The entry of Ossetia into the Russian Empire. History of Ossetia

OSSETINS

Ossetians are descendants of the ancient Alans, Sarmatians and Scythians. However, according to a number of well-known historians, the presence of the so-called local Caucasian substrate in the Ossetians is also obvious. Currently, Ossetians mostly inhabit the northern and southern slopes of the central part of the main Caucasus ridge. Geographically, they form the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania (area - about 8 thousand sq. km., capital - Vladikavkaz) and the Republic of South Ossetia (area - 3.4 thousand sq. km., capital - Tskhinvali).

Despite the geographical and administrative division, a single people lives in both parts of Ossetia, with the same culture and language. The division occurred by a strong-willed decision from the Kremlin in 1922, without any consideration of the opinions of the Ossetians themselves. According to this decision, North Ossetia was assigned to Russia, and South Ossetia to Georgia. For seven decades, if you do not take into account the feelings of the poor stepdaughter and attempts to impose Georgian culture and language, the citizens of South Ossetia did not experience any great inconvenience from this division, since they lived in a single family of fraternal peoples of the USSR.

But times have changed. Russia and Georgia have become separate states with very strained relations. At the same time, the Ossetians found themselves on opposite sides of the state border. Moreover, even many families whose members live in different parts Ossetia. But more on this below.

Currently, the total number of Ossetians in the world is about 640-690 thousand people. Of these (according to unofficial data) live:

In North Ossetia – 420-440 thousand people

In South Ossetia - 70 thousand people

In the republics and regions of Russia - 60-80 thousand people

In Georgia – 50-60 thousand people

In states in the territory former USSR– 20-30 thousand people,

In Turkey and Syria – 11-12 thousand people,

In the countries of Europe, America, Australia - about 12-15 thousand people.

Ossetia borders: in the east - with the Republic of Ingushetia, in the northeast - with Chechnya, in the west and northwest - with the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, in the south - with Georgia and in the north - with the Stavropol Territory.

The nature of Ossetia is rich and varied: sultry steppes, flowering foothill plains, eternally ice-covered peaks of the highest Caucasus Mountains in Europe, deep gorges and swift rivers.

Ossetians are a people who, due to their uniqueness (the absence of related peoples close in language and culture), have long attracted the close attention of Russian and famous foreign historians and researchers of the Caucasus, such as Miller, Sjögren, Klaproth, Vernardsky, Dumezil, Bakhrakh, Sulimirsky, Littleton, Bailey, Cardini, Abaev, Rostovtsev, Kuznetsov and many others.

The history of Ossetia from the Alans, Sarmatians and Scythians to the present day is quite well described in the books of many authoritative scientists, and in particular M. Bliev and R. Bazrov “History of Ossetia”, as well as in the preface given in this section by academician M. Isaev “Alans . Who are they?" to the Russian edition of Bernard S. Bachrach’s book “Alans in the West”. This book itself (“A history of the Alans in the West”, by Bernard S. Bachrach)* brightly illuminates the history of the Western Alans, who settled in large numbers in the countries of Western and Central Europe, and left a noticeable mark on the development of the culture of the peoples of these countries, from the British Isles and northern Italy to the Balkan countries and Hungary. There, the descendants of the Alans (Ass) subsequently formed a separate Iasi region, preserving the culture and language of their ancestors for many centuries. By the way, most studies of the history of Western Alans completely refutes the theories of some North Caucasian historians that the Alans were not Iranian-speaking. The Iranian-speaking nature of Western Alans is recognized without much effort.

Throughout its history, the Ossetian people went through periods from rapid prosperity, increased power and enormous influence in the first millennium AD, to almost complete catastrophic extermination during the invasions of the Tatars - the Mongols and the lame Timur in the 13-14 centuries. The comprehensive catastrophe that befell Alanya led to the mass destruction of the population, the undermining of the foundations of the economy, and the collapse of statehood. The pitiful remnants of a once powerful people (according to some sources, no more than 10-12 thousand people) were locked in the high-mountain gorges of the Caucasus Mountains for almost five centuries. During this time, all “external relations” of the Ossetians were limited only to contacts with their closest neighbors. However, every cloud has a silver lining. According to scientists, largely thanks to this isolation, the Ossetians have preserved their unique culture, language, traditions and religion almost in their original form.

Centuries passed and the people rose from the ashes and grew noticeably in numbers. And by the first half of the 18th century, due to the cramped, harsh and limited conditions of the highlands and the complex geopolitical situation in the region, the Ossetian people faced the urgent question of the need to become part of Russia and resettle to the lowland lands. Through elected ambassadors - representatives of various Ossetian societies, a corresponding petition was sent to St. Petersburg addressed to Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. After the defeat of Turkey in the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774. Russia's influence in the region increased noticeably and it was able to act more decisively than before in pursuing its colonial goals in the Caucasus. And following the conclusion of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty in 1974, a decision was made to annex Ossetia to the Russian Empire. However, the administrative subordination of Ossetia was initially of a formal nature. And more people for a long time continued to maintain independence from the Russian administration. In the Ossetian gorges, uprisings like Digorsky in 1781, which were of a people's liberation nature, broke out every now and then.

However, in general, joining Russia corresponded to the national interests of Ossetia. It brought closer the solution to such important issues as resettlement to the foothill plains, ensuring external security and the establishment of trade relations in Russia.

Over the next 100-150 years, hundreds of educated teachers, educators, writers, military leaders, statesmen and public figures grew up in Ossetia. Most of them received a good education in St. Petersburg, Moscow and others major cities Russia. By the beginning of the last century, there were already dozens of Ossetian military generals and thousands of officers awarded the highest military awards in Russia. Faithfully and truly, with Alanian honor, they defended the interests of the Fatherland throughout, from the Far East to the Balkans and Turkey.

Years passed and the political events of the beginning of the 20th century dealt a new blow to our people, like all other peoples of the country. The revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Civil War split Ossetian society into warring irreconcilable camps for a long time. They significantly undermined the foundations of intra-social relationships, foundations and traditions. Often neighbors, relatives, or even members of the same family found themselves on opposite sides of the barricades. Many leading people of their time were killed in battle, others emigrated abroad forever. Well, the greatest damage to Ossetian culture was caused during the famous repressions of the 30s and 40s, when the color of the nation was almost completely destroyed.

The famous Alan military art and desire for military feats did not go down in history along with them. Through the centuries they were reborn in descendants, for whom military service and defense of the Fatherland have always been held in special esteem. The desire for officer service is evident in Ossetians from early childhood. And the fact that this project included information about 79 generals and admirals of the Soviet period and modern Russia, convincingly confirms this conclusion.

The Ossetian people most clearly showed their best qualities, inherited from proud ancestors, during the Second World War.

With a total population of 340 thousand people in 1941:

90 thousand Ossetians left to defend their homeland from the fascist occupiers.

46 thousand of them died in battles for the freedom and independence of our Motherland.

34 Ossetians became Heroes Soviet Union. This is the highest figure in relation to the total population among all the peoples of the USSR (see table in the “Heroes of the Soviet Union” section).

More than 50 people became generals and admirals

The Ossetian Gazdanov family lost all 7 of them on the war fronts

Two families lost 6 sons each,

In 16 families, 5 sons did not return from the war,

52 Ossetian families lost 4 sons in this war,

The defeat of the fascist troops in the Caucasus began with their defeat in fierce battles on the outskirts of Vladikavkaz in the winter of 1942, and the liberation of the Nazi-occupied areas of North Ossetia.

Dozens of Ossetian military generals fought bravely in the ranks of the Red Army commanders. The most famous of them are twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Army General Issa Pliev, Hero of the Soviet Union, Army General Georgy Khetagurov, Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel General, one of the most prominent Soviet intelligence officers, who was called father Soviet special forces, Hadji-Umar Mamsurov and the commander of the famous Soviet air aces, Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General Ibragim Dzusov.

The post-war period in the history of Ossetia is characterized by rapid development of industry, economics, agriculture, culture and sports. Thanks to the rich natural resources, such large enterprises of the mining and processing industries have grown in Ossetia as the Sadonsky and Kvaisinsky lead-zinc plants, the Elektrozinc and Pobedit plants, the products of which were widely used in the country and abroad, the Tskhinvali plants "Emalprovod" and "Vibromashina" , the Alagir resistance plant, the largest Beslan maize mill in Europe, the Kazbek furniture company, a number of large electronics enterprises, etc.

The capital of the Republic of North Ossetia is Alania, Vladikavkaz (population just over 300 thousand people) - one of the most beautiful cities in the region, a cultural, economic and transport center. Here, as throughout the republic, people of many nationalities live in peace and harmony. Vladikavkaz is famous for its prestigious higher educational institutions, including North Ossetian State University named after K.L. Khetagurova, Gorsky State agricultural university, North Caucasus State University of Technology, North Ossetian State Medical Academy, higher military schools and others. The cultural life of Ossetia is diverse and rich. There are several state theaters, a philharmonic society, the state academic folk dance ensemble “Alan”, famous in the country and abroad, and the equestrian theater “Narty”.

Ossetian culture and art have given the country and the world such famous people as one of the best conductors in the world, head of the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theater Valery Gergiev, the world's first female conductor, People's Artist of the USSR Veronika Dudarova, soloist of the Bolshoi Theater ballet, People's Artist of the USSR Svetlana Adyrkhaeva, the Kantemirov dynasty of circus artists led by the founder of the Soviet equestrian circus art Alibek Kantemirov, theater and film artists, People's Artists of the USSR Vladimir Thapsaev and Nikolai Salamov, famous pop performers Felix Tsarikati and Akim Salbiev and many others.

At competitions of the highest rank, Ossetian athletes glorify their Motherland in freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, judo, karate, Tae Kwon Do, weightlifting, arm wrestling, football, rhythmic gymnastics and many other sports. Ossetians are rightfully proud of 12 Olympic Games champions, several dozen world, European, USSR and post-Soviet Russia champions.

Thus, at the last Olympics in 2004 in Athens, the Ossetians won four gold, two silver and two bronze medals. This result is truly unique for a nation of less than 700 thousand people and is unlikely to be surpassed anywhere in the world in the foreseeable future.

The achievements of Ossetian representatives in various fields of science and economics are truly invaluable. Suffice it to mention one of the pillars of world aerodynamics and rocketry, Grigory Tokati, who worked on NASA space programs in England and the USA, known in scientific world Patriarch of Russian linguistics and Iranian studies Vaso Abaev, captain of the icebreaker "Arktika", which was the first in the world to conquer the North Pole, Yuri Kuchiev, former general director of the Baltika brewing concern Taimuraz Bolloev.

Today's Ossetia is developing, establishing contacts, achieving success in all spheres and looking to the future with hope, praying to God for peace, tranquility and prosperity.

About interethnic conflicts.

Along with everything positive described above, not everything is as cloudless over the sky of Ossetia as the Ossetians themselves wish.

In the early 90s of the last century, the nationalists who came to power in Georgia pursued a policy of ousting the Ossetian population, and then under the slogan “Georgia is for Georgians!” unleashed a new bloody conflict on the territory of South Ossetia, intending to repeat the acts of genocide against Ossetians in 1920. By his decree of December 11, 1990, the then leader of Georgia Z. Gamsakhurdia abolished the South Ossetian Autonomous Region. The South Ossetians, through a referendum, decided to secede from Georgia and form the Republic of South Ossetia. Georgian armed forces invaded the territory of South Ossetia and began to “restore order” in their own way. Later, having received a worthy answer, they went home, sowing poisonous seeds of hatred and mistrust between peoples for a long time. The war was short, but with a large number of casualties, including among civilians. The Ossetian people will never forget their sons who died at the hands of national chauvinists defending their homeland. He will not forget the brutally tortured civilians, the shooting by Georgian militants of a bus with old people, women and children on the Zar road, as well as other acts of monstrous crimes against our people. The thoughtless, great-power chauvinistic policy of the Georgian leadership has led to the emergence of hatred and irreconcilable discord between the once most friendly peoples in the region. But no matter what, Ossetians do not see the Georgian people as an enemy. They know that years will pass, history will send national chauvinists of various stripes to the trash heap and they will heal simple people the way their ancestors lived for centuries - in peace and harmony, helping each other.

The events of those days were widely covered in the press and other materials. And in this brief historical review There is no way to describe everything in detail.

Years have passed. Leaders have changed both in Georgia and Russia, and in Ossetia. But the conflict has not yet been resolved. The new Georgian leadership, as in the past, is pursuing a policy to combat separatism by any means available, including through threats, blockades, political pressure through third countries, and organizations, in particular the USA and the OSCE. At the same time, it is increasingly moving away from Russia, which for many years was the guarantor of stability, peace and prosperity in the region.

The Ossetian side has resolutely and irrevocably taken a course towards restoring historical justice* - reunification with its brothers in North Ossetia as part of Russian Federation and, having survived three waves of genocide (in 1920, 1990 and 2004), does not intend to return to the administrative bosom of Georgia. In 2004, the leadership of the Republic sent a petition to the State Duma of the Russian Federation for the admission of South Ossetia to Russia. To date, the issue remains open, the problems unresolved, and the conflict smoldering.

Separatism rarely brings positive results. And at first glance, the Georgian leadership has the right to fight the separatism of its former regions. But this is only at first glance, since the intentions of the people of South Ossetia cannot be called separatist for two reasons.

Firstly, the Ossetian people, having lived on this land for many centuries, never expressed a desire to be part of Georgia, and were annexed to it only by the willful decision of the then leaders of the Soviet state, without taking into account the opinions of the Ossetians themselves. Before this, there was not a single state legal act that would have stated that South Ossetia belonged to Georgia. The eternal claims of princes Machabeli and Eristavi to own this territory, as well as the frequent complicity of the Russian elite with them, were never recognized by the people of Ossetia.

Secondly, every people has the right to be “undivided” and choose their own destiny. The artificially divided peoples of Germany, Vietnam and other states were reunited. And by force, political pressure or blockade to keep one people on different sides of the state border is nothing more than a crime against this people.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a no less difficult situation developed in North Ossetia. In the 1990s, interethnic problems and contradictions that had been accumulating for decades and driven deeper into the depths, in the conditions of weakening of the central government, began to result in conflicts on ethnic grounds between the Ossetians and their closest neighbors in the east - the Ingush. The reason for them was several villages of the Prigorodny region of North Ossetia, inhabited by a mixed Ossetian-Ingush population and for 6 decades a disputed territory between the two peoples. The history of these villages dates back to the time of the resettlement of the highlanders to the plain. In those same years, settlement began North Caucasus and Russian Cossacks, carried out by the tsarist authorities to maintain order and pacify the local peoples. These disputed villages were mainly founded by the Terek Cossacks. The Cossacks lived prosperously, freely, and when the years of revolution came and civil war, they mostly sided with the White Guard, fighting against the communists. In response to this, local communist leaders, led by Lenin’s comrade-in-arms, the “fiery” Sergo Ordzhonikidze, began to incite the Ingush to carry out punitive operations against the Cossack population. There were quite a lot of raids on their villages with the aim of pushing the Cossacks beyond the Terek and seizing lands (see the article about Georgy Bicherakhov in the section “Ossetians Abroad”). The Ingush tried in every possible way to eliminate the “stripes” of Cossack lands on their territory in order to strengthen their influence in the “rounded” territories. Ultimately, in 1922, the Ingush, together with the soldiers of the Red Army, managed to implement this idea and settle in these villages for 22 years. This is the history of the territories now called “originally Ingush” by the Ingush side.

In 1944, the central Soviet government committed an absolutely no less serious crime, but against the Ingush, Chechens and some other peoples. Because of mass desertion from the ranks of the Red Army and support for banditry in the rear, these entire peoples, in a matter of hours, were completely loaded into freight cars and deported to the bare steppes of Kazakhstan. Along the way, many innocent people died, including frail old people, women and children. For the small Ingush people, this resettlement was almost catastrophic. Harsh conditions and the struggle for survival in an empty place for a long time delayed the processes of formation of statehood, development of education, culture and other spheres of life. At the same time, Ossetians were almost also forcibly resettled to the territory of the former Ingushetia from the mountainous regions of South and North Ossetia.

In 1957, the new Kremlin leadership, headed by Nikita Khrushchev, decided to correct the mistakes of their predecessors and returned the repressed peoples to their historical homeland. With the return of the Ingush, the Ossetians, who had managed to settle down in the new place (some had already built new houses in 12 years), were forced to leave it and start all over again, settling in vacant lots on the outskirts of other settlements North Ossetia. At the same time, part of the Prigorodny district was not returned to Checheno-Ingushetia, mainly those villages that were taken from the Cossacks in 1922 and from the Ossetians in 1926. This territory was left under the jurisdiction of North Ossetia. In exchange, three districts of the Stavropol Territory were annexed to Checheno-Ingushetia.

This part of the Prigorodny district became the cause of the bloody conflict that broke out between North Ossetia and Ingushetia. Tension had been building for a long time, teeth bared every now and then. So in the fall of 1981, in Ordzhonikidze (present-day Vladikavkaz), after the murder of a young taxi driver by the Ingush, mass unrest broke out and was brutally suppressed by troops special purpose with a large number of casualties and several casualties. After such facts, the central government in Moscow, without delving into the essence of the problem, usually tried to treat the symptoms of the disease, driving the disease itself deep inside.

History has yet to say its weighty word about how this “treatment” was carried out in North Ossetia by the new leader of the republic, V. Odintsov, sent from Moscow. Out of a desire to rise and make a name for himself, allegedly by restoring order in a short time in the republic with the hands of visiting heads of law enforcement agencies with a dubious reputation and local minions, Odintsov created a situation similar to the years of repression of the 30s. Through trumped-up charges and other unworthy methods, many major leaders were arrested, including a number of those who enjoyed great authority and respect among the people. They stood in the way of Odintsovo’s rampant lawlessness and paid for it. And although, after several months, after thorough checks by authoritative commissions of the Prosecutor General's Office, justice triumphed and all those illegally accused were completely acquitted, the harm caused to the people of Ossetia over these years was already irreparable. Unfortunately, today's young generation does not know the truth about the facts of lawlessness and repression committed in North Ossetia in those years, because very little has been written about this period in the history of Ossetia.

The years of Odintsov's rule deepened and aggravated the Ossetian-Ingush contradictions. Those who were at the head of the republic cared little about the real relationship between the two peoples. It was important for them to use force to create an outer shell of well-being and report to Moscow that, through heroic efforts, order had been established in this matter. Time has shown that the creation of a most favored nation regime for representatives of one nation living on the territory of another was an additional detonator for subsequent bloody events.

Signed by Boris Yeltsin in June 1992, at first glance, the humane and fair “Law on the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples,” having neither a constitutional basis nor a mechanism for implementation, became only a catalyst in the aggravation of Ossetian-Ingush relations. In villages with a mixed population, armed clashes, murders, and robberies became more frequent. In the squares of the then capital of Ingushetia - the city of Nazran, rallies of many thousands were held every now and then with demands to return these several villages and the right bank part of Vladikavkaz by any means, including forceful actions. There were open threats against the Ossetians. In this situation of impending danger, the leadership of North Ossetia set a course for comprehensively strengthening its defense capability and preparing to repel possible aggression. The situation became tense to the limit.

After a series of mutual “exchanges of bloody courtesies,” on the night of October 30–31, 1992, Ingush military formations, consisting of mobile, well-armed units, crossed the border of North Ossetia and began fighting to capture the villages of the Prigorodny district. They were joined by many residents of North Ossetia of Ingush ethnicity. In these villages, Ossetian houses went up in flames, property and cattle began to be exported, and vehicles of Ossetians and enterprises were stolen. At the slightest resistance, people were destroyed. The first to take the fight were the employees of the Chermensky village police department, but the forces were unequal. The militants threw anti-tank grenades at the surviving and wounded policemen, and the mutilated corpses lay under the rubble of the building for several days. Another brutal crime was committed in the village of Kartsa, where 25 Ossetian hostages were shot by the Ingush in a local club. And these were far from isolated cases.

The suddenness of the blow played a role. In 2-3 days, Ingush militants advanced 10-15 km and reached the outskirts of Vladikavkaz. During these bloody days for Ossetia, more than 100 people were killed, a large number of civilians were taken hostage and taken to Ingushetia. Many went missing and their fate is unknown to this day. Many Ossetian houses in the occupied villages of the Prigorodny district were destroyed and burned. All these events stirred up the people, causing a response of rage and a thirst for revenge for what they had done. Thousands of young people from all settlements flocked to defend the republic, joining the national guard, people's militia and the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs previously created in case of aggression. A well-armed and combat-experienced battalion of 400-500 people arrived from South Ossetia to help the brothers. Under threatening pressure from the indignant masses of the people, the army leadership also provided some assistance in arming the militias and law enforcement agencies of the republic (see the article about G. Kantemirov in the section “Generals and Admirals”). All this had its effect, and by the end of the new week, the entire territory of the Prigorodny district was cleared of the attackers. In some cases, anger for what they had done overflowed and there were noticeably more victims on the Ingush side. Moreover, in fairness, it must be admitted that due to the high intensity of the fire and the use of heavy weapons, among these victims there were civilians.

Previously, Russian troops were brought into the conflict zone, which, having taken a neutral position, entered into battle only in response to acts of direct attack on them. By November 5, troops took up positions between the warring sides in order to prevent further escalation of hostilities.

The results of this, the first armed conflict on Russian territory, are sad for both the Ossetians and the Ingush.

-A total of 546 people died (including 105 Ossetians and 407 Ingush)

About a thousand people were wounded and maimed

Hundreds of hostages were taken, who were then mostly exchanged between the parties to the conflict.

In the combat zone, many houses and buildings, both Ingush and Ossetian, were completely destroyed.

Almost the entire Ingush population of the Prigorodny region and Vladikavkaz (more than 30 thousand people) left their homes and became refugees for a long time.

Over the past 14 years, most refugees have returned to their villages. They were allocated plots of land for the construction of new houses, cash loans and compensation. But the problem of the Prigorodny district is raised by the Ingush side again and again, not allowing tension to ease. The Ossetian side rejects any options for redrawing the existing borders, due to the fact that for more than 60 years, by the will of fate, Ossetians have been living in these villages. More than one generation has already been born of those for whom this land is their homeland, and they have no other. And they are determined to resolutely protect it from any attacks.

In the Caucasus, all conflicts have always been resolved peacefully through dialogue between people, between nations. This dialogue between Ossetians and Ingush is not yet possible. And the bloody events that play out every now and then largely contribute to the strengthening of mistrust and hostility between neighboring peoples. One of these events was an explosion in the crowded central market of Vladikavkaz on March 19, 1999, carried out by 4 young Ingush residents of the Prigorodny district. Then 52 people died on the spot and another 168 people were injured, mostly women, old people, and students. Subsequently, a number of explosions were carried out in markets and other crowded places in the capital of North Ossetia, in which many people also died.

But the most monstrous and inhuman act that shook the whole world was the seizure of the Beslan secondary school on September 1, 2004. Early in the morning on the Day of Knowledge, a large group of heavily armed militants, having entered from the territory of Ingushetia in a truck, surrounded a school with children, teachers and parents and, locking them in the school gym, held them hostage for three days, without food or drink. Many of the children, unable to bear the hunger and stuffiness, ate flowers traditionally brought for teachers, drank their own urine, and lost consciousness. Immediately after the capture, many young people were shot. The bandits brought suicide bombers with them and filled the entire school building with mines. After the explosion of two of them, a chaotic assault began. In these, the most sorrowful days for the Ossetian people over the past few decades, 331 hostages died, of which 186 were children. different ages, from one year to 16 years. The monsters have encroached on the most sacred thing for every nation - children, our future.

According to the official version today, almost all of them, except one, were destroyed during the assault. But those who organized and planned this act of intimidation are alive, with the goal of unleashing a big war in the North Caucasus. For some reason they are still at large and threaten new terror.

They say correctly that bandits have no nationality. But at the same time, there is no hiding from the fact that the overwhelming majority of the identified militants turned out to be Ingush. And the Ossetians are unlikely to be able to bring themselves to close their eyes to this in the near future and extend a hand of friendship towards Ingushetia. Moreover, until now from that side, neither at the official nor at the popular level, not a word of repentance has been heard for those who came to Beslan to kill children.

Years will pass and generations will pass before the pain of wounds and losses subsides. Before all people understand that peace and tranquility in the region are vital for all peoples and every person. Before wisdom triumphs over ambition, political and national adventurism.

*The Russian edition of this book is published in the library of the Daryal magazine

Review prepared by R. Kuchiev

September 2005

List of some interesting books on the history of the Scythians, Alans, Ossetians:

1. Scythians. Grakov V.M. (Russian)

2. On the problem of the genesis of the Ossetian Nart epic. Guriev T.A (rus)

3. Ossetians. B.A. Kaloev (rus)

4. A grammatical sketch of Ossetic./ by V.I. Abaev. Edited by Herbert H. Paper, Translated by Steven P. Hill,

5. A history of the Alans in the West./ by Bernard S. Bachrach

6. The Sarmatians./ by T. Sulimirsky

7. The world of the Scythians./ by Renate Rolle

8. Iranians and Greeks in South Russia./ by M. Rostovtsev

9. The Scythians./ by Tamara Talbot Rice

10.From Scythia to Camelot./ by C.Scott Littleton&Linda A.Malcor

11.Alle Radici Della Cavalleria Medievale. / by Franco Cardini (in Italian)

12.Searching For The Scythians/ by Mike Edwards/ National Geographic, September 1996

13.Alans in Gaul./ by Bernard S. Bachrach

14. Sources on the Alans. A critical compilation./ by Agusti Alamany

15. The Sarmatians 600 BC - AD 450. / by R. Brzezinski & M. Mielczarek

16. The Scythians 700 -300 BC / by Dr. E.V. Cernenko

The brochure offered to you was published in 1995 in Tskhinvali by such famous people as Yu.S. Gagloti, M.K. Dzhioev, N.G. Dzhusoity, K.P. Pukhaev, B.V. Tekhov, L.A. Chibirov. The issue of relations between the Georgian and Ossetian peoples is very relevant today; in order to understand it, it is necessary to know the historical processes of the formation of statehood in South Ossetia. It is for this purpose that the editorial council of www.iriston.ru publishes this brochure on the pages of the site.

Introduction

The Ossetian people lived and now live compactly on a single territory on both sides of the ridge of the Central Caucasus. The northern Ossetians occupy part of the foothill plain and the gorges of the northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains, while the southern ones occupy the slopes from the south: the gorges of the rivers Jodzhora, Kvirila, Patsa, Leuakhi, Malaya Leuakhi, Lekhura, Medzuda, Chysan (Ksani river), Belaya Aragvi, the sources of the Terek ( Truso gorge). In addition, Ossetians inhabit a narrow strip of foothill plain, the borderland or contact zone between Inner Kartli and Lower Dvaletiya, where South Ossetians live interspersed with Georgians. IN Soviet time The South Ossetian Autonomous Region was part of the Georgian SSR, and the North Ossetian ASSR was part of the RSFSR. According to the 1989 census, the total number of Ossetians in the USSR was slightly more than 600 thousand people.

The administrative division of the Ossetian people into two state entities was carried out with the establishment of Soviet power. Geographically, this division is associated with the settlement of Ossetians on the northern and southern slopes of the Central Caucasus. Historically, this division is also associated with the entry of the peoples of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia into the Russian state at different times. By the time of annexation to Russia (18th century), the Ossetian people no longer had their own state and lived on the northern and southern slopes of the Caucasus in free societies, but the Kabardian princes claimed political and economic dominance over the North Ossetians, and the Georgian princes over the South Ossetians. However, neither the northern nor the southern Ossetians ever recognized this dominance and were in a state of constant hostility - war with these princes and their armed squads.

In the first half of the 18th century, the Ossetian people faced the question of determining their historical destiny. There could be two alternative solutions: to unite all Ossetian societies into one public education and determine their place in the chaotic and torn (by national, political, economic and other contradictions) world of the North Caucasian and Transcaucasian peoples. To implement such a decision in the 18th century there were still no real conditions in Ossetian society itself. The disunity between Ossetian societies (economic, political, social) was still so strong that for practical purposes national association Real possibilities have not yet developed.

The second alternative boiled down to the idea of ​​joining the Russian state, to adopting Russian forms public life, in order to thereby get out of centuries-old isolation and overcome the dead-end perspective of patriarchal-tribal freemen and patriarchal-feudal self-will and violence.

Progressive people from Ossetian society chose the idea of ​​joining Russia and began to implement it in the early 40s XVIII century(1743). In 1774, this idea was realized, the societies of Ossetia officially joined Russia, and when Georgia was annexed to Russia in early XIX century; then the Russian military leaders who encountered the South Ossetians unanimously noted one general impression: “at the first appearance of Russian troops in this country under the command of Count Totleben, the people greeted them as their saviors. They were also drawn to us Christian faith, for only a small part of the Ossetians, in the neighborhood of Kabarda, accepted the Muhammadan law. But since proper measures were not taken for the civic education of Ossetia, and moreover, when the Ossetians saw that the Russians began to hand them over to the landowners, who intended to make serfs out of them... their attachment to the Russians noticeably decreased." (Acts Cavalry Archaeographical Commission, vol. VII, pp. 359 - 360).

Expedition gr. Totleben took place in the 70s of the 18th century, that is, even before the annexation of Ossetia to Russia, and this suggests that the South Ossetians also sought to join Russia, seeing in this act “deliverance” from the “arbitrariness of the landowners, who had the intention of making serfs out of them,” and the possibility of “civic education in Ossetia.”

The hopes of the South Ossetians were not justified: a unified “civic formation of Ossetia” did not take place. They entered the political and administrative system of the Russian state separately from the northern ones after the annexation of Georgia to Russia. Taking advantage of the favor of the Russian authorities, the Georgian princes began to lay claim to the South Ossetians as their subjects and serfs. The Ossetians could not come to terms with this, and a struggle began to get rid of the violent claims of the Georgian princes, especially the Machabelevs and Christovs. And this struggle ended only a century later (in 1852) with the recognition of the South Ossetians as state peasants. In fact, with the annexation to Russia, Ossetia found itself torn into two, and, indeed, Georgia itself found itself as part of two provinces. And this historical injustice has been preserved to this day - there is no single “civil entity of Ossetia” even now.

The newly formed sovereign Republic of Georgia, at the beginning of the struggle for its independent state existence, launched open armed aggression against South Ossetia. Officially, by the decision of the Supreme Council of Georgia, the South Ossetian autonomy within Georgia was annulled, the territory of the autonomy was cut into pieces and transferred to the Georgian regions proper, and a war of extermination and expulsion from the territory of the former Georgian SSR was launched against the Ossetian population. As a result of this anti-Ossetian military-predatory action, which began in November 1989, about 1,000 people were killed in South Ossetia, twice as many were wounded and maimed, and 117 villages were burned in whole or in part. People left homeless, robbed and humiliated make up almost 70% of the Ossetian population, and all these acts of unbridled genocide in the Georgian media are justified every day only by territorial claims, they say, Ossetians are “guests” in Georgia, they came from North Ossetia and occupied their original Georgian lands and must go to their historical homeland, i.e., North Ossetia, or unquestioningly submit to the will of the Georgian government, abandoning national-territorial autonomy and national-cultural development.

But this ideological justification is also a cover for the Nazi slogan proclaimed at the beginning of the struggle for independence - “Georgia for Georgians.” The meaning of this anti-Ossetian action is clearly visible in the actual expulsion of Ossetians not only from the autonomous region, but also from other regions of Georgia, where more than 100 thousand Ossetians lived, of which over 80 thousand were robbed and expelled, and more than two thousand (according to incomplete lists compiled by themselves refugees in North Ossetia) killed.

The ideological cover-up of genocide in newspapers, magazines, radio and television programs is carried out every day, but for greater persuasiveness, scientists - historians are also drawn into this action, who, with the same zeal of journalistic pleasers, repeat the propaganda fiction of the guardians of the new government of the Republic: the territory of South Ossetia is the original Georgian land , Ossetians on it are newcomers, guests.

In support of this propaganda lie of mass consumption, scientists have composed an entire book - “From the history of relations between the Georgian and Ossetian peoples (conclusion of the commission to study the status of the South Ossetian region)”, Tbilisi, 1991.

Naturally, there is a need to tell the truth about the true facts of the history of relations between the Georgian and Ossetian peoples since ancient times, without turning history into a concubine of politics, without keeping silent about some and without distorting other facts with an interpretation that suits current politics.

Historical truth requires elucidation (at least briefly) of such important issues for Georgian-Ossetian relations as: the appearance of the ancestors of the Ossetians - the Scythian-Sarmatian-Alanian tribes - on the territory of Transcaucasia; testimony of monuments archaeological culture in the Caucasus on this issue; evidence from ancient written sources on the same issues; evidence of contacts between the Ossetian and Georgian languages ​​as irrefutable evidence of the history of ancient relations between the two peoples; testimony from written sources (including Georgian) on the problems of Ossetian-Georgian relations over the last two millennia (from the 1st to the 18th centuries) until the annexation to Russia; the history of relations between South Ossetians and Georgians during their stay in the Russian state until 1917; the history of the struggle of South Ossetians for national-territorial autonomy or for national self-determination; and, finally, the history of the relationship between the South Ossetian Autonomy and the government of the Georgian SSR during the Soviet period.

Brief, compressed answers to these questions are contained in the presented historical information, as a set of facts established by historical science and their generally accepted understanding.

EVIDENCE OF MONUMENTS OF SCYTHO-, SARMATO-ALAHCHA ARCHAEOLOGICAL CULTURE IN THE TERRITORY OF CENTRAL KABKA3A AND TRANSCAUCASIA

The Ossetian people, as is known, are the carriers of the Indo-European language tradition, its Iranian branch in the Caucasus. The very possibility of preserving Iranian speech in the close environment of Ibero-Caucasian languages ​​is explained solely by the fact that in the Central Caucasus the Indo-European language tradition existed continuously for thousands of years. It interacted with local languages, but lived and developed, enriched and modified, first of all, according to its internal laws.

Back in the 3rd millennium BC. e. In the Caucasus, along with many Caucasian ethnic groups, ethnic groups who spoke Indo-European languages ​​lived. The most ancient of them were the Hittites. They lived here for a long time, at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e. moved to Western Asia, where they formed their own kingdom. But it cannot be argued that certain tribal groups of Indo-Europeans, in particular the Hittites, did not survive in the Caucasus, because migration does not at all imply a complete and one-time departure of the population from their homes.

In the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. e. The Hittites who remained in the Caucasus merged with the Indo-Iranian tribes that occupied the space from Eastern Europe to the Caucasus Mountains. They also moved towards Western Asia and left considerable

The number of people - fellow tribesmen - who continued to develop their culture; Naturally, they also partially merged with neighboring tribes, but in places of compact residence they invariably retained their ethnic individuality.

During this ancient time, a catacomb culture arose and developed on the territory of the North Caucasus, the creators of which scientists and experts almost unanimously recognize as tribes who spoke the Iranian language. The same can be said with greater confidence about the creators of the log-frame culture.

At the end of 11 thousand BC. e. The well-known Cimmerians lived in the Caucasus and the Northern Black Sea region. They were also Iranian-speaking tribes. The Cimmerians were directly replaced in their habitats (Eastern Europe and the Caucasus) by the Scythians. They, like the Cimmerians, were Iranian-speaking tribes, the creators of a highly developed and rich culture. The Scythians created perhaps the highest civilization after the Greeks. Scythian monuments were widespread on both sides of the Main Caucasus Range. It is enough to mention two such monuments as the Koban and Tli burial grounds, the complexes of which contain excellent examples of Scythian culture, indicating their presence not only in the Central Caucasus, but even further - in Transcaucasia, where monuments of Scythian culture have a wide distribution area from Yerevan, Mtskheta and to Sukhum (Melikishvili G. A., Berdzenishvili D. K., Yesayan S. A., Pogrebova M. N., Pitskhelauri K. N.).

A significant part of the Scythians led a nomadic lifestyle associated with the organization of frequent military campaigns. According to Herodotus, the Scythians in the 7th century. BC e. through Transcaucasia they went on a campaign to Western Asia and dominated there for 28 years. Then they were defeated by the Median king Cyaxares, and some of them returned to the Caucasus, others went to Central Asia. From the territory of Transcaucasia, the Scythians who returned from the campaign moved to the Black Sea region, but some of them remained in the territory of Transcaucasia, where they already had a state formation called the first Scythian kingdom, the existence of which has been recorded in written sources for 80 years. This kingdom is localized in different ways - from the modern city of Ganja to the Mugan steppe, but its very existence is undoubted (see A. M. Khazanov. Social history of the Scythians. M., 1975, pp. 215 - 225). The Scythians were displaced by the Sauromatians (from the 4th century BC Sarmatians), who occupied the wide expanses of the North Caucasus, and from the 1st century the Alans emerged from the powerful tribal association of the Sarmatian tribes, holding the territory from Sea of ​​Azov to the Caspian.

It was the Alans who became known in the Central Caucasus from the 1st century. n. e. the most formidable tribal union militarily. They continued the traditions (both domestic and military) of their immediate ancestors - the Sarmatians and Scythians. Alans, starting from the 1st century. n. e., began to take an active part in political history Transcaucasia, in particular Iberia (Eastern Georgia). This is evidenced not only by monuments of material culture, but also by written sources (Greek, Latin, Jewish, Armenian, Georgian, etc.).

Thus, for many millennia there was no period of time when the territory of the Caucasus, especially in its central part, was not inhabited by tribes of Indo-Europeans and Iranians, carriers of the Iranian-speaking tradition. Migration processes were underway, the nomadic way of life forced many tribes to leave their native habitats, but groups of Iranian-speaking tribes always remained on the territory of the Central Caucasus.

It goes without saying that the Indo-Iranians who settled in the Caucasus, in the process of thousands of years of contacts with the Caucasian environment in the sphere of material and spiritual culture, were partially “Caucasian.” But those groups that were forever entrenched in the central part of the Caucasus never lost their language and their original spiritual culture, especially in those regions where they lived compactly. Such regions were the northern and southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus. In the second half of the 2nd and first half of the 1st millennium BC. e. It was in these regions that their material culture was formed and developed. In specialized literature, this culture is known as Koban, since objects of this culture were first discovered in the most original form near the village of Verkhniy Koban in North Ossetia. It can be reasonably assumed that the creators and bearers of this archaeological culture were Iranian-speaking tribes.

The Ossetian people are the heir, successor and continuer of the spiritual, cultural and linguistic traditions of the creators of the Koban and Tli cultures.

And now many historians claim that the Ossetian ethnic group appeared in the Caucasus in the 1st century. n. e., mixed with the local aboriginal population, passed on his Iranian language to them, adopted the local culture in return and developed it further with his work and creativity, does not correspond to reality.

Archaeological data indicate, in principle, a different ethnogenetic process: the Alan tribes, having separated from the Sarmatian tribal association and settled in the territory of the Central Caucasus, merged with the tribes of the ancient Indo-Iranians, related to them in language and cultural tradition, who lived here from the second millennium BC. e. And only for this reason could a quick and natural merger of the two ethnic massifs occur. They, these tribes, were Iranian-speaking. Ethnic, cultural and linguistic kinship contributed to their rapid ethnic “adaptation”, merging into one ethnic group.

Ossetians are not at all aliens from some other planet and not guests, as many scientific publicists who are not competent in matters of history began to repeat, but were formed in the Caucasus and are one of its ancient peoples. This is confirmed by Strabo’s information that the mountainous zone of Iberia (Eastern Georgia) is inhabited by numerous and warlike tribes living according to the customs of the Scythians and Sarmatians, to whom they are neighbors and relatives. This information of the Greek geographer, if until now has not been confirmed in archaeological materials, is today brilliantly confirmed by the richest complex finds of Tli burials. Some representatives of the Scythian-Sarmatian-Alanian tribes living on the northern and southern slopes of the Central Caucasus paved the way to the Iberian nobility, as their own names eloquently indicate (G. A. Melikishvili, V. I. Abaev, M. K. Andronikashvili, L. Zgusta), found in epigraphic monuments (Mtskheta), written sources(“Kartlis tskhovreba”), in the Georgian language in general. Back in 1887, academician. V.F. Miller wrote that the Georgians remembered their neighbors, the Ossians, from the very time they began to remember themselves, since the Ossians in the legend about Farnavaz are closely connected with the beginning of the national consciousness of the Georgians. (Ossetian sketches. Part III, M., 1887, p. 24).

DURATION AND PLACE OF GEORGIAN-OSSETIAN LANGUAGE CONTACTS

The historical and cultural content of Georgian-Ossetian language contacts is extensive and multifaceted. The interaction of these two national languages captures such intimate depths of both languages ​​that testify to their exceptional antiquity and intensity. The scope of these contacts includes such ancient layers of vocabulary as numerals, names of parts of the human body, names of consanguinity, terms of cattle breeding and agriculture, as well as such intimate areas of language as phonetics, word formation, forms of phrases, and individual syntactic categories.

This exceptional antiquity, intimacy and intensity of Ossetian-Georgian linguistic relations was first clearly seen and formulated by academician G.S. Akhvlediani: “The complexity of the Ossetian-Georgian linguistic ties lies precisely in the fact that here we have a long-term mutual influence that goes beyond the usual influence. I think that the relationship between the Georgian (Kartvelian) and Ossetian (Alan) languages ​​can be called rather interpenetration, bordering on bilingualism rather than mutual influence. As for the remoteness, it must be assumed that the Kartvelian and Alan (future "ovsk" Georgian sources) tribes from some ancient times lived a common life for a long time, closely interacting with each other. This could have taken place since the last centuries BC, naturally, going into the first centuries A.D. We are convinced of this, in particular, by the wonderful monument “Armaz bilingual” (1st-2nd centuries AD), some of whose proper names are correctly interpreted by V.I. Abaev, as Ossetian (Alanian) (G. S. Akhvlediani. Collection of selected works on the Ossetian language, vol. I, Tbilisi, 1960, page 170).

In this scientific generalization of the outstanding Georgian philologist, attention is drawn to the fact that the scientist clearly poses the question: the depth, breadth and intensity of Georgian-Ossetian language contacts are such that they axiomatically require for explanation that the speakers of these languages, Georgians and Ossetians, "from what “In ancient times, we lived a common life for a long time, closely interacting with each other.”

This main and indisputable premise of the scientist is no longer addressed to linguistic, but to historical science. And it requires an answer to this question - when and where could the Kartvelian and Ossetian tribes “live a common life for a long time, closely interacting with each other” so that the current commonality between two different languages ​​could develop?

G.S. Akhvlediani gives one of the possible answers to this question - “this could have taken place from the last centuries BC, naturally going into the first centuries of our era.”

From this answer it is clear that the linguist is confident that exclusively ancient times are necessary for the historical justification of the unusual depth and intensity of the Ossetian-Georgian linguistic community. That's why he points to "the last centuries BC." He cannot point to more ancient times for the simple reason that he, like his Ossetian colleague in science, V.I. Abaev, reduces the Ossetian-Georgian linguistic relations to the history of the relationship between the Kartvelian and Alan tribes. And, having accepted this version, it is not possible to push back Ossetian-Georgian language contacts beyond the first century AD. However, Akhvlediani pushes Alan-Georgian relations back several centuries beyond the real time of Alan-Kartvelian contacts. And he is forced to commit such a “sin” by the antiquity of linguistic connections, for which he cannot find a real historical justification in the time and space of the relationship between the two peoples.

The obvious non-synchronism between the time and place of real historical contacts between Alans and Georgians and the antiquity of Ossetian-Georgian linguistic relations raises the question of a different historical justification for linguists and historians. It is clear that the vast area of ​​lexical, phonetic, syntactic and word-formation similarities requires that the native peoples of these languages ​​“have long lived a common life since some ancient times,” but the Alans and Georgians never lived like that in the course of their real history, and indeed The first century AD cannot be called ancient for such language contacts.

There is no doubt that it is necessary to turn to a different historical reality in order to find a real justification for Ossetian-Georgian language contacts. And such a historical prescription may not be Alan-Kartvelian, but only Scythian-Sarmatian-Georgian (Kartvelian) relations, which go back to the beginning of the 7th century BC. e., i.e. they are much older than the time indicated by Akhvlediani, therefore it is precisely at this time that the Ossetian-Georgian language contacts naturally fall in their antiquity.

FORMATION OF THE SOUTHERN BRANCH OF THE OSSETIAN PEOPLE

The history of the formation of the southern branch of the Ossetian people, known in literature as the South Ossetians, goes back to ancient times. Written sources - ancient, Armenian and Georgian did not preserve any direct news about the resettlement of Ossetians to the southern slopes of the Central Caucasus, where the bulk of South Ossetians currently live. The absence of any written sources about the resettlement of Ossetians in Transcaucasia indicates that written history finds part of the Ossetian people on the southern slopes of the Central Caucasus.

The history of South Ossetians is most closely connected with the problem of the origin of the Ossetian people, whose ancestors were known in ancient times under the names of Scythians and Sarmatians, and from the 1st century. n. e. - Alans or Ovs, as they were called by ancient, Byzantine, Arab, Armenian and Georgian sources. According to the Georgian chronicles (“Kartlis Tskhovreba”), Ossetians are descendants of the Scythians who settled in the Central Caucasus as a result of the famous Scythian invasion of the countries of Transcaucasia and Western Asia in the 7th century. BC. Their main habitat at that time was in the North Caucasus. Since that time, the name of Ossetians appears very often on the pages of Georgian chronicles.

The first real news about the South Ossetians dates back to the last centuries BC. e., i.e., by the time of intensive penetration of Sarmatian tribes into the mountains of the Central Caucasus, accompanied by partial subsidence on its southern slopes. In his “Description of Iberia” (Eastern Georgia), the famous ancient Greek geographer Strabo, who lived at the turn of the century. e., reports that its mountainous part is occupied by a warlike population, similar in lifestyle to the Scythians and Sarmatians, with whom they were both neighbors and kinship. Since among ancient and medieval authors, as well as among modern ones, kinship meant primarily linguistic, i.e., ethnic kinship, these relatives of the Scythians and Sarmatians on the southern slopes of the Central Caucasus could only be the Ossetian-speaking population.

The same Strabo, characterizing the population of the central part and western slopes of the Main Caucasian Range, reports that most of it belongs to the Sarmatian tribe, but they are all Caucasians. In Georgian chronicles, this term received a narrower application and the name Caucasians (Georgian “Kavkasioni”) denoted the population of the mountainous zone of the Central Caucasus, also regardless of ethnic (linguistic) affiliation. From the early Middle Ages until the late Middle Ages, this name collectively designated the Ossetian mountaineers who lived on the southern slopes. The penetration of the Sarmatians into the mountains of the Central and Western Caucasus and the southern slopes of the ridge was reflected in the geographical work of another ancient Greek geographer and astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy (11th century AD), who summarized the data of his predecessors. Describing the borders of Asian Sarmatia, which included the entire Northern Caucasus, Ptolemy draws its southern border along the southern slopes of the Main Caucasian Range, including a number of Transcaucasian tribes in Asian Sarmatia.

The stay of Ossetians in Transcaucasia is noted along with ancient sources and Georgian chronicles. Talking about the accession of Mariana from the Iranian Sassanid dynasty to Kartli (Eastern Georgia), Leontiy Mroveli gives a description of the capital of the Kartli kingdom of Mtskheta, its location, strategic importance and reports the proximity of the “Khazars” to it, by which the ancient Georgian chronicles mean the Scythians and Ovs, i.e. Ossetians (KTs, 1, 63). It is clear that we are talking here about the South Ossetians, who were relatively close to Mtskheta.

This is also evidenced by the Armenian translation of this chronicle, carried out in the 7th century, which says that near Mtskheta there are “Ossetians and Alans, Leks and Svans, Khizirs and the entire northern side.” As stated in the same source, Mtskheta was chosen by Mirian as the capital, taking into account, first of all, its advantageous strategic position near the “northern enemies”, which was easier to keep “all the Caucasions” under control.

The same description of the location of Mtskheta is also contained in the information in the Georgian chronicles concerning the arrival in Kartli of the enlightener of Georgia, St. Nina of Cappadocia. “Kartlis Tskhovreba” quotes the words of the elder Niofora, addressed to the young enlightener, about the location of the capital city: “There is a city in the east named Mtskheta, the country of Kartli and Somkheti, the pagan Mtiuleti (country of the mountaineers), which was recently created (formed) by the Uzhik state ". According to the Georgian church tradition, the named snakes were the ancestors of modern Ossetians, who, before the time of Christ’s crucifixion, descended in huge masses “to the valleys of Georgia, conquered the peaceful agricultural people and, seizing the entire government of that time into their own hands, formed the Georgian kingdom with a strong partisan garrison in Mtskheta from Ossi , accustomed to weapons." Similar news was known even in distant Palestine. St. Evangelist Luke, among those who arrived in Jerusalem to preach Christianity, also names those who came from Georgia.

The territorial proximity of the Ovs to Mtskheta is stated in the “Life of St. Nina”: “There is a northern country where pagans live between the Persians and Ovsetia, and the city (there) is Mtskheta.” The short editions of “The Life of St. Nina” also speak about this.

The existence of Ossetians on the territory of ancient Georgia is also documented by other data. According to the Georgian chronicles in ancient Kartli, due to the mixing of various tribes, six languages ​​were in use: Armenian, Georgian, Khazar, Assyrian, Jewish and Greek" (KTs, 1, p. 16). The Khazars of the ancient Georgian chronicles mean the Scythians, from which It follows that the Scythian or Old Ossetian language was also widespread in Eastern Georgia during this period.

This is also evidenced, on the one hand, by the wide distribution of Scythian-Sarmatian (ancient Ossetian) names both among representatives of the Farnavazid, Arsacid and Sassanid dynasties who ruled in Kartli (Iberia), and the Iberian nobility of the first centuries AD. e. These are the names Farnavaz, Saurmag, Kudzhi, Kartam, Asfagur, Khsefarnug, Zevag, Iodmangan, Resmag, Sgadag, etc. On the other hand, there is a fairly significant layer of words of Ossetian origin in the modern Georgian language, which, both in terms of quantity and antiquity of borrowing, clearly superior to all other borrowings from the languages ​​of other Caucasian peoples.

Considering the antiquity and significance of Georgian-Ossetian ties, all this is quite natural. Speaking about the significance of these connections, we mean, first of all, the participation of Ossetians in both internal and foreign political events of Georgia, starting from the Scythian era and up to the period of the Tatar-Mongol invasions. It is difficult to name any major military event during this period in which Ossetians would not take part. This is the struggle against Achamenid Iran, this is participation in the formation of the first Georgian kingdom of the Pharnavazids, this is joint actions in the wars of the first centuries against Parthia, in repelling the invasions of the Khorezmians, the hordes of Timur, etc. And here it is possible to divide the Ossetians into southern and northern not always.

Later data relating to the heyday of feudal Georgia (XII - XIII centuries) also leave no doubt about the presence of the Ossetian ethnic group on the southern slopes of the Main Caucasus Range. For example, during the festivities organized by the Georgian court in honor of the ruler of Aran Amir-Mirian and Shirvan Shah Akhsartan, the royal train was met by representatives of all the lands that were part of feudal Georgia and the peoples inhabiting it. “When leaving Tbilisi, Soslan-David and Tamara were first met by Ossetians and new Kipchaks (apparently a new wave of Kipchak settlers), then Eras and Kakhs, then Kartvels, after Meskhis and Torelians, Shavsh-Klarj-Taois; followed by Somkhitars , then the Abkhazians and Svan-Mingrelian-Gurians, together with the Rachin-Takuerians and Margvetians." As can be seen from this passage, the Ossetians are mentioned together with other residents of Georgia, but, unlike the Kipchaks, the term “new” is not applied to them.

Another example. In one of the biographies of Queen Tamara, the Ossetian mountaineers are mentioned in the same context along with the Kipchaks and Svans, i.e. we are talking about South Ossetians. Vakhushti Bagrationi mentions the Ossetians in Kartli in his description of the events associated with the suppression of the speech of Yuri (George) Bogolyubsky. Alans are mentioned as residents of one of the main Abkhazian fortresses of Anakopia when describing the events associated with the formation of the Abkhazian kingdom in the 8th century. Thus, Georgian chronicles repeatedly report the presence of Ossetians in Georgia until the 13th century, not to mention any of their resettlement here.

One of the oldest Ossetian ethno-territorial (tribal) groups of the mountainous zone of the Central Caucasus, known from written sources, are the Tuals (Ossetian "tual", "tuallag"). In the Georgian chronicles they are known under the name of duals (Georgian "dualni", dvalni"), in Armenian - dualk (k - show plural). The name of the tuals was first mentioned by the Roman author Pliny the Elder in the 1st century AD; They are the territory from the Daryal Gorge in the east to Svaneti in the west, i.e. approximately the same territory occupied by the Ossetian-Tuals today. The name of the Tuals is well known from the historical traditions of the Ossetians and it is still preserved among the ethnic names of the Ossetian people. In Georgian sources the name Dvals collectively called all South Ossetians. The relationship between the Dvalians - Dvaletia and the Ossetians - Ossetia is a relationship between part and whole. According to ancient and medieval sources of Georgian authors, Dvaletia was the name given to the area of ​​​​compact settlement of South Ossetians in the basins of the rivers B. and M. Liakhva, Ksani and the Kudar Gorge. The territory of historical Toiletia (Dvaleti) completely became part of the ethnic territory of the Ossetians, both in the north and in the south. Throughout their history, the Dvals waged an almost continuous struggle against the feudal claims of the Ksani Eristavate (XIII - XV centuries) , and then the Machabeli surname from the 17th century.

The family chronicle of the Ksani Eristavs - “Chronicle of the Ksani Eristavs” (“Dzegli Eristavta”), describing the events of the second half of the 14th century, reports on repeated campaigns against the Dvals. The purpose of these campaigns was the desire to subjugate the Dvals, who lived in a communal system, but the Dvals stubbornly defended their independence. This is clearly seen from the words of the ruler in the last third of the 14th century. eristav Virshel, addressed to his entourage and troops: “Since my father caused so much harm to the Dvals, burning, devastating, killing, destroying fortresses, capturing, intimidating and executing some and giving gifts to others, and they (constantly) forget about it and always waiting for an opportunity (for retaliatory attacks). Now let's give them time and either devastate their country, or turn them into our servants and tributaries. Otherwise, they will find another time for us, when we are busy with other things, and will take revenge on us and capture our outskirts, located in their land."

Along with the Dvals, the campaign also affected other highlanders - the Mokhevs, Khads and Tskhavats. The mountaineers were brought to submission, but the impossibility of keeping permanent troops on the territory of the Dvals and other mountaineers, their subjugation could not be final, at the first opportunity they rebelled again. And when, during Timurleng’s next invasion of Georgia, one of his detachments invaded the Ksani Eristavate and Virshel took refuge in a fortress near the borders of the Dvals, the Dvals attacked him and almost captured him. After Timur left Georgia at the very beginning of the 15th century, Virshel, in alliance with the Aragvi eristav, again undertook a large campaign against the Dvals. On the other hand, along the Liakhvi Gorge, the royal army led by George VII marched against the Dvals.

Dvaletia was destroyed, but Eristav again failed to establish his power here. The resistance of the Dvals was so strong that the troops of the Aragvi eristav were forced to be satisfied with the return of their prisoners and the receipt of livestock, so that “... their troops (the Ksani eristav) would see this and would not be ashamed in front of them for the undestroyed fortresses.”

Ultimately, the Dvals apparently managed to defend their independence from the Ksani eristavis, since in early XVII V. they find themselves under the control of Giorgi Saakadze - “the mourav (governor) of Tbilisi, Tskhinvali and Dvaleti.”

However, the latter is not able to completely subjugate them. The fragmentary data that has been preserved in Georgian sources testify to the repeated protests of the Dvals against submission to feudal oppression. Vakhushti Bagrationi reports that in 1624 the Dvals “again stopped paying duties to the mourav.” It took a large military campaign, which also affected the northern Tuali (Zaramagians), to force them to pay duties again.

The struggle of the South Ossetians for their independence was so persistent that Shah Abbas sent his troops to conquer them at the beginning of the 17th century. This invasion is reported by the Shah’s historiographer Iskander Munshi, who calls them “although considered subjects of the king, but not even subordinate to the king,” and Parsadan Gorgidzhanidze. The Kizilbashs destroyed the country, meeting stubborn resistance, and captured a lot of booty and 500 prisoners.

However, in the middle of the century, during the reign of the Kartlian king Vakhtang V Shakhnavaz, the Dvals refused to pay duties to the king. The tsarist army was sent to Tskhinvali to “enter Ossetia.” The elders of the Dvals, having learned about the movement of the tsar’s army, arrived in Tskhinvali to negotiate with the tsar and, in order to avoid the invasion of the tsar’s troops, paid their arrears and recognized themselves as tributaries of the tsar.

At the very beginning of the next XVIII century. A large campaign against the South Ossetians was already carried out by Vakhtang VI, since the military forces of individual feudal houses - the Ksani Eristavis or Machabeli - were clearly not enough for the final conquest of the Dvals. During this campaign, which also affected a number of regions of North Ossetia, over 80 battle towers were destroyed, villages were burned and prisoners were captured.

In 1746, the Ossetians rebelled, the Aragvi Eristavate and began to destroy Zemo (Upper) Kartli. King Irakli sent the Antsukh, Tebiz and Kiraz Lezgins against them. The Lezgin army “devastated Ossetia and moved to Imereti,” not being satisfied with the goods looted here. At the same time, the Kakhetian king Teimuraz moved with an army against the Ksan and Aragv Ossetians, since the Ossetians of both eristates “did not give duties and did not allow (royal) officials.” The blow was struck from both sides -

M. Liakhve and Aragvi Gorge. 40 towers in the Aragvsky Gorge were captured and destroyed, the Trusovsky Gorge was captured and devastated. Having learned about the defeat of the Aragvi Ossetians, the Ksani Ossetians, whose elders arrived in the village, were forced to submit. Vanat on M. Liakhve to King Teimuraz.

Thus, for almost 4 - 5 centuries before joining the Russian Empire, the history of South Ossetians represents an almost continuous struggle for national and social freedom.

Since the 17th century. the name Dvaleti is gradually being replaced by the name Ossetia, as a reflection of the process of ethnic consolidation of the Ossetians. The territory of compact settlement of South Ossetians is called either Dvaletia or Ossetia, and somewhat later the term South or “this-worldly” Ossetia appears, in contrast to Northern or “otherworldly” (Parsadan Gorgidzhanidze, Vakhushti Bagrationi, Papuna Orbeliani, Sekhnia Chkheidze). Also designated this territory in pre-revolutionary Russian and Georgian literature and periodicals, in official documents and reports of Russian officers General Staff.

ABOUT THE NAME "SOUTH OSSETIA"

In recent years, in the Georgian periodical press, in the speeches of politicians and in a number of scientific publications, there has been a persistent idea that the name “South Ossetia” itself allegedly appeared only in 1922 in connection with the formation of the South Ossetian Autonomous Republic. region, GSSR and is; therefore, an invention of the Bolsheviks. Moreover, not one of these speeches is complete without the very mention of South Ossetia being accompanied by the epithet “so-called,” which, in the opinion of their authors, should apparently emphasize the illegality of this concept. Literally with this, for example, the authors of the brochure “Historical and political-legal aspects of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict” begin: “The territory of the so-called South Ossetia, one of the oldest centers of material and spiritual culture of the Georgian people, is an integral part of Georgia.”

It is difficult to imagine a more or less literate Georgian, not to mention scientific workers, who did not know the name of the outstanding Georgian teacher and public figure Yakov Gogebashvili. In his famous school textbook “The Gates of Nature (“Bunebis Kari”), designed for children of the third and fourth years of study, which was first published in 1868 and by the time Soviet power was established in Georgia, had already gone through over twenty editions, Y. Gogebashvili in the section “Neighboring Countries” writes: “Ossetians are a mountain people. They occupy the middle part of the Caucasus range, from Khevsureti to Svaneti. Some of them live on the other side of the ridge, on its northern slopes, others on this side, on the southern slopes. For this reason, Ossetia is divided into two parts: North Ossetia and South Ossetia...".

Another author of the geography of Georgia, S. Robakidze, wrote literally the same thing on the eve of the October Revolution: “Although Ossetia is not a real (namdvili) part of Georgia, it is so close to our country that getting to know it is very useful for us. This country located in the middle part of the Caucasus ridge. It is located between Khevsureti and Svaneti. One part of this country is located on the northern spurs of the Caucasus ridge, and the second part - on the southern spurs of the same ridge. Otherworldly Ossetia is called North Ossetia, this worldly - South Ossetia... Java located in South Ossetia."

Already these, far from unique examples, clearly show that the name “South Ossetia” is by no means an invention of the Bolsheviks and it did not appear as a result of the formation of the South Ossetian Autonomous Republic. region as part of the cargo. SSR. Nevertheless, what Y. Gogebashvili and S. Robakidze considered it their duty to explain to schoolchildren now has to be reminded to politicians and scientists who are far from children. Even those authors who are forced to agree with the existence of the term “South Ossetia” long before the establishment of Soviet power in Georgia, nevertheless, under various far-fetched pretexts, try to deny the regularity and legitimacy of this fact or to clearly “rejuvenate” the appearance of this name. S. Lekishvili, for example, one of the authors of the above-mentioned brochure states: “Let’s immediately make a reservation, until the 19th century in written sources, both Georgian, Russian and foreign, not a single fact was recorded (subordinated to me - Yu. G.) of the use in relation to Ossetia, the definitions are “southern” or “northern”. It appears in written production, although occasionally, since the 30s of the 19th century."

Well, let's try to look deeper. First of all, it should be noted that both in literature and in official documents of the late XVIII - early XIX centuries. The territory of compact settlement of South Ossetians is designated by them as “South Ossetia” or simply “Ossetia”. In this regard, neither Georgian, nor Russian, nor foreign sources are exceptions.

One of the first foreign travelers of the 18th century. there was the famous I. Gyldenstedt, who visited on behalf of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the early 70s of the 18th century. Caucasus. During this journey, he visited several parts of Ossetia and Georgia several times, where he was received by the Kartlian king Heraclius and the Imeretian Solomon. Here is his description of the geographical position of Ossetia: “The country or province of Ossetia occupies part of the territory of the high Caucasus Mountains from the northern tributaries of the Terek to Lesken, and in the south - on the tributaries of the Kura - Aragva, Ksani, Malaya and Bolshaya Liakhva and on the tributary of the Rioni Dzhedo (obviously Jojora - Yu. G.)". And further: “Ossetia occupies not only the entire northern part of the Main Range between Terek and Lesken, but partly its southern part on the rivers Aragvi, Ksani, M. and B. Liakhve, which flow into the Kura river, and Dzhedo, which flows into to Rion." According to him, “from the south Ossetia borders on Inner Kartlinia (Shida Kartli).”

The next foreign author can be considered P. S. Pallas, who published Güldenstedt’s work and who, on behalf of the Russian Academy of Sciences, performed at the end of the 18th century. travel to the North Caucasus. According to him, the borders of the country of the Ir or Irons, called Ironistan (obviously, from the Ossetian “Iryston”) run “along the northern side of the Caucasus, which in the west constitute the Urup River, and in the east the Terek, on the southern side of the Caucasus. Rion in the west or Phasis of ancient authors, in the east - the Aragva River." It seems that the testimony of I. Gyldenstedt and P. S. Pallas is sufficiently conclusive to judge how the territory of settlement of the South Ossetians was called in the works of foreign authors who visited the Caucasus in the second half of the 18th century, especially since they can literally be listed on one hand. From the information they provide, one more unambiguous conclusion can be drawn - in the works of foreign authors at the end of the 18th century. The ethnic territory of settlement of Ossetians, both northern and southern, was designated by the general name Ossetia, without division into North and South.

The first foreign author to use the terms South and North Ossetia was, apparently, K. Kokh, who made his trip to the Caucasus in the 30s of the 19th century. He managed to personally visit many regions of Georgia and Ossetia, as a result of which his observations become of particular interest. Along with the terms North and South, K. Koch introduced into practice the concept of Middle or Middle (Mittler) Ossetia. K. Koch calls the western and eastern borders of South Ossetia the upper reaches of Rion (Kviril and Dzhedzhora) and Aragvi, respectively, and the southern borders are Kartli. According to him, the northern borders of the latter “were never precisely established, since in the villages located along the Ksani, Lekhura and both Liakhva rivers, Georgians and Ossetians gradually mixed.” Separate remarks by the German author that “the most extreme Russian military post in Ossetia is located in Java”, that “three police officers stationed in South Ossetia are in constant danger of falling victim to the Ossetians”, that while he was in Ossetia “Lieutenant Andreevsky was sent to South Ossetia, to the valley of the Keshelts (Cheseltgom - Yu. G.) for drawing up maps,” which is “in the Ertso basin.” Ossetia “is characterized by completely different features”, that “only the sources of the Ksani, where the Dzimir society is located, belong to Ossetia”, that “the rivers of Ossetia flowing to the south, with the exception of two that flow into the Rioni (Kvirila and Dzhedzhora), are tributaries of the Kura” and others, give a completely clear idea that K. Kokh calls the territory of compact settlement of South Ossetians South Ossetia or simply Ossetia, and not any administrative or geographical name of the Russian Empire or Georgia.

We have a similar situation in Russian sources. Already in the first documents of the Russian administration in Georgia, including reports from officers of the General Staff and correspondence from the War Ministry, the territory of compact settlement of South Ossetians is clearly referred to as Ossetia. For example, in the report of the Chief Administrator of Georgia, Gen. Knorring talks about the establishment of temporary courts in Ossetia, meaning the establishment of such in Java, Vanat and Keshelt. In the report of the Gori police captain, Gen. Kovalensky says about the peasants’ complaints against the landowners: “During my stay in Ossetia, to describe the local inhabitants of the Potnis region (Potnis is one of the right tributaries of the M. Liakhva - Yu. G.) and along the Malaya Liakhva, the Ossetians living in the mountains brought me complaints.. ". In the report of the Chief Administrator of Georgia, Gen. Golovin to Minister of War Chernyshev 22.VII. 1838, in particular, it says: “Ossetia, despite its proximity to the center of government of the local region, is still not all subject to us. The part of it that lies along the southern slope of the (Caucasian) mountains (subordinated to me - Yu. G.) , after the expedition, in 1830, the former, was divided into four bailiffs..." These examples can be increased many times over.

If Russian authors, and especially officials, can be accused of ideological bias, imperial interests, etc., etc., as some authors do, then this, apparently, cannot be said about Georgian sources. Meanwhile, the assessment of the issue under discussion in these sources is practically no different from the assessment in Russian and Western European sources. There are more than enough examples of this kind, so we will limit ourselves to just a few of them.

In 1810, some representatives of the Georgian ruling house, dissatisfied with the annexation of Eastern Georgia to Russia, tried to organize resistance and win over the South Ossetians. To carry out this task, the grandson of Irakli II Leon, the son of Tsarevich Yulon, one of the irreconcilable opponents of the annexation, was sent to the Liakhvi Gorge. Reporting this, Teimuraz Bagrationi writes that “Leon was sent through Racha to the Liakhvi Mountains to rouse the Ossetians there against the Russians. Having arrived there, Leon gathered the Ossetians around him and approached the outskirts of Tskhinvali...”. Bagrat Batonishvili talks about these same events as follows: “...then the son of the king (Irakli) Alexander sent his nephew Leon to Ossetia in Samachablo (subordinate to me - Yu. G.) to raise the Ossetians there to fight against the Russians.” And, finally, David Bagrationi (1767 - 1817) writes in this regard that the Imeretian king Solomon “sent his nephew Leon to Ossetia (subordinate to me - Yu. G.), where the Ossetians gathered...".

Representatives of the Bagrationi house, writing at the beginning of the 19th century, presumably knew where Ossetia was located and “where Kartli was located. The polemic with Lekishvili could have been completed at this point, since neither Western European, nor Russian, nor Georgian sources in any way confirm his categorical statement about the appearance of the names Ossetia as a designation of the territory of South Ossetia only after the 30s of the 19th century. However, for the history of the emergence of the name “South Ossetia”, it is advisable to look into previous centuries. This is all the more necessary because it is somehow hard to believe , that Lekishvili, who specially studied the history of the origin of the term “South Ossetia,” is not aware of any of the above sources. But since this is so, then the circle of such sources should be expanded all the more.

Let's start with the 18th century. One of the most prominent representatives of Georgian historiography of the 18th century. is Papuna Orbeliani, whose work contains a number of important information for the topic under discussion. This, first of all, is the designation of South Ossetia simply by Ossetia or this-worldly (piraketi) Ossetia, in contrast to the otherworldly (pirikiti) or North Ossetia, which he also designates with the term Great or, apparently more accurately, Bolshaya (didi)."

No less indicative is the information of Vakhushti Bagrationi, who died in 1745, the largest Georgian geographer and historian of the late Middle Ages. Vakhushti calls the territory of South Ossetia together with the territory of Central Ossetia (Ossetian Tualgom) by the common name Dualeti or Dual (from Ossetian Tualgom or Tual), highlighting in the south only Magran-Dvaleti or Upper Dvaletia in the upper reaches of Liakhva and Ksani, and considering them as separate parts of a united Ossetia. This is clearly visible from the map of Ossetia he created, on which he assigned the southern borders of Ossetia to the middle reaches of the Bolshaya Liakhva, south of the confluence of the Patsa River. Not using, unlike P. Orbeliani, the terms otherworldly or thisworldly, instead of the latter he uses the ethnographic name Dualeti, which goes back to the name of the Tuals, one of the ethnographic groups of Ossetians. Vakhushti not only identifies the Dvals and Ovs, but also calls the Ossetian language “ancient, dual,” i.e., Tual.

The name Ossetia was also used in the same meaning by the historian of the 17th century. Parsadan Gorgidzhanidze. Talking about the invasion of the Persian Shah Abbas I into Eastern Georgia in 1614, P. Gorgidzhanidze writes: “The Shah arrived in Nikozi and from there sent troops to devastate Ossetia...” Although P. Gorgidzhanidze does not specifically say which part of Ossetia he is talking about here speech, but mention of a village located several kilometers south of Tskhinvali. Nikozi, the starting point for the campaigns of the Shah’s troops in Ossetia, is given full reason believe that the Shah's troops were directed against the highlanders of South Ossetia.

This conclusion is confirmed by the information of Iskander Munshi (1560 - 1634), the biographer of the Shah and senior contemporary of P. Gorgidzhanidze, whose work was used by the Georgian historian when describing the Shah’s campaigns in Georgia. Talking about this campaign, Munshi says that the Shah was informed that the inhabitants of the Os (Us) region “are followers of the faith of Christ and although they are considered subjects of Bashi-achuka (Imereti king - Yu. G.), they did not even obey the king.”

It was against them that the Shah's army was sent. Since Munshi calls them subjects of Bashi-achuka, this area should have been the territory of the Ertso Kudar Gorge, which was claimed by the Imeretian feudal lords, who back in the early 70s of the 18th century. subjected this region to plunder for the refusal of the local population to pay their duties. This also explains the attribution of Vakhushti, inhabited by Ossetians, Ertso-Kuydar, which formed an organic part of South Dualetia or South Ossetia, not to the Kingdom of Kartli, like the Java Gorge, but to the Imereti Kingdom. Consequently, the “Ossetia” mentioned by P. Gorgidzhanidze, against which Persian troops were sent, serves as his designation primarily for South Ossetia, and not for the country as a whole.

Thus, the emergence of the name “Ossetia” and, as its variant “South Ossetia”, to designate the territory of compact settlement of the South Ossetians or the southern slopes of the Central Caucasus from the headwaters of the Aragva in the east to the headwaters of the Rion in the West does not appear after the 30s of the 19th century. , as some authors claim, and is widely used in the 18th and 17th centuries, moreover, primarily in Georgian sources. The beginning of its emergence dates back to a much earlier time - it was recorded already in the early Middle Ages and thereby reflects the fact of the presence of the Ossetian population in this region.

SOUTH OSSETIA AND THE PRINCE OF MACHABELI

Since 1989, the names “South Ossetia” and “South Ossetian Autonomous Region” began to be replaced by Georgian propaganda with the term “Samachablo”. This concept, denoting “Machhabeli’s possessions,” which initially flashed through the publications of authors of very dubious competence, has become in Georgian circles almost the official equivalent of the concept “South Ossetian Autonomous Region.” And although Georgian historians themselves subsequently noted that “Samachablo” historically and geographically did not cover the entire territory of the South Ossetian Autonomous Region, but only a small part of it, and allegedly proposed a more accurate name for “South Ossetia” - Shida Kartli (Inner Kartli)" or "Northern sector of Central Georgia (or Central part of Northern Georgia), "Tskhinvali region", etc. - "Samachablo" has received a firm registration in the Georgian political lexicon.

Historically, in Georgia itself there were many feudal estates, usually designated by the name of their owner - “Satsitsiano” (possession of the Tsitsianov princes), “Satseretlo” (possession of Tsereteli), “Sapalavando” (possession of Palavandishvili), etc. But none of them is now used as a political-administrative or geographical name. And only since 1989 “Samachablo” became the anti-Ossetian banner of the guardians of the ancient and primordial belonging to the Georgians of the territory of South Ossetia. In fact, a unique indicator of the significance of Samachablo in the history of Georgia may be the fact that not a single (not even an article) special work is devoted to its history, although the history of many feudal lordships of Georgia has received monographic studies.

The feudal clan of Machabeli, with which Samachablo is associated, is mentioned for the first time in connection with the events of the early 15th century - the struggle against the Central Asian conqueror Timur, who invaded the Caucasus. However, the source reporting this, the so-called Machabeli list “Kartlis Tskhovreba,” dates back to 1736, so Machabeli’s participation in the fight against Timur, just like the general existence of such a feudal clan at that time, is in doubt. In other historical chronicles, representatives of the Machabeli clan began to be mentioned only in the 17th century. Probably by the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. refers to the appearance of Machabeli in Achabeti and the formation of their feudal possession in the middle reaches of the river. Big Liakhvi.

The origin of the Machabeli clan in historical literature is usually associated with the Abkhaz feudal surname Achba (see G. V. Tsulaya, Georgians - in the collection The System of Personal Names among the Peoples of the World. M., 1989). In this case, reference is made to the information of Vakhushti Bagrationi. However, Vakhushti says exactly the opposite - “Machabeli says that he is Anchapisdze and came from Abkhazia, but the surname is new” (Vakhushti Bagrationi. Geography of Georgia. Tiflis, 1904). It follows from this that in the 18th century. knew that Machabeli’s ancestors had recently appeared in the Georgian feudal class (“but the surname is new”), although they themselves, trying to show their nobility,

They associated themselves with the ancient family of Achba. Subsequently, already under the Russian authorities, Machabeli, justifying their claims to the Ossetian gorges, and in particular Zrugskoye, explained them by the fact that their ancestors were from there. Representatives of Machabeli remembered and knew about the Ossetian origin of their ancestors even recently, in the twentieth century. The construction of the Machabeli family of its origin in the 17th century. to Achba (this can be seen from the words of Vakhushti) is explained by their attempt to emphasize their noble origin.

The opinion about the origin of Machabeli from the Tavkhelidze family (there is such an opinion in the literature) is refuted by the fact that the formation and formalization of the feudal rights of Machabeli and their consolidation in Abacheti dates back to the late Middle Ages, i.e. here they were new people. Most likely, in the case of Machabeli we find another confirmation of the Georgian practice. kings - in the zone in contact with the Ossetians (with Ossetia), where there was a mixed population, to install people of Ossetian origin as rulers, in order to gain a foothold through them in South Ossetia. The princes Tsereteli, Kherkheulidze, and the Eristavis of Ksani and Aragv were of Ossetian origin.

Initially, the possession of Machabeli (Samachablo) was a small patchwork fief, consisting of separate courtyards in several villages on both sides of the river. Big Liakhva from Achabeti and Kheiti to Kemert. It has never been an independent political-administrative and unified territorial unit, although the Machabeli tried in every possible way to expand their possessions. The ways to expand Samachablo were different: purchasing or seizing by force new lands or individual households, royal awards for diligent service to him. The royal power of Georgia, which itself did not actually control the mountainous regions, sanctioned claims to appropriate them to Machabeli, sometimes this was formalized as a grant. Chronologically this falls mainly in the 18th century. Thus, in 1704, the Iranian governor of Kartli Levan (Shakhkulikhan) assigned by deed to the sons of Baadur Machabeli Piran and Borti the lands appropriated by their father.

Over time, representatives of the Machabeli clan acquired land plots or individual dependent peasant families in the villages of Tamarasheni, Tormaneuli, Vanat and others, but to extend the concept of “Samachablo” to these villages as a whole would be extremely arbitrary, because not only in these villages, but even in called Samachablo, i.e. the villages of Achabeti, Kurta, Kekhvi, a category of peasants independent of Machabeli was preserved. So, in the 18th century. Ossetians Khetagurovs settled in Achabeti, who owned the land during the “50 days of plowing”. Half of the peasant households in the village. Kekhvi at the beginning of the 19th century. was state-owned, that is, again independent of Machabeli. In addition, due to the unstable political situation in the Kartli kingdom, there were frequent cases of transfer of villages or gorges from one “ruler” to another. So, in 1737, the Iranian protege in Kartli, Seni Khan, gave a charter to Otar Amilakhvari - for the possession of the peasants of the Java Gorge. The Kudar Gorge (northwestern part of South Ossetia) was claimed not only by the rulers of Kartli, but also by the Imeretian kings and princes. The local population did not recognize the power of either one or the other.

In 1772, King Irakli II of Kartli deprived the Machabeli of their possessions for treason, but a few years later returned these possessions back to them.

After the annexation of Georgia to Russia, the landowners immediately realized what a powerful force in the person of Russian tsarism they could rely on in subjugating the Ossetians to their power. Very soon, Machabeli and the Ksani Eristavis began to besiege the authorities with their complaints about the disobedience of the Ossetians. In turn, the Ossetians hoped that the Russian administration in Georgia would save them from the claims of the landowners, on whom they never recognized their dependence. However, their illusions were soon dispelled, since from the very beginning of the establishment of the Russian administration in Georgia, the authorities, being representatives of the feudal state, treated the interests of the landowners with great consideration, in particular in the matter of conquering and subjugating the Ossetians to them.

During the first half of the 19th century centuries, military expeditions were undertaken one after another to suppress the population of South Ossetia. This is how Count Paskevich wrote about this in his report: “But since no proper measures were taken for the civil education of Ossetia and, moreover, when the Ossetians saw that the Russians began to hand them over to the mercy of the landowners, who intended to make serfs out of them , suffering various kinds of shortcomings to improve their lives, they gradually indulged in robberies and little by little increased their insolence to the point that they carried them out on the highways" (AKAK, VII, p. 360).

Taking advantage of the patronage of the new administration, Machabeli not only tried to collect taxes from the Ossetians by force, but also did not disdain robbery, unbridled tyranny and violence against the Ossetian population - they caught, robbed and killed Ossetians on the way to the plain, forcefully extorted from them confessions and confirmation of their dependence on them. There were frequent cases of theft and sale of peasants and members of their families. This is evidenced by numerous archival materials.

Contrary to the opinion that has become traditional in historiography about South Ossetia joining the Russian state together with Georgia in 1801, most of it actually (legally this happened in 1774, when Ossetia became part of Russia) was included in the political and administrative system of the Russian Federation. empire only after military expeditions of the 30s and 40s. XIX centuries In particular, one of the goals of the expeditions of the Russian General Rennenkampf to South Ossetia in 1830 was “to bring this people to a positive oath of allegiance to G.I. and to establish there the order that is befitting a country under the high power of the All-Russian Monarch” (AKAK , VII, p. 360). This expedition then covered almost the entire mountainous part of South Ossetia from the Cheselt Gorge to Urstualt (Magrandvaleti) and the Gnukh Gorge. It was after this that the first bodies of the Russian administration, the bailiffs, were created in South Ossetia, and in 1842 the Ossetian district was formed.

Taking advantage of the military expeditions of the Russian administration, the Machabeli princes, like the Ksani Eristavis, tried to strengthen their claims and take possession of the population of mountainous South Ossetia brought into Russian citizenship. This is how Russian officials Yanovsky and Kozachevsky, who visited South Ossetia during the Rennenkampf expedition, write in their report: “... in the more remote gorges, such as the Magrandoletsky, Ilisky, Chapransky (Tsipransky - M.D.), Gvdissky (Gudissky), Knogsky (Gnukhsky), and others, for which the Eristovs declare a claim, there are no traces of their control... The example of the Eristovs gave a reason for the Machabeli princes to appropriate the newly conquered Ossetians living along the Great Liakhva in the Roki, Domagsky (Dzomagsky) and Urshuarsky (Ursdzuarsky) gorges ), who never obeyed them and did not belong to them. These princes, probably believing that the conquest of the Ossetians, and those living on the other side of the Main Caucasian ridge, will soon follow, declare that the Zrugskoe gorge located there, consisting of 5 villages, the inhabitants of which, living in places that are barely accessible and have never been to Kartalinia, they hardly know from hearsay about the existence of these princes" (AKAK, VII, pp. 376 - 377).

Count Paskevich gave a similar assessment of the rights of landowners to Ossetians in a report addressed to the sovereign: “Meanwhile, although these decisions gave the Eristov princes landowner rights over the estate (meaning the Decree of 1817, which returned their estate to the Eristavis of Ksani - M.D.) , but in general the Ossetian villages were never in their possession. All the rights of them and other landowners over the Ossetians were limited by the fact that not one of these people dared to appear at the bazaars without being completely robbed from the so-called landowners; some of the latter even in narrow gorges they built fortified castles, past which none of the Ossetians could pass without running the risk of losing all their property; under various pretexts they took Ossetian children and then sold them to different hands" (AKAK, VII, p. 382). Machabeli’s rights to the Cheselt Gorge were similarly “justified.” Thus, in their Petition to the director of the office of the Caucasian governor, the Cheselt peasants wrote in 1849: “Now they have been notified that the princes Lieutenant Revaz and David Machabeli have submitted a request to the Chamber, asking for its order so that it stops relocating us to find land, calling us their own peasants, while the Keshelts did not obey the Georgian kings. The Khidistavis too... for the first time heard that the Machabelovs began to incorrectly assign them to the peasantry" (TsGIA Georgia, f. 3, d. 207, ll. 8 - 9).

In the “Attitude” of the head of the civil administration of the Transcaucasian region of the Tiflis Chamber of Criminal and Civil Court dated March 21, 1849, it was stated: “The authorized residents of the Ossetian district of the Java section of the Keshelt Gorge, Giktor Kotaev and Dakhchiko Kelekhsaev, in a request submitted to the prince’s governor, complain about the Machabelov princes, appropriating them into the peasantry, while until 1840 they did not know any landowner power, which was confirmed by Major, now Lieutenant Colonel Domenkal, who was sent to them in 1845, by order of His Excellency.” (TsGIA Georgia, f. 3, d. 207, l. 2).

In the 30s and 40s of the 19th century. Various administration authorities in the Caucasus received many complaints from Ossetians about oppression by the Machabeli princes. In turn, Machabeli complained about the disobedience of the Ossetians.

As a result of the complaint of the Machabeli princes, their dispute with the Ossetians was brought to the Gori district court in 1830. The dispute between the Ossetians and Machabeli dragged on in different instances for more than twenty years. The Machabeli presented to the court documents that they had received at various times, mainly in the period from 1723 to 1800, from Georgian kings and princes for the right of ownership of peasants. For their part, the Ossetians stated in their complaints that since ancient times they had lived in the mountains as a free people, did not recognize any landowner power over themselves, always offered armed resistance to Machabeli, who tried to turn them into serfs, and never voluntarily paid them any duties. Along with their complaint, the Ossetians also presented documents they received from the Georgian kings during the 18th century to prove their independence from Machabeli. Among these documents were letters from the Georgian kings on the removal of all Ossetians from any dependence on the princes of Machabeli and on their acceptance into the royal department (7 documents), on the appointment of monetary salaries to various Ossetians and on the grant of immovable estates for providing services to the throne (10 documents ), on allowing Ossetians to have free access to the kings and free passage within the royal domains, on protection from all oppression, etc. (12 documents).

The dispute between the Ossetians and Machabeli was considered in different instances, and although many commissions or government representatives who visited the Ossetian gorges proved that “the Ossetians were independent, did not obey anyone and did not pay any taxes even to the Georgian kings,” the Gori district court, and then the Tiflis The chambers of the criminal and civil courts decided the dispute in favor of Machabeli on the grounds that, allegedly, “the Ossetians did not prove their freedom in any way.”

Of course, representatives of the Russian administration and judicial authorities, who stood guard over the interests of serfdom, could not offend the landowners, much less. that many of them themselves were representatives of the Georgian nobles.

This was followed by appeals from Ossetians to the Senate. And 10 years before the abolition of serfdom in Russia, on February 19, 1851, the Senate recognized that the Machabeli princes had not provided valid evidence of the actual ownership of the Ossetians in serfdom, and therefore considered it necessary “to cancel the decision of the Tiflis Chamber of Criminal and Civil Court, and to the Machabelov princes refuse the request for recognition of their serfdom over the Ossetians." (Central State Administration of Georgia, Caucasian Committee Fund, d. 844-6, l. 68).

The Caucasian governor Vorontsov, the patron of landowners, interceded with the emperor for Machabeli, noted that by such a decision of the Senate the princely family of Machabeli, “many of whose people have always served diligently and faithfully, shed blood in battles for the last half century and now serve in this way, are deprived of their entire fortune , consisting of about 2,000 households living in the seven gorges of Ossetia. The princes “The Machabelovs were brought into complete poverty by such a decision.” Vorontsov (and through him Machabeli) asked the king to reconsider the case or grant Machabeli a pension. It is interesting to note that Vorontsov speaks of " seven gorges of Ossetia" and not Samachablo, Shida Kartli or the Tskhinvali region.

At the same time, both the emperor and Vorontsov understood that “whatever the decision of the highest judicial places, it will be difficult to recognize and put it into effect in favor of the Machabelov princes, since experience has proven that the mountain Ossetians will never, without the use of military force, perform the duties that follow from them ". As a result, a compromise solution was found. On September 15, 1852, a Senate Resolution followed, providing for the conclusion with the Machabelov princes of “a deal under which, in return for all the rights claimed by them to serfdom over the Ossetians in the gorges of Dzhavsky, Patsa, Jomagsky, Kesheltsky, Zrogsky, Ruksky and Koshkinsky, to assign them a hereditary pension of six thousand rubles in silver per year (later 5 thousand rubles were assigned - M.D.)."

It goes without saying that if the government had seen that the Machabeli had even small real rights to the gorges of Ossetia, it would not have recognized the Ossetians as independent from them, so as not to destroy the foundations of their own serfdom system. Just how justified and ancient were Machabeli’s rights to the gorges of Ossetia can be seen from the fact that they began to lay claim to five of the seven gorges (Cheseltskoe, Rukskoe, Jomagskoe, Ursdzuarskoe, Zrugskoe), as can be seen from the above documents, only after Rennenkampf’s expedition to 1830

It has already been said that the term “Samkhret Oseti” (“South Ossetia”) appears hundreds of times in the press of the 19th century, as well as the paired term “Chrdilo Oseti” (“North Ossetia”), without which it would have lost all meaning and the first ethnogeographical term. It was also said that the concept of “South Ossetia” had long ago entered the ethnogeographical and historical-linguistic consciousness of Georgian scientists, publicists, and public figures.

It is clear that the sudden substitution of the term “Samkhret Osseti” with the term “Samachablo” was undertaken with an obvious purpose: to insult the Ossetians, to “destroy” them toponymically, in order to then destroy them ethnically as “aliens”, “guests”. It is also clear that this is a purely political action.

As we see, to extend the concept of “Samachablo” - the name of the patrimony of the Machabeli princes - to South Ossetia is completely unlawful from a historical, geographical, or political point of view.

Tskhinvali and Ossetians

There is a falsehood in the media of the Republic of Georgia that at the time of the formation of YOLO, only 4 Ossetian families lived in Tskhinvali. It is difficult to judge where this figure came from, which contradicts historical truth.

The history of Tskhinvali since its foundation is closely intertwined with the history of the Ossetian people. According to “Kartlis Tskhovreba”, the founder of Tskhinval, King Aspagur (III century AD), turned to the Ossetians for military support, with the help of whom he managed to protect the fortress city from the Persians who invaded Kartli (Tsotniashvili M. M. History of Tskhinvali. Tskhinvali , 1986, p. 36, in Georgian language; Togoshvili G.D. From the history of Georgian-Ossetian relations. Stalin. 1956, p. 84, in Georgian language). As for the Ossetian population of Tskhinvali, Georgian sources report about it starting from the second half of the 18th century. when King Irakli II began to allocate land to Ossetian elders in Tskhinvali and its environs for military services rendered to him. In particular, in 1786, Dokhchiko Khetagurov received possessions in Tskhinvali because his son Bolatyko was killed in the Battle of Aspindza, where he fought bravely (History of Ossetia in documents and materials. T., Tskhinvali, 1962, p. 201).

According to official statistical data (so-called desk descriptions) at the beginning of the 19th century. (1804) already 16 Ossetian families lived in Tskhinvali along with 41 Georgian, 116 Armenian and 6 Jewish families (Tsotniashvili M. Sh. History of Tskhinvali, p. 201). About the presence of Ossetians in Tskhinvali in the 19th century. There are numerous reports on the pages of the Georgian press. The newspaper "Iveria" reports about the robbery of an Ossetian goldsmith in Tskhinvali. The newspaper "Droeba" (1882, No. 58), citing an official, reported that Tskhinvali was inhabited by different peoples: Ossetians, Georgians, Armenians and Jews. On the pages of another newspaper “Tsnobis purtseli” (1897, N 246) the famous Georgian public figure Al. Alaznispireli writes that “the town of Tskhinvali is a city of Jews and Ossetians, and Georgians and Armenians make up a quarter of the total population.” According to data for 1917, there were already 80 Ossetian houses in Tskhinvali, with 346 Jewish, 310 Georgian and 160 Armenian (Tsotniashvili M. Sh. History of Tskhinvali, p. 205). This data does not contradict the information on the number of inhabitants of Tskhinval at the same time: out of 5033 souls of the population of Tskhinval: 553 people. were Ossetians (9%), 2130 were Jews (40%), 1660 were Georgians (30%), 674 were Armenians (10.3%), the far from complete list of names of heads of Ossetian families (indicating professions and streets on which they lived), who lived in Tskhinvali before the revolution and compiled by old-timer G.N. Dzhioev; it contains 101 surnames, i.e. families.

Thus, the above information about the Ossetian population of Tskhinval paints a completely different picture and is in no way consistent with the figure of 4 families, no matter how much our opponents would like it. However, maybe they are right if they take data from 1920, when the Menshevik government swept through the whole of South Ossetia with fire and sword, expelling its population (including from Tskhinvali) to the North Caucasus.

Speaking about the significance of Tskhinvali in the life of the Ossetian people, I. Alkhazishvili wrote in his notes about South Ossetia: “at present it can be considered the capital of Ossetia” (gaz. “Droeba”, 1876, N126). F. Natishvili also agrees with I. Alkhazishvili: “...Tskhinvali has long been considered a trading point of the Tskhinvali section and South Ossetia (Periodical press about Ossetia and Ossetians. I, Tskhinvali, 1981, p. 101).

Occupying a favorable trading position, the town of Tskhinvali became a kind of “business yard”, an intermediary in the trade of mountainous Ossetia with Gori and Tiflis. As the newspaper Tiflis leaflet reported (N57 of November 3, 1901), more than 6 thousand pounds of cheese and about 10 thousand pounds of wool were transported through Tskhinval every year from Ossetian villages, which surrounded the town of Tskhinval in a continuous ring. According to 1900 data, out of all The population of the Tskhinvali section (54,390 people) was 34,478 Ossetians, 17,068 Georgians, 2,061 Jews, 753 Armenians and 38 Russians (TsGIA, fund 48, d. 2302, N91).The relative small number of the Ossetian population in Tskhinvali itself is explained solely by the nature of their economic activities, the predominance of cattle breeding and agriculture over crafts and trade.

The gradual involvement of Ossetians in commodity-money relations resulted in the formation of an Ossetian trading bourgeoisie in Tskhinvali. Representatives of the surname Abaevs, Khetagurovs, Dzhigkaevs, Slanovs, Tskhovrebovs, Tedeevs, Khanikaevs, Kochievs, Kelekhsaevs, Tibilovs, Kulumbegovs, Chibirovs, Dzassokhovs, Dzhioevs, Gagloevs, Sanakoevs, Gassievs, Kokoevs, Galavanovs, Kumaritovs and others who settled in Tskhinvali form neighborhoods create independent cemeteries, acquire land plot for the construction of an Ossetian church.

Thus, from the far from complete data given above, it is clear that the choice of Tskhinvali as the center of the South Ossetian Autonomous Region cannot be considered an invention of the Bolsheviks and an accident. It is unreasonable to refer to the relative small number of Ossetian population in Tskhinvali as an argument against electing it as the center of autonomy. As shown above, this approach does not take into account economic, demographic, or political factors. And, finally, quantitative indicators are not always a sufficient criterion for a correct understanding of the claims of a particular people to a particular locality. In the pre-revolutionary period, the Georgian population of Tbilisi (19%) was significantly inferior in number to both the Armenians (42%) and the Russians (28%), nevertheless, Tbilisi has always been and remains the capital of Georgia.

And in the history of Tskhinval there were also times (19th - 20th centuries) when Jews and Armenians, rather than Georgians, predominated among the inhabitants.

IF WE ARE "GUESTS", WHO ARE THE "HOSTS"?

In recent Georgian historical scholarship, there has been a sharp turn towards the theory of the autochthony of the Georgian people in the Caucasus. However, many prominent Georgian scientists in the past believed that the ancient Georgian tribes in Transcaucasia moved from Western Asia in some ancient times. Just like the ancient ancestors of some modern peoples Caucasus, ancient Georgian tribes are “newcomers”.

L. In the famous book by Elisée Reclus “Land and People”, where the ethnic history of the Jews is discussed, the following note is placed in a footnote by the translator of the book L. I. Borodavsky: “In Megasven, who wrote at the end of the 4th or beginning of the 3rd century BC .H., there is news that Nebuchadnezzar resettled part of the captive Jews or Iberians, as he calls them, to the east of the Black Sea" (Elise Reclus, Earth and People. General Geography, vol. VII, St. Petersburg, 1883 G.). In confirmation of what was said elsewhere in the same work, it is indicated that the royal family in Georgia - the Bagratids - originates from the Jews, and its genealogy extends to David, the Prophet-King (ibid., p. 232).

2. In 1910, a fundamental monograph by the famous Georgian sociologist and cartvelologist Mikhako Tsereteli “Nation and Humanity” was published in Tbilisi, in which one of the chapters is devoted to the issues of the origin of the Georgian ethnos. Based on an analysis of ancient Assyrian sources, M. Tsereteli calls Chaldea the homeland of the Georgian ethnic group and places it next to Urartu and Nairi. By the time of Herodotus and Xenophon, the Georgian tribes - Colchians, Meskhi, Tibarens, Macrons (Megrelians), Svans - were already on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Thus, M. Tsereteli claims, the Georgians are changing their location, moving to the north. He explains the reason for their resettlement by the invasion of the Cimmerians at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. to Asia Minor, as a result of which the Georgians were forced to leave their ancient homeland and move north. “As we see,” the author concludes, “Georgians penetrated into Transcaucasia and settled here in ancient times. Only the territory that is now known as our territory was gradually consolidated (to us) as a result of a gradual advance to the north. It is difficult to judge the time of Georgians' penetration into the Caucasus. Regardless, there is no point in looking for ancient traces of Georgian tribes in the Caucasus. Before the Georgians, another race lived here - the long-headed ones, who passed through both the Stone and Bronze Ages on this territory" (M. Tsereteli. Nation and Humanity. Tbilisi, 1990, pp. 229 - 232). The author also supports his conclusions with anthropological material.

3. The outstanding scientist-historian Ivane Javakhishvili speaks in the same spirit. In a special work devoted to the history of the Georgian people, he wrote: “The position of the researcher of the history of the Georgian people is even more complicated by the fact that the Caucasus is not the original homeland of the Georgians, and the remnants of their original culture cannot be sought here” (Javakhishvili I.A. History of the Georgian people, book I, Tb., 19b0, p. 7).

4. The fact that the Iberian-Georgians in the Caucasus are an alien element is also stated in the “Essays on the History of the USSR”: Judging by Strabo’s description, Iberia was a rich, densely populated country. By natural conditions it was divided into two zones - the mountainous part and the region of river valleys. The inhabitants of the first were mainly engaged in cattle breeding and lived, according to Strabo, “according to the customs of the Scythians and Sarmatians, with whom they were neighbors and relatives.” Here, the Scythians and Sarmatians should be understood as the North Caucasian tribes, who made up the bulk of the population of Inner Kartli before its development by the Iberians" (Essays on the History of the USSR. M., 1956, 125).

5. Neither Giorgi Kikodze nor V. Kotetishvili doubt the presence of Georgians in the Caucasus; in their journalistic articles they claim, however, without scientific claims, that the ancient Georgians lived on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates.

6. Having visited the Soviet Union twice (the first time in 1947), the famous American writer and publicist John Steinbeck, in the book he published, characterizing the Georgian people, tries to look into their ethnogenesis: “We read and were told that the Georgians are an ancient Semitic people, whose ancestors lived in the Euphrates Valley at a time when Babylon was not yet a city, that they were descendants of the Sumerians and one of the oldest living tribes in the world" (J. Steinbeck. This people is informal. Gas. "Youth of Georgia" , March 30, 1990).

7. In various educational and methodological publications and scientific monographs historical maps are placed that indicate the same phenomenon:

A) in 1986, the book “The New Testament and Psalter in Georgian” was published in Stockholm. It contains a map of “World Empires during the Time of Jesus Christ” (1st century AD), according to which Alania and Armenia share an adjacent border in the Caucasus and there is no mention of the Georgians at all;

B) to the History Textbook ancient world, which has gone through many editions, maps are attached, including “The Growth of the Roman State” (III century BC - II century AD). It places Iberia on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. As for the Alans, they occupy the entire North Caucasus and part of Transcaucasia up to the river. Chickens, having Armenia as their southern neighbor;

C) The book “Atlas of Medieval History” (Penguin Publishing House, 1980) contains a map of the Roman Empire as of the 4th century. n. e. (362) and in it the territory occupied by the Alans covers the Northern and Central Caucasus, bordered in the south with Iberia, and in the southeast with the Persian Empire.

The above are excerpts from historical sources and literature (the authors are mostly Georgians) say that the theory of the autochthony of the Georgian people and the alienness of others peoples of the Caucasus has no serious historical basis.

THE IDEA OF NATIONAL-TERRITORIAL AUTONOMY AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION

As is known, the administrative-territorial zoning of Tsarist Russia was based on the convenience of autocratic economic and political management, on the principle of ignoring the national interests of the numerous peoples of the empire in economic, political and cultural development. Russian social democracy preached the idea of ​​the right of nations to self-determination, that is, the right of peoples to determine their own destiny - their own social and state structure within the Russian state or outside it.

After the February Revolution of 1917, the question arose about how the fate of small peoples would work out in the future Russian democratic state, where the autocratic dictatorship was overthrown and the Constituent Assembly was intended to determine the forms government system small peoples on the basis of their right to national self-determination.

In this situation, the progressive intelligentsia of South Ossetia decided to take responsibility for the future of their people and convened a congress of South Ossetian delegates in the village in June 1917. Java. At this congress, all the delegates spoke out for a Democratic Republic in Russia, for the “early convening of a Constituent Assembly,” and for the right of “small nationalities” to be represented in it. At the same congress, a desire for national self-determination was expressed: “If the Caucasian peoples receive territorial-national autonomies, then the Ossetians, united into one national unit, are given the right of free self-determination.”

From the decisions of this congress it is clearly clear that the Ossetian democratic intelligentsia, expressing the will of the people of South Ossetia, strived for the national-territorial unity of Ossetia and the realization of the right of the peoples of Russia to “free self-determination.”

Georgian Social Democracy at that time shared the same ideas, also linked the fate of the Georgian people with the convening of the Constituent Assembly and did not think about secession from the Russian state. But after the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, she sharply turned away from the new government in Russia and agreed with other political parties with a separatist ideology on the idea state independence Georgia within the borders of the feudal kingdom of the 18th century. The situation changed radically, the new Georgian authorities broke with the previous ideals of social democracy and began to deny in practice the right of small peoples to national self-determination. A confrontation between the authorities and the National Council of South Ossetia began. The use of armed force became the main means of realizing the idea of ​​a united and indivisible Georgia. But the people of South Ossetia continued to persistently strive for political self-determination. Mass protests by the peasantry under the leadership of the National Council of South Ossetia became the main events in the region in 1918-1919. But the Georgian authorities managed to suppress them. In addition, in 1919, the National Council was dispersed and ceased its activities, the Georgian military punitive forces occupied all key points of possible resistance and seemed to be in complete control of the situation. However, the National Council was replaced by a local organization of the Communist Party, and now the fate of the people of South Ossetia actually depended on its political orientation and organizational abilities. The orientation of the people of South Ossetia and their political leaders towards Soviet Russia was known to both the Georgian and Russian authorities. And it aroused, respectively, the sympathy of the Russian and the hatred of the Georgian authorities. Both sides were also clearly aware of the motivation for this orientation - the people of South Ossetia connected their dream and hope of realizing the principle of political self-determination with Soviet power in Russia, with joining the new Russian statehood.

Knowing this, the Georgian authorities carried out intensive work through diplomatic channels in order to prepare and sign a peace treaty with Russia, thereby securing the territory of South Ossetia and the fate of the southern branch of the Ossetian people. Soviet Russia was also interested in such a peace treaty, because it ensured security on the southern border of the young republic, which found itself in the ring of intervention, forced to fight off internal and external enemies.

The leadership of South Ossetia understood this unfavorable situation and believed that an uprising in such a situation was doomed to complete defeat and was pointless. But the Bolshevik leaders of Georgia, who sought to seize power by force, did not think so.

On May 5, 1920, V.I. Lenin warned G. Ordzhonikidze in a telegram: “The Central Committee obliges you to withdraw units from Georgia to the border and refrain from attacking Georgia.” This instruction preceded the signing of a peace treaty between Russia and Georgia on May 7. However, Ordzhonikidze, contrary to Lenin’s instructions, ordered the Terek Council of People’s Commissars on May 8-10 to push through North Ossetia to the Gori district, and the Caucasian Regional Committee of the RCP (b) decided to force the uprising of the peasants of South Ossetia, trying to turn their struggle for national self-determination into an all-Georgian revolutionary uprising.

The leadership of the Revolutionary Committee of South Ossetia did not agree with such tactics, which doomed the South Ossetians to single combat with the punitive machine of the Georgian government, but at the insistence of the emissaries of the regional committee G. Devdoriani and Sh. Motsonelidze were forced to sign a decree proclaiming Soviet power in the Ruksky region of South Ossetia. But it did not take serious action until the soldiers of an organized detachment located in North Ossetia arrived to help. True, they also approached in an almost unarmed formation. 40 heavy machine guns, issued to them from the arsenal of Vladikavkaz, were taken from them by order of Ordzhonikidze, the soldiers were left with ordinary rifles. Nevertheless, the start of hostilities was successful. Java and Tskhinvali were liberated from the Georgian guards. In the battle for Java, a regiment of guards was defeated, from which 500 people were captured and sent to Vladikavkaz. But, again, by order of Ordzhonikidze, they were released and sent to Georgia. All of them immediately found themselves among the punitive forces, and it was they who committed the most brutal crimes in South Ossetia, taking revenge on the civilian population for their military shame.

With the capture of the city of Tskhinvali, the rebel people proclaimed Soviet power throughout the entire territory of South Ossetia. But the Georgian government, realizing that the peace treaty with Russia had left the rebels without any outside help, decided to finally deal with the rebellious people. It pulled all its regular military units into a single fist and threw them against the rebels, who had only about one thousand fighters armed with rifles. The government troops had machine guns, artillery, aviation and cavalry. The rebellious people were suppressed by the overwhelming superiority of the armed forces.

The worst fears of the South Ossetian leadership have come true. The uprising of the South Ossetian peasantry was not followed by any all-Georgian uprising. It was not prepared even before the peace treaty between Georgia and Russia, and after the conclusion of the treaty, the calculation of the regional committee of the RCP (b) for such an uprising was an unjustified political adventure that doomed the people of South Ossetia to single combat with the mobilized and well-armed punitive army of the Georgian government.

The authorities of Soviet Russia, tied by the treaty, tried to protect the insurgent people with diplomatic warnings, but they no longer had any practical significance. And this was clear not only to the Russian, but also to the Georgian authorities. The note from the Russian People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs to the Georgian government dated May 17, 1920 stated: “Georgian troops have been sent to South Ossetia, where the Soviet Republic has been proclaimed, to destroy such power. We insist, if this is true, then to withdraw our troops from Ossetia, because we believe that Ossetia should have the power it wants. Georgia's interference in the affairs of Ossetia would be an unjustified interference in someone else's internal affairs. In a response note, the Georgian government calmly responded: there is no South Ossetia in Georgia...

The leadership of South Ossetia knew about this correspondence and still hoped for more active support from Soviet Russia. The memorandum of the workers of South Ossetia dated May 28, 1920 emphatically stated: “South Ossetia is and must remain an integral part of the free Soviet Bolshevik Russia.” But the peace treaty between Russia and Georgia dashed these hopes and left the people of South Ossetia to be brutally dealt with by the Georgian government. Moreover, the agreement freed the hands of the Georgian punitive forces and they resorted to the physical extermination of the rebellious people, to genocide.

In June-July 1920, Georgian troops literally devastated South Ossetia. Hundreds of civilians were killed during the fighting, more than five thousand people died during the days of flight from the punitive forces. The region is depopulated. More than three thousand peasant farms were burned. 23 thousand heads of large and 46 thousand heads of small cattle were stolen, slaughtered and appropriated, which amounted to 70% of the total available livestock. After the establishment of Soviet power in Georgia, a specially formed commission at the government level determined the total damage inflicted on South Ossetia by the Georgian punitive expedition in monetary terms at 3,317,516 rubles in gold.

The population of South Ossetia, expelled from their historical homeland, rushed in their thousands through the snow-covered mountain passes to the Terek Republic. They lost everything - land, homes, livestock, basic means of subsistence. “The Mensheviks,” wrote F. Makharadze, “in relation to the peasants of South Ossetia committed a crime the likes of which no reactionary government has ever committed.” And the “democratic” government of Georgia cynically presented this act of genocide of South Ossetians to the world community as a form of restoring order in the state, as the heroism of its guards, who allegedly realized the national interests of the republic!

In this case, the desire to expel non-Georgians from Georgia was passed off as “national interests.” Immediately after the expulsion of the Ossetians, the Georgian government began to populate the empty villages with Georgians from the mountainous regions. True, it did not have time to complete this plan. With the establishment of Soviet power in Georgia in February 1921, these new settlers left foreign villages and returned to their own. The Ossetian exiles little by little began to return to their homeland and restore their ruined homes.

The establishment of Soviet power in Georgia seemed to put an end to the genocide of the people of South Ossetia. But for four years the people rebelled and shed their blood in the name of freedom, overcoming national discrimination and implementing the principle of national self-determination. Under new conditions, this struggle changed and became a struggle for national-territorial autonomy. And it continued in 1921.

Strangely enough, the new administration of Georgia continued its previous policy towards South Ossetia, stubbornly asserting that there are Ossetians in Georgia, but no Ossetia... The new authorities, even in official documents, resorted to outright lies and claimed that on the territory of Georgia there were only seven Ossetian villages and there can be no talk of any autonomy for them!

The leadership of South Ossetia countered this discriminatory position with the principle of the right to self-determination. In particular, at a meeting of the Revolutionary Committee and the Party Committee of South Ossetia on September 6-8, 1921, a “short explanatory note” was adopted, in which it was recognized as necessary to form a Union Republic from South Ossetia. “The formation of such a political unit under these objective conditions creates favorable conditions for the introduction of the working people of South Ossetia to Soviet power and the speedy elimination of the feeling of national oppression, which appeared mainly during the period of Menshevik domination,” the note said.

The draft Constitution, developed by the leadership of the region, stated that “The capital of the SSR of South Ossetia is the city of Tskhinval.” Official language relations between South Ossetia and Georgia were recognized by Russian. However, the Transcaucasian government insisted on the expediency of granting South Ossetia only the rights of an autonomous region. I had to compromise. On February 25, 1921, the District Revolutionary Committee of South Ossetia decided: “Select South Ossetia into an autonomous unit (region with the center in the city of Tskhinval).”

The leadership of Soviet Georgia formally recognized the need to grant South Ossetia the status of an autonomous region. In fact, it in every possible way torpedoed a positive solution to this issue. In particular, the national deviationists of Georgia dragged out the discussion on the issue of the borders of the future autonomous region and its administrative center. At the direction of the Revolutionary Committee of Georgia, on May 13, 1921, the Gori district revolutionary committee formed a special commission to study the areas of the district according to geographical and ethnographic features. The Commission presented 13 administrative units, including the Tskhinvali region and Mountain Ossetia. The latter consisted of former rural communities with a purely Ossetian population. The commission proposed to leave societies with a mixed population under the jurisdiction of the Gori district, including Georgian villages from the societies of Mountain Ossetia. The issue of mixed societies remained unresolved. The Commissariat of Internal Affairs of Georgia, under the influence of national deviationists, prevented the inclusion of mixed settlements in South Ossetia, even those with a predominance of the Ossetian population. The NKVD of Georgia believed that South Ossetia does not represent an integral geographical unit and does not correspond to the status of autonomy. The Revolutionary Committee of Georgia referred the issue to the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia. On September 14, 1921, a joint meeting of the District Committee and the Party Committee of South Ossetia transmitted, through a special commission to the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia and the Georgian Revolutionary Committee for the final resolution of the issue, generalized documents and materials on the autonomy of South Ossetia.

On October 31, 1921, the Presidium of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) discussed this issue, rejected the national deviationist position of the Georgian leadership and also considered the creation of the South Ossetian Republic inappropriate.

The Presidium of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) approved the resolution of the South Ossetian District Party Committee of February 25, 1921 on the creation of an autonomous region and decided: 1. “Give South Ossetia the rights of an Autonomous Region. 2. Invite the Revolutionary Committee of Georgia together with the South Ossetian Executive Committee to determine the boundaries South Ossetian Autonomous Region". This resolution said nothing about the administrative center of the region. This issue was decided by the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia on November 17, 1921, deciding: “In principle, recognize the city of Tskhinvali as part of the South Ossetian region as administrative center the last one."

In response, Georgian national deviationists launched a campaign against the formation of an autonomous region and the recognition of the city of Tskhinvali as its center. Under their influence, on December 5, 1921, part of the Georgian population of Tskhinvali and nearby villages protested against the decisions of the Caucasian Bureau. But at the same time, rallies and meetings took place in other Georgian villages of the Tskhinvali region. “We are confident that only by close and fraternal unity with the South Ossetian poor will we eradicate the national discord that was artificially created by the enemies of the working masses of South Ossetia and Georgia - the Mensheviks,” the participants in one of these meetings wrote in their decision.

On November 28, 1921, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia and the Revolutionary Committee of Georgia created a mixed commission to determine the boundaries of the South Ossetian Autonomous Region. Having included the Tskhinvali region and mixed societies in the newly formed autonomous region, the commission approved the draft borders and on December 11 presented it to the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia.

It should be noted that in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks) there was quite a strong influence of national deviationists, who, during the final consideration and approval of the borders of South Ossetia, achieved the separation of the Kobi and Gud gorges with a purely Ossetian population from it. The pretext for this was found quite simple: due to the remoteness and, as a result, the difficulty of servicing the population. With these changes, the draft boundaries were approved.

On February 25, 1922, on the day of the first anniversary of Soviet power in Georgia, the Constitution of the Georgian SSR was adopted, according to which South Ossetia was part of the GSSR as an autonomous region. On March 28, 1922, all documentation on South Ossetia was submitted to the Central Executive Committee of the GSSR, where the project on South Ossetian autonomy was approved.

On April 20, 1922, the All-Georgian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the GSSR issued a Decree that stated: “To form an autonomous region of South Ossetia as an integral part of the SSR of Georgia, with its center in the city of Tskhinvali.”

The granting of South Ossetia the political status of an autonomous region was presented by the Bolsheviks as a convincing manifestation of Lenin’s national policy, as a triumph of the right to self-determination of South Ossetians. In fact, through the efforts of the “faithful Leninists” and “fiery revolutionaries” I. Stalin, S. Ordzhonikidze and their comrades-in-arms, Ossetia was divided into two autonomies with their subordination to different republics. And such dismemberment of the Ossetian people was presented as a great gift to the unfortunate people, who did not want to put up with the deprivation of their inalienable right to self-determination.

The leadership of both Ossetias in 1924 raised the question of their unification with the Transcaucasian Central Executive Committee. But through the efforts of the same S. Ordzhonikidze and others like him, the demand was rejected. On May 23 and October 19, 1925, representatives of the South Ossetian and North Ossetian autonomous regions again raised the issue of unifying the two Ossetias before Stalin (Stalin I.V. Soch., vol. 7, pp. 413-416). Later, members of these delegations were shot. This was the response of the “father of nations” to the request of his compatriots!

This is how the Bolsheviks put into practice the historical right of Ossetians to national-political self-determination!

With the granting of the political status of an autonomous region, South Ossetians naively believed that now broad prospects for accelerated socio-economic and cultural development would open before them. And how could they not believe it when the official press organ of the Communist Party of Georgia, the newspaper Pravda Gruzii, publicly announced on April 22, 1922: “The decree on the formation of the South Ossetian Autonomous Region is the only and best guarantee of the economic restoration and political development of the heroic south -Ossetian people." However, the official statements of the Georgian leadership were at odds with the real policy of the government of the republic pursued towards the South Ossetians, as evidenced by specific historical material.

For economically backward, agrarian South Ossetia the most important link social economic development there was industrialization of the region. For its successful implementation, there was a raw material base, labor resources, and a sales market. However, the republican authorities did their best to prevent the creation and development of industry here. Thus, the region was doomed to the role of an agricultural and raw materials appendage of the industrialized centers of Georgia.

For the whole pre-war period Not a single large industrial enterprise was built in South Ossetia. At the beginning of 1941, the entire industry of the autonomous region was represented by twelve semi-handicraft seasonal enterprises with a total number of workers of just over 500 people.

The republic allocated meager funds for industrial construction in South Ossetia. And although the economic situation of South Ossetia has more than once become the subject of discussion by the governing bodies of Georgia, this has not led to positive changes for the region. Thus, the December (192b) Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia was forced to state: “If we weigh on the scales what achievements there are in Ossetia, then we will have to be ashamed.” At the Plenum it was noted that in 1925/26. In Georgia, the budget per capita was 9.3 rubles, in Abkhazia - 5, in Adjara 7.3 rubles, and in South Ossetia 4.2 rubles. Outlining a program for the economic revival of South Ossetia, the plenum put forward the slogan “Face Ossetia!”

It would seem that after such a self-critical statement of facts and the adoption of radical decisions, the Georgian leadership should have come to grips with the problems of economic development of South Ossetia, eradicating the “differentiated” approach to solving the problems of development of national minorities in Georgia, but this did not happen. The facts indicate otherwise.

The June (1928) Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia again stated that “in South Ossetia per capita, 9 rubles 20 kopecks are allocated, and in Georgia without Tiflis, 15 rubles... Who doesn’t know that South Ossetia is the most backward region in Georgia, so it is necessary to allocate not less, but more funds for it.” And these decisions did not change anything in the economy of South Ossetia.

There were no positive changes in the position of the republic's leadership towards South Ossetia in subsequent years. Leaders changed, but the situation remained the same.

Thus, in 1947, by decision of the Union authorities, equipment from a reparation auto repair plant was brought to Tskhinvali from Vienna. In December of the same year the plant was put into operation, and in 1948 the plant made a solid profit national economy region, the task of 1949 was completed by November 7 by 315%! But in July 1950, contrary to the urgent requests of the regional leadership, the plant was relocated to Kutaisi. In some years, under various pretexts, the Jalabet and Churiskhevsky sawmills were closed, and the development of the oil field was stopped. Thunder. Based on the decision of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the order of the Minister of Meat and Dairy Industry of the USSR dated September 13, 1949 in Georgia provided for the construction of 9 meat processing plants, including one (with a capacity of 200 tons) in Tskhinvali. Already in 1950, all of them, with the exception of Tskhinvali, were put into operation, and the latter did not begin to be built even in 1955. The situation was similar with the construction of the Tskhinvali bakery, and the construction of a cement plant on the raw material base of marl deposits in Tbet was completely removed from the plan.

The same negative position of the republic’s leadership can be clearly seen in relation to the agricultural sector of the South Ossetian economy. Well-known voluntaristic solutions to the agrarian question in the 20s and 30s and their dire consequences were characteristic of most regions of the country. But the decisions made by the Georgian authorities in the 40s and 50s were undoubtedly a policy of economic genocide of the peasants of South Ossetia. In order not to be unfounded, we will refer to the facts.

According to the land balance adopted by the Council of People's Commissars of the GSSR on April 11, 1945, on November 1, 1944, the collective farms of South Ossetia contained 338-2 hectares of arable land. Meanwhile, according to the plans for sowing winter crops in 1944 for the harvest of 1945, the harvested area was 40,430 hectares.

The desire of the region's collective farms to fulfill planned targets forced them to plow up rural pastures, as a result of which livestock were left without grazing. The lack of feed led to an increase in livestock mortality. In 1945, 2,696 head of cattle died. Indicators of offspring and milk production have decreased. In 1945, an average of 275 liters of milk was obtained from each forage cow, i.e. 44% of the plan. Many villages with rich livestock-raising traditions have become cowless. Thus, in the villages of Nizhny Sarabuk, Nizhny Chareb, etc. there were two cows left, and in Upper Rustav, Brila, Nizhny Monastery, Dzher and in a number of other villages - one cow each. Throughout South Ossetia in 1945, 2,547 peasant farms were listed as cowless, and 901 of them had no livestock at all.

One of the main reasons for the reduction in livestock numbers in South Ossetia was the increase from year to year in planned targets for the delivery of meat and, as a consequence of this, unsystematic slaughter of livestock. Thus, in 1945, the plan for the delivery of meat to the state, including to the Red Army Fund, was set by the Council of People's Commissars of Georgia in the amount of 9093 centners, against 5863 in 1944, despite a sharp reduction in the number of livestock.

The policy of economic discrimination against the peasants of South Ossetia continued and even intensified in the 50s.

Until 1950, the taxable area of ​​South Ossetia was determined to be 80 thousand hectares, and since 1950 it suddenly increased to 217 thousand hectares. This was achieved by including those winter pastures used by the region in the taxable area. Stavropol region. Through such manipulation, the planned targets of livestock farmers in South Ossetia sharply increased, which were practically impossible to fulfill. Thus, the 1950 plan for the delivery of wool was fulfilled by only 50.1%. The situation worsened every year. On January 1, 1953, compared to January 1, 1947, the number of cattle decreased by 3859 heads, sheep and goats - by 11 thousand heads, pigs - by 4000. The majority of collective farmers (60%) did not have cows on their personal farms . Regional farms were forced to purchase livestock externally in order to fulfill planned targets. So, for 1951 - 1953 For these purposes, the collective farms of South Ossetia spent 14.5 million rubles and 45 thousand centners of grain.

The republican authorities in relation to South Ossetia widely practiced a “differentiated” approach to planning, the sinister meaning of which was that the plan for the delivery of grain was established in those mountainous regions of the region where wheat had never grown, the plan for the delivery of eggs - in those areas in which it had never grown. there was poultry farming.

However, the “differentiated” approach of the Georgian leadership when planning agricultural production tasks in the regions of the republic was most clearly manifested. Thus, the plan for the delivery of meat per hectare of taxable area for 1951 was established: for the Tskhinvali region of South Ossetia - 11.9 kg, and for the neighboring Gori region of Georgia - 8.6 kg, for the Dzhava region of South Ossetia - 10.1 kg, and for the neighboring Kazbegi region Georgia - 7.6, Znaursky district of South Ossetia - 11.7, and neighboring Karelian Georgia - 9.4 kg, Leningorsky district of South Ossetia - 11.3 kg, and neighboring Dushetsky - 7.9 kg. There are more striking examples: milk delivery plans per hectare of taxable area in the Znaursky district of South Ossetia were 13.6 kg, and in the neighboring Karelian region of Georgia - 7.5 kg, in the Tskhinvali region of South Ossetia - 13.5 kg, and in Gori region of Georgia - 7.2 kg. Plan for the delivery of wool in the Tskhinvali region. hectare of taxable area was 2250 g, in the Gori region - 600 g, i.e. almost four times less!

The policy of economic discrimination against the South Ossetian peasantry led to poverty and ruin for rural workers in the region. On most collective farms, wages were symbolic. Thus, in 1952, out of 161 collective farms in the region, 117 collective farmers did not receive cash payments. On the collective farms in the villages of Let, Kadisar, Ertso and Yerman, collective farmers received neither cash nor in-kind payment.

Nothing can justify the overt cultural discrimination against South Ossetians carried out by the Georgian authorities in these years. Evidence of this is the stage-by-stage “reform” of schools in South Ossetia. Until 1944, in secondary schools in South Ossetia, education was conducted in Ossetian and Russian languages ​​(not counting Georgian schools). And in August 1944, by order of the republican authorities, education in secondary and eight-year comprehensive schools in the region was translated into Russian and Georgian, teaching in Ossetian was removed from school practice. It should be noted that teaching in Russian was conducted in only a few urban schools in the region. This “reform” caused a large outflow of Ossetian students. Most of the children were left out of school, essentially illiterate. For example, at the beginning school year Thirty students studied at the Kirov secondary school in the Dzhava district, by the end of the year thirteen of them remained, and only six graduated from school (including four Ossetians and two Georgians).

As a result of the 1944 reform, Ossetian children could learn their native language only as a subject and only in primary school. But the republican authorities did not stop there. In August 1949, another “reform” of schools in South Ossetia was carried out, according to which, starting from the 1949-50 school year, the entire educational process, including primary classes, was translated into Georgian and Russian. Thus, the Ossetians were completely deprived of the opportunity to study in their native language.

However, the infringement of the national feelings and interests of Ossetians did not stop there. In 1951, all paperwork in South Ossetia was translated into Georgian. During the day, all signs in the Ossetian language were removed from the walls of the buildings. In addition, all literature in the Ossetian language was confiscated from the pedagogical institute and secondary educational institutions. It should also be taken into account that in 1938 the Ossetian alphabet was translated into Georgian graphics. Thus, one people simultaneously had two alphabets. We cannot remain silent about the fact that in 1952 the publication of an obituary on the death of the outstanding Ossetian artist, Tskhinvali resident Makharbek, was banned in local newspapers. Tuganov, despite the fact that an obituary was published in the Pravda newspaper. Or the publication of the Leningorsky regional newspaper only in Georgian, while more than 70% of the population of the region were Ossetians.

The systematic Georgianization of South Ossetians was also reflected in the personnel policy of the republican authorities. Local personnel were expelled from the prosecutor's office, police, courts, health care and other institutions. The staff of these departments was staffed with workers from other regions of Georgia. It is significant that in the Java resort, the entire staff, from the director to the hairdresser, was staffed by Georgians from other regions of the republic.

Cultural and economic discrimination of the South Ossetians, bordering on genocide, forced them to leave the land of their ancestors, in search of a better life, to go beyond the ridge, to the north. The migration of South Ossetians in the 40s and 50s became widespread. Destitute and ruined peasants moved in families, and even entire villages, to the regions of North Ossetia. In the second half of 1944 alone, 380 peasant households (2,199) people left the mountainous zone of the Dzhava, Tskhinvali and Leningorsky districts. In total, during 1944 - 1945. 795 households consisting of about 5,000 people left South Ossetia. Many villages fell into complete desolation. Migration continued in subsequent years. Only in 1951 - 1952. The region's population decreased by 9,000 people.

The anti-Ossetian policy of the Georgian authorities could not but cause protests from the South Ossetian public. Representatives of the advanced intelligentsia and student youth raised their voices in defense of their people. Thus, in 1951, a group of Komsomol members in Tskhinval spoke out against the closure of Ossetian schools and the existence of two alphabets in the Ossetian language. This legal demand was regarded as a manifestation of bourgeois nationalism and the protesters were severely punished. Georgian security authorities arrested them and in Tbilisi in a closed trial they were sentenced to various terms of hard labor: Vaneev V.D. - to 25 years, Gassiev L.S., Bekoev G. K. and Dzhioev 3. A. - by 10, and Gabuev H. - by 8 years.

Thus, the workers of South Ossetia were deprived of the right to defend their rights. Moreover, at the XV Congress of the Communist Parties of Georgia, the first secretary in his final speech stated that “one part of the intelligentsia in South Ossetia is infected with bourgeois “nationalism and this nationalism must be burned out with a hot iron.” And they burned it very diligently!..

The policy of economic, social and national discrimination against South Ossetia during all the years of Soviet power was the official position of the republic’s leadership regarding South Ossetia. The current confrontation is in fact a continuation of the previous policy in its most aggressive form; that is, the modern leadership of Georgia is pursuing this policy by other means - ideological persecution and force of arms, not disdaining either rabid demagoguery, or the barbaric extermination of a people fighting for their national dignity, or the economic, information and energy blockade of a small people.

Http://www.iriston.ru/ru/yugooset/1101052509.php

Ossetians are one of the most mysterious ethnic groups in the Caucasus. Scientists called them descendants of the ancient Cumans and put forward theories about Germanic and Finno-Ugric origin. This discrepancy is due to the fact that scientists traveling around the Caucasus in the 18th–19th centuries had little knowledge of the history and ethnographic ancestry of the region. Subsequently, they came to a common denominator, agreeing with the theory of Heinrich Julius Klaproth about the Alan origin of the Ossetians. This was later reinforced by academician Vsevolod Miller.

The outstanding Caucasus scholar and Slavist in his works managed to confirm the hypothesis that the Ossetians are descendants of the Scythian-Sarmatian-Alanian tribes. The historian collected archaeological, ethnographic and folklore data that irrefutably proved that Ossetians inhabited the entire flatland strip of the North Caucasus. And only in the recent past were they pushed back into the narrow geographical framework of the mountains of the Central Caucasus by the Tatar-Mongols.

Scythian roots in the epic and language of Ossetians

Linguist and etymologist Vasily Ivanovich Abaev supplemented the works of Vsevolod Miller. In his research, he proved that the modern Ossetian language, religion and culture have close connection with the carriers of the Koban culture.

In his opinion, the language and epic clearly indicate that the Scythians are the ethnogenetic ancestors of the people. Vasily Abaev found more than 200 matches with Scythian in the modern Ossetian language: common roots in words, in the names Roxana and Zarina, as well as in the names of the Dnieper, Don, Danube and some other rivers. Many Scytho-Sarmatian words are easily identified in the modern Ossetian language. This can be easily traced from the works of ancient authors and numerous inscriptions remaining in the places of ancient Scythian colony cities.

The Scythian epic is also reflected in Nart stories. The tales of the Ossetians and other peoples of the Caucasus coincide in many details with the descriptions of the life and customs of the Scythians, noted by ancient authors, for example, by Herodotus. Ethnographic parallels in funeral rites and traditions of the hearth, the cult of seven gods, and the culture of the glass of honor look indicative.

Religious beliefs of Ossetians. Way of life

A striking similarity with Scythian rituals has been preserved for thousands of years, passing into Ossetian life. Some of the people up to our time adhere to traditional pagan beliefs (according to 2012 surveys, their number among Ossetians is 29%). The mountain people revere the war god Uastirdzhi and the thunder god Uacilla, who are the prototypes of George and the prophet Elijah. Some Ossetians profess Islam, which they adopted from the Kabardians in the 17th–18th centuries. The overwhelming majority are Orthodox Christians - 57%.

As it should be according to Christian laws, Ossetians predominantly adhered to monogamy. Among the wealthy members of the population, polygamy previously existed to a certain extent, but the Christian clergy waged a tough fight against it. Some concessions were made only in one case - if the first wife was childless.

Women traditionally bear the brunt of Homework: cleaning the house, cooking and housework. Men were engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding. The people were famous for their quality woolen products, cheeses and butter. Metal forging, stone and wood carving, embroidery and other applied arts were also well developed.

For a long time, the houses of the Ossetians (Khadzars) were divided into two halves: female and male. And if beautiful objects were placed on the side of the head of the house, musical instruments, weapons and turkish horns, then on the female side there were all household utensils.

The role of the Russian Empire in the development of Ossetia

In the 18th century, the decline of agriculture in Ossetia reached its climax. In difficult mountain conditions, any attempts to engage in agriculture and livestock breeding were initially doomed to failure. The situation was aggravated by the issue of serious overpopulation of the country. The Ossetian princes saw two ways out of the situation: agree to become vassals of the Georgian or Kabardian nobility and gain access to the North Caucasus Plain, or become part of the Russian Empire.

Having not received sufficient guarantees of political and economic stability, the Ossetian community refused to cooperate with the Georgians and decided to establish diplomatic relations with the Russian Empire. Ossetia received official permission to become a citizen in 1774 during the reign of Catherine II. But in fact, the people had been under protection since 1743, immediately after the representatives sent their request to the Empress.

The merger of Ossetia and the Russian Empire created favorable conditions for the revival of the mountain people. Beneficial peasant reforms began, along with the massive resettlement of Ossetians to the plain and the expansion of external relations.

During the formative years of Soviet power, the region again experienced economic and cultural decline. Many wealthy Ossetians fought for the White movement, peasants - for the Reds. The conflict was superimposed by a stubborn struggle with Georgia, which resulted in the burning of villages and the expulsion of Ossetians from their native territories. The bloody events ended peacefully during the Soviet era. Then Ossetia was administratively divided into two parts: the South fell under the jurisdiction of the Georgian SSR, the North went to the RSFSR.

In the nineties of the last century, the countdown of a new historical period began. The collapse of the USSR led to serious territorial disputes. The South Ossetian Autonomous Okrug demanded recognition of its independence from Georgia. The conflict of interests led to the final division of Ossetia. South Ossetia received the status of a partially recognized state, North Ossetia remained part of the Russian Federation.

Anyone interested in history will be interested to know
.

The oldest human site on the territory of North Ossetia (about 150 thousand years ago) is located near Popov, 4 km southwest of, and belongs to, whose carriers were early. At this site, stone blanks, flakes, plates, and handicrafts were found. Sites (30-40 thousand years ago) were found near the village. Redant-1, village, .

Although mountain ranges divide Ossetians into northern and southern ones, they have a common culture and language.

Koban culture

Alanya

Middle Ages

However, Ossetian scientists M.M. Bliev, and on the basis of archival documents, proved that the project for the annexation of Ossetia, prepared by the Astrakhan Governor-General, was submitted for consideration only in. Moreover, the Ossetian project of the governor-general did not allow him to retain his post, and he was also dismissed. There is also no evidence yet that the empress supported the project of annexing Ossetia, or returned to consider it in subsequent years.

Most likely, the legislative formalization of the inclusion of Ossetia into the Russian Empire occurred much later, already in .

Russian empire

Karte des Kaukasischen Isthmus. Entworfen und gezeichnet von J. Grassl, 1856.

USSR

Coat of arms of the SO ASSR

Flag of the SO ASSR

The Great Patriotic War

During this time, fierce battles took place on the territory of the republic; most of (north and west) North Ossetia was occupied by General. Troops fought against them. From November 6 to 11 during the Nalchik defensive operation Northern group troops against

History of South Ossetia and the causes of the conflict with Georgia

MIDDLE AGES

Since ancient times, the territory of today's South Ossetia was inhabited by the ancestors of the Ossetians - Iranian-speaking tribes of the Scythian-Sarmatian-Alan ethnic massif. The land of South Ossetia was never part of any Georgian state, being part of the powerful tribal union of North Caucasian Iranians, who carried out their policy in Transcaucasia through this region during the Middle Ages.

Repeatedly, the East Georgian kings tried to seize the territory of South Ossetia by force and establish their military-political control here. The claims of the East Georgian feudal lords to dominance in South Ossetia were based only on the right of the sword and did not have any legitimate basis, being realized only in the form of predatory raids, accompanied by the destruction of villages and theft of livestock. Nevertheless, South Ossetia retained real independence from the Georgian rulers, just as it did not recognize the power of the Persian shahs, to whom Eastern Georgia was a vassal until joining the Russian Empire.

AS PART OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE

In 1774, Ossetia, not divided into North and South, voluntarily became part of the Russian Empire. But until 1830, mountainous (South) Ossetia still remained outside the control of the tsarist administration, although it was nominally considered the possession of Russia.

The actual annexation of South Ossetia occurred in 1830 after a military expedition of Russian troops led by General Rennenkampf. In 1843, on the territory of South Ossetia, as part of the Tiflis province, the Ossetian district was formed, which included part of the territory of the modern Russian Federation; administrative management of the Ossetian district was carried out by the Java district chief and the chief of the Mountain peoples.

The inclusion of South Ossetia in the administrative-territorial system of the Russian Empire was not accompanied, however, by Russia's recognition of any dependence of South Ossetia on Georgia. Therefore, representatives of the Georgian feudal nobility, princes Machabeli and Eristavi, made an attempt, already within the framework of the Russian Empire, to achieve control over South Ossetia with the help of Russian weapons, putting its population in a dependent position. However, the claims of the Georgian nobility to South Ossetia were rejected by the Senate, which decided “to refuse the Georgian princes Machabelov’s request for recognition of their serfdom over the Ossetians” (Central State Archive of the GSSR, Caucasian Committee Fund, no. 844, l. 68. Essays on the history of Ossetia, p. 128).

The opinion of the emperor himself was as follows: “Whatever the decision of the highest judicial places, it will be difficult to recognize and put it into effect in favor of the Machabelov princes, since it has been proven by experience that the mountain Ossetians will never perform their duties without the use of military force and that “, on the other hand, we cannot allow the idea that every two or three years it is necessary to send detachments and expeditions there” (Central State Archive of the GSSR, Caucasian Committee Fund, no. 844, l. 68. Essays on the history of Ossetia, p. 128) .

By order of the emperor, the South Ossetians were transferred to the category of state-owned, state peasants and, thus, excluded from the system of feudal dependence, and therefore political control by the Georgian nobility, receiving a special socio-economic status. This was a kind of prototype of the future political autonomy of South Ossetia, due to its historically established special position in Transcaucasia.

FIRST GENOCIDE

After the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, Georgia, which seceded from Russia, attempted to annex the territory of South Ossetia against the will of its people, which led to a wave of protests by the Ossetian people.

These protests developed into armed uprisings in various political centers of South Ossetia - Kornis (1917), Tskhinvali (1918), Java, Ruk (1920). Their basis was the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, adopted by the Council People's Commissars RSFSR November 2 (I5), 1917, providing for the right of the peoples of Russia to self-determination, up to secession and the formation of an independent state. It was the proclamation of this right that formed the basis of the unification process Russian provinces Georgian Mensheviks, their withdrawal from Russia, and the announcement in 1918 of the creation of the Georgian Democratic Republic.

South Ossetia refused to secede from Russia and did not take part in the elections to the Georgian parliament, demanding in turn recognition of the right to free choice. On May 28, 1920, delegates and responsible leaders of 17 committees of South Ossetia in the “Memorandum of labor South Ossetia of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of workers and peasants’ deputies ... “confirmed” the unwavering will of labor South Ossetia:

1. South Ossetia is an integral part of Soviet Russia;

2. South Ossetia is part of Soviet Russia on a common basis DIRECTLY (emphasized in the original);

3. We do not allow mediocre entry into Soviet Russia through a Georgian or other republic, even a Soviet one.

In response, on June 20, 1920, South Ossetia was subjected to armed aggression by the Menshevik leadership of Georgia, and as a result of the most brutal genocide of the Ossetian population (18 thousand dead and more than 50 thousand expelled to northern Ossetia) was annexed. In the note People's Commissar Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR Chicherin told the Menshevik government of Georgia on May 17, 1920: “... we learned with alarm that Georgian troops were sent to South Ossetia, where the Soviet Republic was proclaimed, to destroy such power. We insist, if this is true, to withdraw our troops from Ossetia, because we believe that Ossetia should have the power it wants. Georgia's interference in the affairs of Ossetia would be an unjustifiable interference in someone else's internal affairs..."

SOVIET PERIOD

After the establishment of Soviet power in Georgia, South Ossetia was voluntarily transferred to Georgia, and then, on April 20, 1922, by Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR, the South Ossetian Autonomous Region was created.

However, the autonomy of South Ossetia was largely nominal. The Georgian leadership pursued an assimilationist policy here. In various ways, Ossetians were forced to change their nationality in documents. Ossetian geographical names were replaced by newly invented Georgian ones. Under propaganda slogans about the friendship of peoples, the declared autonomy of the South Ossetians was turned into a raw material appendage of Georgia.

All indicators of the socio-economic development of South Ossetia chronically remained lower than in Georgia. As a result, the standard of living in the South Ossetian Autonomous Region turned out to be 2-2.5 times lower than the average for the Georgian SSR. Tbilisi's national policy actively encouraged assimilation. The population of South Ossetia fell from a pre-war 107 thousand people to 99 thousand people in 1989. At the same time, the share of Ossetians in the total population decreased, and the share of Georgians increased.

In 1939, another attempt was made at the state level to forcibly assimilate the South Ossetians - the Ossetian writing, previously based on the Latin alphabet, was translated into the Georgian alphabet in South Ossetia, and teaching in the Georgian language was introduced in Ossetian schools.

In addition, the totalitarian regime artificially divided the single Ossetian nation into “South Ossetians” and “North Ossetians.” Until Stalin's death, Ossetians' passports and other documents included the following entries in the "nationality" column: "South Ossetian", "North Ossetian".

In the late 1980s, the nationalist movement began to rise in Georgia, accompanied by increased discrimination against the non-Georgian population. The nationalist movement, which was massive in nature and enjoyed the support of the Georgian authorities, advocated the liquidation of autonomous entities within the Georgian SSR.

In 1989, Georgia adopted the State Program for the Development of the Georgian Language, according to which office work in the Georgian language was forcibly introduced in South Ossetia.

On November 10, 1989, in order to protect the rights of South Ossetia and create constitutional guarantees of autonomy, the XII session of the twentieth convocation of the Council of People's Deputies of the South Ossetian Autonomous Region decided to raise the status of the autonomous region to autonomous republic within the Georgian SSR. The deputies also appealed to the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Georgian SSR with a request to consider this decision. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR canceled the decision of the session of the Council of People's Deputies of South Ossetia, recognizing it as unconstitutional.

SECOND GENOCIDE

On November 23, 1989, members of the Georgian nationalist movement, organized by Zviad Gamsakhurdia, attacked the capital of South Ossetia, the city of Tskhinvali. In the forefront were the leaders of the Georgian SSR, led by the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, Givi Gumbaridze. A column of thousands of demonstrators (according to various estimates from 30 to 60 thousand people) on more than 400 buses and 3,000 cars from Tbilisi approached Tskhinvali. Georgian officials and media presented this event as an attempt to hold a peaceful rally in the city of Tskhinvali. However, among the participants in the campaign against Tskhinvali there were several hundred militants armed with automatic weapons. The entire male population stood up to defend their hometown. Unable to enter Tskhinvali, Georgian militants went around it, encircling the blockade. Access to the city was blocked, passersby of Ossetian nationality were taken hostage and subjected to torture and abuse. The blockade lasted more than three months. During this time, 5 people were killed, more than 400 people were injured and injured, more than 2,000 people were expelled from their native villages, and their houses were burned. Numerous appeals from the population of South Ossetia to the leadership of the USSR and the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR to give a political and legal assessment of these events remained unheeded.

In April and June 1990, the Supreme Council of the Georgian SSR declared illegal all legal acts adopted after the Sovietization of Georgia in 1921. The USSR laws on the division of powers between the USSR and the constituent entities of the federation and on secession from the USSR were also declared illegal. In response to this, the XIII, XIV and XV sessions of the Council of People's Deputies of South Ossetia (June - September 1990) adopted a package of decisions: Declaration of sovereignty, on the operation of the Constitution of the USSR and the laws of the USSR on its territory, the formation of the South Ossetian Autonomous Region into a republic . In November 1990, representatives of bourgeois-nationalist parties and movements came to power in the GSSR. The head of the association was elected Chairman of the Supreme Council of the GSSR Round table- Free Georgia" Gamsakhurdia.

In violation of the current legislation, despite the fact that the term of office of the Council of People's Deputies of South Ossetia had expired, the Supreme Council of Georgia did not call regular elections to the Council of People's Deputies of South Ossetia. Then the Council of People's Deputies of South Ossetia decided to hold elections on December 9, 1990. In response to this, the Georgian leadership and the media began another round of anti-Ossetian hysteria. The elections and their results were declared illegal in advance.

On December 9, 1990, elections to the Supreme Council of the Republic of South Ossetia took place. Numerous observers from other republics of the USSR testified that they took place without violations, with strict adherence to current legislation.

On December 10, 1990, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia unanimously adopted an illegal decision to abolish the South Ossetian Autonomous Region.

On December 11, 1990, the Georgian leadership organized a provocation on one of the central streets of the city of Tskhinvali, as a result of which three people died. This was the reason for introducing a state of emergency and curfew in the city of Tskhinvali and the Java region, despite the fact that there were no legal grounds for this.

On the night of January 5-6, 1991, the Georgian leadership introduced police and Georgian national guard units into the capital of South Ossetia. They began to carry out searches, arrests, robberies, murders of Ossetians, arson of residential buildings and other criminal acts.

Under these conditions, the Ossetian side was forced to take measures for self-defense. Self-defense units managed to oust Georgian troops from Tskhinvali, after which the latter began punitive actions against rural areas of South Ossetia, without abandoning attempts to take Tskhinvali by storm. On January 29, 1991, the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the South Ossetian Soviet Republic, Torez Kulumbegov, was invited to negotiations with the Georgian leadership in Tbilisi. Upon arrival in the capital of Georgia, he was taken directly from the Government House of the Republic to prison, where he was subjected to torture.

On February 1, 1991, the Union of Independent Energy Workers of Georgia cut off the power supply to South Ossetia. As a result, there were numerous casualties among the civilian population. Several dozen old people froze to death in a nursing home, and newborn babies died in a maternity hospital. On March 23, a joint meeting of deputies of the Councils of South Ossetia at all levels was held, at which, in pursuance of the Decree of the President of the USSR of January 7, a turn was made towards returning to the status of an autonomous region. A Committee to normalize the situation in South Ossetia has been formed.

On May 4, 1991, in response to Moscow's promise to stop the genocide of the people of South Ossetia, the Assembly of Deputies of all levels of South Ossetia adopted an almost unanimous decision to abolish the South Ossetian Soviet Republic and return to the status of an autonomous region. However, the Georgian armed forces, with the connivance of the central Soviet leadership, continued the genocide of the Ossetian people.

On May 26, 1991, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was elected President of Georgia, after which Georgian aggression intensified.

On September 1, 1991, the session of the Council of People's Deputies of South Ossetia canceled the decisions of the meeting of deputies of all levels dated May 4, 1991 as legally incompetent and did not lead to stabilization, abolished the unconstitutional body - the Assembly of Deputies of all levels, and restored the status of the Republic.

As a result of Georgian terror, from January 6 to September 1, 1991 alone, 209 people were killed, 460 civilians were wounded, and 150 people went missing (it later became clear that the vast majority of them were killed by Georgian armed forces).

On October 11, 1991, a Georgian sniper killed Vitalik Tibilov (2 years 8 months) in the courtyard of a kindergarten in the village of Znaur. On January 19, 1992, in a referendum, the people of South Ossetia almost unanimously voted to declare the independence of South Ossetia and its reunification with Russia.

In February 1992, Georgian artillery and armored vehicles located around the city of Tskhinvali began intensive shelling of residential areas and educational institutions of the South Ossetian capital. The shelling continued until July 13, 1992. As a result, hundreds of women, children and old people died. Often death overtook people at work. However, government agencies, critical infrastructure and educational establishments continued to function.

On March 8, 1992, Eduard Shevardnadze returned to Georgia as Chairman of the State Council. Georgia's policy towards South Ossetia has not changed. The blockade and artillery shelling of Ossetian settlements only intensified.

On May 20, 1992, one of the most monstrous crimes against the Ossetian people was committed - on the Zar road, Georgian militants shot at point-blank range a convoy of cars transporting refugees from besieged Tskhinval - women, old people and children. 36 people aged from 11 to 76 years were killed on the spot. Shortly before this, near the village of Eredvi, Georgian militants buried alive 12 civilians traveling by bus to Tskhinvali.

On May 29, 1992, the Supreme Council of the Republic of South Ossetia adopted the Act of State Independence. On June 24, 1992, a quadrilateral Russian-Georgian-Ossetian (North and South Ossetia) Agreement on the principles of resolving the Georgian-Ossetian conflict was signed in Sochi. On July 14, 1992, mixed Russian-Georgian-Ossetian peacekeeping forces entered South Ossetia.

From November 1989 to July 1992, as a result of Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia, over 3 thousand civilians of Ossetian nationality died, about 300 people went missing, over 40 thousand people were forced to leave their homes and move to Russia, over 100 Ossetian villages was burned.

Dozens of years of national oppression, armed aggression, two genocides of Ossetians by Georgia in the twentieth century showed the impossibility of ensuring the rights of survival of the people of South Ossetia within the Georgian state.

And the third wave of Georgian genocide against the people of South Ossetia, which took place in August 2008, is a clear confirmation of this.

This tragedy will continue until the world understands the indisputable truth: artificially dividing the same people on different sides of the state border is nothing more than a crime against this people, who have the same rights to self-determination as large nations. South and North Ossetia should be together, in one state. And sooner or later, this will happen, regardless of whether anyone wants it or not. Only Ossetians have the right to decide their own fate.

The material is posted on the website ossetians.com