, based on the common church language and led by an Armenian princely family, the Bagratids. In 1122, King David Agmasjenebeli (1089-1125) took Tbilisi from the Arabs, and the name Sakartvelo became a common name for both West and East Georgia. Medieval Georgia had its golden age under the Bagratrid queen Tamar (1184-1213), but it was put to an end with the Mongol invasion of Transcaucasia in 1220. In the 1300’s. another catastrophe occurred with Timur Lenksrepeated invasions. The last ruler of the united Georgia was Alexander I (1412-43), and after him the country was again divided into several warring principalities. The Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 cut off the Georgian lands from Europe, and in the following centuries they were the toss-up between the Ottoman Empire and Persia under the Safavids.
Russia showed interest in Georgia from the 1500’s, but was not strong enough to assert itself. With the increasing internal weakening of Persia, the Bagrata era Irakli II in 1762 succeeded in gaining power over a united Kartli-Kakhetien. At the same time, Imereti in West Georgia finally got rid of the Ottomans.
The constant threat from the south now forced Georgia to seek help from Russia, which in 1783 undertook to secure the country in return for its acceptance of Russian supremacy. By a new Persian attack in 1795, however, the promise proved worthless, and Georgia had to choose to either submit to Russia unconditionally or perish. In 1801, the Kartli-Kakheti was incorporated and placed under Russian military governors. The principalities of West Georgia were all annexed between 1810 and 1864.
Georgia’s incorporation into Russia boosted trade and industry, albeit under the domination of Armenians and Russians, as most Georgians were still peasants. At the same time, the gathering under a political authority and access to education created cultural flourishing and budding national consciousness. Against the background of a tightened Russian rule from the late 1800’s. this contributed to the formation of a strong social democratic national movement in the major cities.
The revolution in Russia in 1905 also caused unrest in Georgia, and at the end of World War I in 1918, the Georgian Mensheviks declared the country an independent republic. This was recognized by both England, France and the Russian Bolsheviks in 1920, but in January 1921 the Red Army invaded and Georgia was incorporated into Soviet Russia.
In 1922, Georgia and Armenia and Azerbaijan joined the Transcaucasian Socialist Soviet Federation, but in 1936 it was made a full-fledged Union Republic. The Soviet era was marked by periods of strong repression in the face of attempts to achieve greater political independence. It was weighed in part by the official nationality policy, which culturally favored the titular nations of the Union Republics, but in turn discriminated against non-Georgian minorities such as Abkhazians and South Ossetians. In the 1970’s and early 1980’s, Georgia had one of the highest living standards in the Soviet Union; one benefited from Soviet tourism and widespread corruption. After Gorbachevlaunch of perestroika and glasnost, the people wanted more opportunities to decide for themselves and began to demonstrate for greater independence from Moscow. In a peaceful demonstration in Tbilisi in April 1989, 19 protesters were killed by Soviet soldiers and several hundred wounded, increasing the Georgians’ resentment against Moscow. Later in 1989, the autonomous region of South Ossetia demanded greater independence, after which the Georgian leadership abolished the autonomous status of the region in 1990, and South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia. Then fierce fighting broke out between the South Ossetians and the Georgians.
In 1992, the armed conflict with South Ossetia ended with a ceasefire. In the autumn of 1992, parliamentary elections were held, and the returning Eduard Shevardnadze was elected Speaker of Parliament with the status of head of state. In October 1993, a bloody conflict in Abkhazia ended with approximately 250,000 Georgians had to flee the region, which declared independence in 1994 and signed a ceasefire with the Georgian government. With the independence of the Soviet Union in April 1991, the pressure on minorities increased, and at the same time, Georgia’s historic regionalization resurfaced. It emerged when the country’s first elected president, the mingler Zviad Gamsakhurdia, was overthrown in January 1992.
Following the adoption of the new constitution in August 1995, which gave the newly created presidency extensive powers, Eduard Shevardnadze was elected president by an overwhelming majority, and the same was repeated in the presidential election in 2000. In the parliamentary elections, his party, the Georgian Civil Union, also succeeded. to conquer the majority of the votes cast. However, there were suspicions of electoral fraud in the parliamentary elections in 1999 and the presidential elections in 2000. Shevardnadze was the subject of two assassination attempts, in respectively. 1995 and 1998, and units of the armed forces mutinied in both 1998 and 2001. With its majority in parliament, Shevardnadze passed several important laws and the economy improved, but the economic crisis in Russia in 1998 hit Georgia hard and the government became more and more corrupt. Attempts to put an end to the widespread corruption of civil servants led to several government reshuffles. Shevardnadze’s policies met with growing opposition, and in the 2002 local elections, the opposition made great strides. In the November 2003 parliamentary elections, the winner, according to the official election results, became the coalition that supported Shevardnadze. The opposition did not believe this, and under the leadership of MikhailSaakashvili raised a bloodless, popular protest called the Rose Revolution. Shevardnadze had to resign at the end of November, and in January 2004, Saakashvili was elected president with 96.3% of the vote. In a new election of the 150 MPs elected by proportional representation on party lists, the newly created National Movement – Democrats bloc gained a majority in parliament, and Saakashvili immediately set out to reunite the country, fight corruption, integrate the country into Euro-Atlantic structures and establish a friendly relationship with Russia. In May 2004, Saakashvili became the longtime leader of the Autonomous Republic of Adjarato resign after the latter did not want to recognize him as president. Then Saakashvili tried to reunite South Ossetia with Georgia, but without success, because Russia supports the region. Russia is also asserting its influence in Abkhazia, and therefore the conflict with this region is not resolved either. In 2005, Russia agreed to close down its two military bases in Georgia before the end of 2007, but relations with Russia remain tense. Relations with the EU and the US are good. Saakashvili wants to orient Georgia towards the EU, which has included the country in its neighborhood policy, and he is working to expand contacts with NATO. The close relationship with the United States was evident from President George W. Bush’s visit to the country in May 2005, and the United States provides strong support for economic development, just as U.S. special forces have been training Georgian forces in the fight against terrorism since 2001.
In the fall of 2007, internal opposition to Saakashvili grew after his former defense minister, Irakli Okruashvili, accused him of corruption and plotting to assassinate a Georgian media oligarch who supported the opposition. Okruasjvili was arrested, accused of abuse of office during his time as Minister. Prosecutors staged large-scale protests in Tbilisi, with the opposition accusing Saakashvili of being authoritarian and doing too little to fight poverty and demand his resignation. On 7/11, a demonstration in Tbilisi was disbanded by police using tear gas, sticks and water cannons. On the same day, Saakashvili declared a state of emergency in the country until 16.11.2007. and shut down the media oligarch’s independent television station Imedi for five months. He then called presidential elections ahead of time on January 5, 2008. Seven candidates participated in the election, which Saakashvili won with 53.5% of the vote. The election campaign and the election action were strongly criticized byOSCE election observers in order not to live up to OSCE and Council of Europe standards, including because Saakashvili completely dominated the picture. The same applied to the parliamentary elections held before 21.5.2008. Here, Saakashvili’s party, the United National Movement, dominated the election campaign between the 12 running parties and blocs, and it also got 120 out of the 150 seats in parliament. At the same time as the presidential election, a referendum was held on Georgian membership of NATO. 77% voted in favor. However, at the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008, Georgia did not receive the expected membership action plan, but only a promise of membership once a year.
In the summer of 2008, relations with Russia became further strained around the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and especially South Ossetia.. After several episodes on the border with South Ossetia, Georgia launched an invasion of the area on August 8, 2008, during which the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali was bombed. The Russian response was immediate and violent, and certainly fell behind the Georgian leadership. Russian forces invaded South Ossetia in large numbers, and several bombings of military bases and air bases took place in Georgia. After a few days, Georgia withdrew and tried to bring about a ceasefire. Russia, however, pushed and drove the Georgian forces all the way out of South Ossetia. The affair contributed to weakening Georgia decisively; Following Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia at the end of August 2008, it no longer seems realistic that Abkhazia and South Ossetia could be reintegrated into Georgia,
Georgia is officially no longer a member of the CIS on 18.8.2009, following the decision of President Mikheil Saakashvili on 12.8. about leaving the community in political protest.