[lg policy] Caucasus: Some of the issues of Russian imperial language policy in Abkhazia and its results

[Harold Schiffman]

Some of the issues of Russian imperial language policy in Abkhazia and
its results
21/06/2010 14:35
Gogi Maisuradze




(Part I)

It is a universally known fact that by annexation of countries empires
achieve several goals simultaneously. In particular, at the time the
most important thing is to add new territories, to get hold of natural
resources and other material wealth, strengthening and improvement of
geo-strategic and military positions, change of the demographic
situation in its' favour and so on. Together with the abovementioned
things it is important to assimilate subdued people linguistically,
culturally, religiously and ethnically in order to prevent this people
in the future from becoming disobedient towards the invader.

In 1801 and 1921 after the Russian empire fully annexed and taking
roots in Georgia it become important for them to achieve all the above
mentioned goals including religious assimilation. But at that time in
addition to Georgian-speaking majority there were ethnic groups that
lived densely and spoke in other languages in Georgia. Naturally
ethnical, linguistic and religious identity of groups living in
Georgia to a great extent determined country's political orientation.
Orthodox Christian Georgian, Abkhazian and Ossetian population
together with Gregorian Christian Armenians were well-disposed, at
this stage at least, towards Russia. They see in it a protector from
politics of Iran and Ottoman Empire. While Muslim Georgians,
Abkhazians as well as Azeris from Borchalo and Turks were leaning more
towards the Ottoman Empire and at that time the Ottoman Empire was
Russia's clear political and military opponent. Of course, Russian
authorities also saw this and tried to use this religious factor in
its favour.

As soon as Tsarism established itself in Georgia it started to get
busy with mass Russification of the country's population. For this
purpose ideologists of the empire made various plans getting
acquainted with which shows very well real face of the empire. For
example, one of the most influential ideologists of the thirties of
the XIX century Platon Zubov wrote about Abkhazia: "calming
(subjugation) of mountaineers implies the following: through
development of trade relations implant inclination towards luxury;
Turn it into necessity and educate them with a light of
Christianity... Mountaineers would live in plains away from main
roads... and thanks to government they would receive necessities,
beautiful churches in every important village; ...schools should be
opened at churches for learning Russian language and, if only for the
beginning but liturgies should be conducted in native language of
mountaineers. But later things should be done in a way that they would
leave their own dialects and get to know Russian language which would
become dominant language for their descendents as their numerous
dialects that do not have scripts would soon be easily forgotten"...
Tsarism authorities did almost everything to realize all set tasks.

By the beginning of the sixties of the XIX century when it became
obvious that long Russian-Caucasian war would end with the victory of
the empire Tsarism started to actively work to change drastically
ethnic-demographic situation in Abkhazia, as well as to detach
Abkhazian and Ossetian population from Georgian cultural space and to
set these two ethnic groups in opposition with Georgian people. In
order to achieve these goals it was decided: to create script for
Abkhazian and Ossetian languages with use of Russian script and that
was done; Withdrawal of Georgian missionaries from Abkhazian and
Ossetian villages where they were carrying out their activities;
Declaration of Georgians who lived on the territory of Samurzakano
(now territory of the Gali district ) as Abkhazians; Prohibition of
using Georgian language during liturgy and in schools simultaneously
with forcing to use Russian language and so on...

Until 1862 Abkhazian language did not have script. Before that in case
of necessity Abkhazians used Georgian language for official
correspondence, to satisfy religious-Christian and cultural needs.
Representatives of Abkhazian nobility and part of low social class
knew Georgian very well. More, during the XIX century Abkhazian
princes and other members of the nobility were using this language to
conduct official correspondence with Russian authorities while
intelligentsia considered Georgian language and written culture their
native language and culture. For example, son of the last prince of
Abkhazia Giorgi Shervashidze knew Georgian literature extremely well
and he himself used to write wonderful poems in this language. And
when once one German journalist made slighting remarks about Georgia,
Georgian nation and Georgian culture Giorgi Shervashidze gave him an
adequate reply. The same was attitude that Ossetians living in Georgia
had towards Georgia, Georgian people and Georgian culture. Naturally,
closeness of Georgians, Abkhazians and Ossetians was unacceptable for
Russians authorities. Therefore in the middle of the XIX century as
the Russian-Caucasian war was coming to an end, special emphasis was
put on uprooting of this closeness and making the above-mentioned
three ethnic groups each others' enemies. Already in 1862 Russian army
General Pyottr Uslar started a scientific study of the Abkhazian
language. But he was faced by a problem. What script to use to
transfer Abkhazian vowels? The general who also had a great talent for
linguistics knew that Georgian alphabet would have been the best
suited for those languages of the Caucasus that were at that time
still without script. But he did not want to use Georgian script due
to political reasons. He wrote: "..(Georgian alphabet) is almost the
most perfect in existing languages... Every vowel is represented by
special sign and every sign represents the same vowel. Every European
language has a problem. It is orthography. Georgians, thanks to
perfection of their alphabet, does not have this problem... It shows
that Georgian alphabet system can be taken as a basis for a common
alphabet for all Caucasian languages that today do not have script;
But if we borrow from Georgians not only alphabet system but also
script of signs we unintentionally create difficulties that would
become even more pronounced as Russian written and spoken language
would spread in the Caucasus" (Gamakharia, Gogia, 1997: 353). He added
also: "In this case we create a danger of Abkhazian autonomy besides
Georgian and other autonomies" (Gamakharia, Gogia, 1997: 720). Uslar
did not hesitate long and created an alphabet that was based on
Russian script (Cyrillic), but as much as possible it used principle
of Georgian script - signs did not mean different things in different
cases. It is notable that at the same time when Pyotr Uslar was
writing grammatical review of the Abkhazian language another group
headed by General Bartolomei was working on creation of the first
alphabetical book who decided to use Georgian script for writing
Abkhazian words. This made Uslar very angry. He got involved very
actively in this matter and forced Bartlomei group to abandon its
decision and use a new script that was created by Uslar with the use
of Russian script (new "Abkhazian alphabet" created by I. Bartolomei
was published in 1865).

It should be noted that new Abkhazian script had no practical usage
until 1912 when Dimitry Gulia published first collection of his poems
in Tbilisi and thus put the foundation for history of Abkhazian
literature (it should be said also that in 1892 heads of the Russian
church formed translator commission in Abkhazia that translated into
Abkhazian and published several religious books). For this reason in
XIX century it was impossible to organize civil and religious
education in Abkhazian language. There was no education literature in
Abkhazian language which could have been used to teach Abkhazian
pupils. Therefore a problem was created artificially. Authorities were
saying that as Abkhazians were not Georgians it was unacceptable to
educate them in Georgian and offer Christian services in Georgian
language. But at the same time as Abkhazians neither has their own or
translated into Abkhazian literature it would be proper for Abkhazian
children to be educated and pray in Russian. This quintessence of
Russification and "divide and rule" principle was voiced by numerous
Russian officials. We should cite frank statement of one of them -
Yevgeny Veidenbaum: "Abkhazian language which does not have script and
literature is, of course, doomed for disappearance in more or less
near future. The question is which language will substitute it? It is
obvious that it should be Russian not Georgian language that implants
cultural ideas and terms in (Abkhazian – T. G) population. Therefore I
believe that creation of Abkhazian language should be not a goal but
means for weakening of demand for Georgian language through church and
school and a weapon for its (Georgian – T.G.) substitution by the
state language (Russian – T.G)" (Gamakharia, Gogia, 1997: 720). By the
way, Veidenbaum let slip that during tsarism there was a great demand
for Georgian language in Abkhazian population.

Indeed determining real intentions of Tsarism helps us to explain as
to why tsarist authorities ignored suggestions of Georgian public and
church figures to conduct educational and church services in Abkhazia
in Abkhazian language. For example, even before Russia officially
abolished Abkhazian principality - though it was in full control of
the situation in the region – personal spiritual mentor of the
Abkhazian prince, Georgian priest Ioane Ioseliani raised an issue
about establishment of seminary in a village of Likhny near the
residence of the Abkhazian prince before the Russian authorities.
Abkhazian children would have learned mother tongue in this seminary.
But this project was declined. Similar suggestion was made many times
afterwards but the issue always remained unsolved. Another example.
Around 100 years after this, in the beginning of the XX century
Georgian bishop of Abkhazia Kirion (Sadzaglishvili) was a supporter of
creation of Abkhazian literature and conduction of church services in
Abkhazian language. The same was proposed by prominent Georgian
educator and public figure Iakob Gogebashvili who wrote in 1907:
""Some newspaper reporters are hostile towards translation of books of
church services into Abkhazian and conduction of church services in
this language. This astonishes me extremely. And indeed it is true
that for many centuries Abkhazia was a part of Georgia's political
body and church services were conducted in Georgian there and script
was also Georgian but Abkhazian langaueg is not a dialect of the
Georgian language. It is an independent language although closely
related to Georgian. As an independent language it indeed has a right
to its own church service, its script and its own national
literature".

At the same time Iakob Gogebashvili called on Sukhumi Georgians to
assist Abkhazian public figures in creation of school textbooks of the
Abkhazian language. He also said that in case of difficulties with
publication of such books in Sukhumi they to be sent to Tbilisi where
Society for the Spreading Literacy among Georgians member of the board
of which was Iakob Gogebashvili would pay for printing of those books
(Gamakharia, Gogia, 1997: 473-474). Principles of the book of alphabet
of Georgian language that was compiled by that very Gogebashvili were
used by Abkhazian teacher Andrei Chochua when creating Abkhazian
alphabet book. It is irony of fate that today Abkhazian separatists
have Iakob Gogebashvili "black listed" and very incorrectly accused of
being an ideologist of Georgianization of Abkhazians. While General
Uslar is almost considered a god by them.

We believe that based on the materials presented here an unbiased
reader will make relevant conclusions as to who were disinterested
friend to Abkhazian people and who wished their eradication: P. Zubov,
Uslar, Veidenbaum and Russian authorities or priest Ioselaini,
Gogebashvili, Bishop Kirion, Bishops Alexander Dekanosidze and Gabriel
Kikodze... (They helped christianize thousands of Abkhazians thus
saved them from deportation from Abkhazian), those Georgians that
worked in Abkhazia between the XIX and XX centuries unselfishly helped
Abkhazian public figures to establish a society for spreading of
literacy and broadening a scope of activities of this organization.

Based on the above facts we can conclude that:

In 1962 creation of Abkhazian script was very important cultural event
in the history of this language but this act was not a result of
natural historical development of the ethnic group that spoke on this
language (as the world history shows us ethnic groups form script when
they reach a high level of development and it is caused by natural
maturity of internal demands of this very ethnic group. And Abkhazian
people, like many other small ethnic groups of the Caucasus, did not
have a demand to create their own script neither before the XIX
century nor afterwards - there is no document depicting such demands).
Abkhazian script was created only for political purposes and it aimed
at , on one hand, isolation of Abkhazians from Georgian cultural space
and, on the other hand, for preparing ground for their complete
Russification through accustoming them with Russian script and Russian
language.

Truth of this conclusion is confirmed , apart from the above mentioned
circumstances, by the fact that Tsarist authorities often denied even
a fact of existence of Abkhazian script; They prohibited using
Abkhazian and Georgian languages in schools and churches; Forcing
Abkhazians and Georgians to study and conduct church services in
Russian language and so on. For example, in 1864 "Organization of
Restoration of Orthodox Christianity in the Caucasus" published "rules
about parish schools" according to which parish schools opened under
the aegis of this organization were allowed to conduct educational
process in native language. Despite this in Samurzakano (territory of
the Gali district now) where absolute majority of population were
Georgians only small number of parish schools conducted educational
process in Georgian. While the rest of schools together with those in
Abkhazian villages children were taught in a completely unfamiliar
Russian language that did not bring any results.

In 1866 teaching in Abkhazian language was introduced in parish
schools of several Abkhazian villages. But in 1884 "Organization of
Restoration of Orthodox Christianity in the Caucasus" completely
prohibited teaching in Abkhazian and Georgian languages in
Samaurzakano and Abkhazia. By orders of Geoirgia-Imereti synod
department of March 17th 1889 church services and educational
processes in churches and schools respectively in Sukhumi okrug i.e.
Abkhazia-Samurzakano was to be conducted only in Russian language.
Similar restrictions were periodically repeated in 1896, 1898. (For
details see Gvantseladze, Tabidze, Sherozia, Chanuria, 2001: 105-106;
Gamakharia, 2005: 669-672).

(To be continued)

http://eng.expertclub.ge/portal/cnid__5074/alias__Expertclub/lang__en/tabid__2546/default.aspx

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