A Super Quick History of Georgia

hello everyone and welcome to mister [Music] this is west asia and here is georgia now let's see what georgia has on its mind shall we sakhartvalla is what the georgian people call this land lodged under the stunning mantle of the caucasus mountains this is a very ancient place and people have dwelt here since eons immemorial from the dark obsidian days preceding civilization's dawn to elusive cultures of potters metalsmiths and winemakers the peoples who would come to dominate the region the cartevillians still live here and their language is unrelated to any other we call them georgians thanks to the western adoption of the persian name for them and we may as well keep calling them that if they don't mind the first great kingdom of georgia was caulkis stretching out inland from the shores of the black sea in greek mythology this was the place the hero jason and his crew the argonauts sailed to in search of the legendary golden fleece which naturally was guarded by a dragon kolkas declined after a number of 8th century bc attacks from powers like the scythians and assyrians and ended up devoured by the achaemenid persian empire around the mid 500s bc persian rule was efficient but taxes were harsh and military conscription unavoidable as persia petered out the next big thing in georgia was the kingdom of iberia their dynasties of kings of course waged war on neighbours like armenia and so on but as the years passed it became increasingly clear to the georgians that they were not located in the most comfortable spot geopolitically speaking rome to the west persia to the east georgia in the middle middle meaning often fought over by superpowers this struggle popped up sporadically for many centuries in the 300s a.d a greek woman called nina went to georgia and preached and king miriam the third converted and georgia became one of the world's first christian nations and it clung to this faith even through the time of arab subjugation georgia was liberated in the 800s by ashot who reconquered and united georgian lands and established the long-lived bhagavatiyani dynasty more uniting of territories occurred with bagrat iii who was titled first king of georgia in 1008. this beautiful cathedral is an example of the architecture of georgia during his reign the golden age of georgia began with the reign of david the builder who worked to enrich the nation and steadily kicked the muslims out achieving a great victory against a numerically superior turkish force at the battle of diegori in 1121. georgia attained its peak of prestige under queen tamar when georgians were lords of all the caucasus and there was abundant wealth and cultural flourishes and construction and things were looking just fine and then the mongols invaded and ruined it the first mongol incursion occurred in 1220 and as the raids continued the kingdom of georgia declined and the people suffered horribly and while some recovery began and the giorgi v the turko mongol conqueror timur or tamerlane began invading in 1386 burning churches demolishing cities and slaughtering their inhabitants enslaving others essentially stomping georgia into the dust and it never again regained its former strength despite tamalein's vicious onslaught the georgians refused to accept islam and poor georgia only suffered further oppression during the centuries of war between the ottomans and persians king eraclear ii strove to strengthen georgia but came to believe only christian russia could safeguard its existence and allied with them iran was angered at this and invaded in 1795 and destroyed the capital and a time of uncertainty followed until the very certain russian victory against persia in 1813 leading to the absorption of georgia into the russian empire this was the age of napoleon and one of russia's best and most brilliant generals at this time was a georgian bertre bagrationi as the 19th century matured georgia began adopting more european influences serfdom was abolished a railway was built industrialization increased and cities grew bigger the world changed very quickly for georgians and all sorts of new ideas began circulating but this sort of thing was not tolerated after tsar alexander the third took the throne he wanted to russify georgia and georgians did not like this and the writer ilya jaffa devoted his life to preserving and championing the georgian language and culture there was another more radical group however with more revolutionary ideas one of its members was a certain joseph jorgevilli who would one day become known as stalin his mother wanted him to become a priest but he instead became an atheist and was spellbound by the theories of karl marx and ended up going off to russia it was a crazy time the tsars fell in revolution to the bolshevik throngs and when lenin died stalin took control of the soviet union viewed alternately as a merciless murderous dictator and the strong leader who made russia a modern superpower he was in fact both these things over 300 000 georgian soldiers died in fighting for stalin's red army which was ultimately triumphant in defeating hitler in world war ii to this day stalin is highly esteemed in his home nation of georgia as part of the ussr georgia saw many improvements in everyday life but its government was also notoriously corrupt many georgians became increasingly discontented with the soviet system and called for independence which was officially declared on april the 9th 1991 the first president swore to establish georgian authority over the regions of south ossetia and abrasia which had been autonomous under the ussr and now declared independence after a violent coup georgia entered a civil war and there was war in south ossetia and war in abkhazia the separatists supported by russia what basically happened was georgia lost control of these regions but does not recognize their independence and neither does most of the rest of the world the war in abkhazia was particularly vicious with over 20 000 georgian civilians slaughtered and over 200 000 forced to leave the region naturally georgians weren't happy about how their government was running things and there was a peaceful pro-western revolution in 2003 to usher in a change of power did things get better not really and after south ossetians began bombing georgian villages george's army stepped in to stop it which prompted russia to step in and stop them and it was war georgia had no chance against russian military might and the two regions remain contested russia officially recognized their sovereignty and so georgia cut off diplomatic relations with russia so how was your day anyway after millennia of upheaval and mayhem georgia somehow has managed to survive a strong resilient people all of georgia's olympic gold medals are in sports like weightlifting and wrestling georgia today has a high level of human development and while problems remain as they tend to big improvements have been made and hopefully continue so that's it for georgia and that's all from me for now bye [Music] you