Democratic Republic of Georgia

	საქართველოს დემოკრატიული რესპუბლიკა
	Sakartvelos Demokratiuli Respublika
	Democratic Republic of Georgia
	1918-1921
flag	coat of arms
Official language	Georgian
Capital	Tbilisi
Form of government	Parliamentary republic
Head of state	President of the National Assembly Nikolos Cheidze
Head of government	Prime Minister Noe Ramishvili (1918–1919) ; Prime Minister Noe Schordania (1919–1921)
surface	107,600 km²
population	2,500,000
currency	Georgian maneti
independence	May 26, 1918
National anthem	Dideba
Time zone	UTC + 4

The Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG; Georgian საქართველოს დემოკრატიული რესპუბლიკა , Sakartvelos Demokratieiuli Respublika ), 1918–1921, was the First Republic of Georgia . It was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire in the February Revolution of 1917 .

The Democratic Republic of Georgia bordered Russia and the Mountain Republic of the Northern Caucasus to the north, the Southwest Caucasian Republic and Turkey to the southwest, and the Democratic Republic of Armenia and the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan to the south . Their national territory covered about 107,600 square kilometers and had 2.5 million inhabitants. The capital was Tbilisi and the official language was Georgian . The DRG was proclaimed on May 26, 1918 after the break up of the Transcaucasian Federation and led by the Menshevik Social Democratic Labor Party . Constantly struggling with internal and external problems, the young state was unable to withstand an invasion by the Soviet Russian Red Army and collapsed during February and March 1921.

prehistory

After the February Revolution in 1917 and the collapse of the Tsarist regime in the Caucasus, the Russian Provisional Government set up a Special Transcaucasian Committee ( Russian: Osoby Sakawkasski Komitet , or Osakom for short) to administer the Caucasus. It was based on the councils, modeled on the Petrograd Council of Revolutionary Democrats in Georgia, which were firmly in the hands of the Mensheviks.

The October Bolshevik Revolution fundamentally changed the situation. The Caucasian Soviets refused to recognize Lenin's regime . The threat of a growing number of soldiers from the former Russian Caucasus Army defending against the Bolsheviks, ethnic clashes and anarchy in the regions forced the Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijani politicians to create a unified regional government, the Transcaucasian Commissariat , on November 14, 1917 . On January 23, 1918, a regional parliament, the Sejm , was established. On April 22, 1918, he proclaimed the independence of Transcaucasia and the establishment of the Transcaucasian Federation .

Transcaucasian independence was received ambiguously in Georgia. Many were influenced by the ideas of Ilia Chavchavadse and the national movement of the late 19th century and insisted on their own statehood. They felt empowered by the restoration of autocephaly by the Georgian Orthodox Church on March 12, 1917, and the establishment of the Tbilisi State University , the first independent Georgian university, in 1918. In contrast, Mensheviks viewed independence from Russia as a temporary step against the October Revolution and condemned calls for a Georgian state as chauvinist and separatist.

The Transcaucasian Federation had only a short life. It was undermined by growing internal tensions and the pressure of the Ottoman Empire . In order to save Georgia from a Turkish conquest, the Georgian National Assembly (Georgian Dampudsnebeli Kreba ) started negotiations with Germany , which was ready to protect an independent Georgia from the attack of the Ottoman Empire. In return, Berlin demanded privileges in the exploitation of manganese and copper as well as the oil transfer from the Caspian Sea . The Reichsleitung had already stationed 3,000 German soldiers in Georgia to ensure the supply of raw materials to German heavy industry.

In 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II planned to create a south-eastern alliance, protected by Germany, as an anti-Bolshevik region between the Ukraine and the Caspian Sea . It was supposed to act as a bridge to Central Asia to threaten the British position in India . German military officers, including Erich Ludendorff , First Quartermaster General in the Supreme Army Command (OHL), relied on a Caucasus bloc under German influence with Georgia as its core.

Existence period

Emergence

Declaration of Independence of Georgia, May 1918

On May 26, 1918, the National Assembly declared Georgia independent as the Democratic Republic of Georgia . Two days later, Germany became the first state to recognize the Georgian Republic. This was followed by Romania , Argentina , the Turkey . In a supplementary agreement to the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed in Berlin on August 27, 1918, Soviet Russia renounced Georgia.

Original of the Declaration of Independence, May 1918

The President of the National Assembly was Nikolos Tschcheidze . The first Prime Minister of Georgia was the social democrat Noe Ramishvili . He headed a coalition government made up of Menshevik Social Democrats, National Democrats and Social Federalists. In the Treaty of Batumi on June 4, his government ceded mainly the regions inhabited by Muslims, including the cities of Batumi, Ardahan , Artvin , Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki, to the Ottoman Empire. With the help of German troops under the command of General Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein , Georgia was able to avert a conquest of Abkhazia by the Bolsheviks.

After Germany's capitulation and the Allied victory in World War I , German forces were withdrawn from the Caucasus. British army units took their place. Georgia's government changed its foreign policy orientation, took advantage of the situation and occupied various regions that it had lost to the Ottoman Empire in the spring. The British-occupied Batumi was not controlled by Georgia until 1920. On December 25, 1918, British forces were stationed in Tbilisi.

Georgia's relations with its neighbors have been difficult. There were territorial conflicts with Armenia, Azerbaijan and General Anton Ivanovich Denikin's White Army . Armed clashes broke out with Armenia and the Denikin Army. The British military mission tried to mediate between the warring parties in order to unite all anti-communist forces in the region.

Parliamentary elections

Prime Minister Noe Schordania

Article 1 of the law of November 22, 1918 on elections to legislative bodies, which guaranteed the right to vote and stand for women , was adopted by the National Council and the Council of Ministers.

Parliamentary elections were held in Georgia on February 14, 1919. All men and women over 20 years of age could vote in free and secret ballot. They voted for the Social Democrats with an overwhelming majority. Your party won 81.5% of the vote (408,541 voters). The Social Federalists voted 6.7% (33,630 voters), the National Democrats 6.0% (30,128 voters), the Social Revolutionaries 4.28 (21,453 voters), and the Radicals 0.61% (3107 voters). and for the Armenian Dashnak party 0.46% (2353 voters). Other parties were only able to collect 0.39% of the vote (2000 voters).

The constitution of February 21, 1921 confirmed the right to vote for women in Article 4.

On March 21, the leader of the Social Democrats, Noe Schordania, formed a new government. Because of economic, ethnic and social tensions and the lack of modern agrarian reform , there were armed peasant uprisings and ethnic conflicts in Abkhazia and in particular South Ossetia (see Georgian-South Ossetian conflict (1918–1920) ). They were exploited by Bolshevik forces and supported by Soviet Russia.

Reforms

The Menshevik government finally managed to implement agrarian reform and comprehensive social legislation . It introduced the eight-hour working day and cracked down on Bolshevik and separatist movements. In 1919 the judicial system was reformed and regional self-government expanded. Abkhazia was granted state autonomy. On February 21, 1921, the National Assembly adopted Georgia's first constitution based on the Swiss model . Nevertheless, a rival nationalism shaped the country. It was particularly evident in South Ossetia in 1920. Various contemporaries observed growing nationalism among the Mensheviks as well.

Soviet print

In 1920 Soviet Russia's pressure on Georgia increased. After the Red Army's victory over the White Army and its advance on the borders in the Caucasus, the situation in the Democratic Republic of Georgia became very tense. In January the Soviet government offered Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan a military alliance against the White Armies in southern Russia and the Caucasus. The Georgian government refused to join the alliance. She referred to her policy of neutrality and non-interference, but suggested opening negotiations on the settlement of relations between the two countries in the hope that this would eventually lead to the recognition of Georgian independence by Moscow. The Russian leadership reacted with harsh criticism to the rejection, and the local communists tried to organize various mass protests against the government, but were unsuccessful.

Intervention attempts

In April 1920, the 11th Army of the Workers and Peasants Red Army established the Soviet regime in Azerbaijan and the chairman of the Caucasian Bureau of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) , Sergo Ordzhonikidze , asked Moscow for permission to advance into Georgia. Although there was no official approval from Lenin and the Soviet leadership, local Bolsheviks tried to capture the Tbilisi Military School on May 3, 1920. However, they were repulsed by the school's cadets under the command of General Giorgi Kvinitadze . The Georgian government mobilized its army and appointed Kvinitadze as commander in chief. In the meantime, Soviet forces tried to penetrate Georgian territory. Officially, it was the answer to alleged support of Azerbaijani rebels against the Soviet power in Gäncä . The shock troops were thrown back from Kvinitadze after skirmishes on the Red Bridge . After a few days, peace talks began in Moscow.

International recognition

Georgia's independence was recognized in the Moscow Peace Treaty of May 7, 1920. In return, the Georgian government allowed the Bolshevik organizations to operate freely and guaranteed Soviet Russia not to tolerate any foreign troops on Georgian soil. Although Georgia was initially denied membership in the League of Nations , it was recognized under international law by the Allies of the First World War on January 27, 1921.

However, that didn't protect the country from being attacked by Soviet Russia just a month later. After Armenia was occupied by the Red Army in 1920, Georgia was surrounded to the north, east and south by politically hostile Soviet republics. Britain had withdrawn from the Caucasus and Georgia could not count on outside aid.

According to Soviet sources, relations with Georgia deteriorated after alleged violations of the peace treaty, re-arrests of Georgian Bolsheviks, obstruction of Red Army convoys en route to Armenia, and strong suspicions that Georgia would be helping armed rebels in the northern Caucasus. Conversely, the government in Tbilisi accused Moscow of organizing riots in Georgia and provoking border incidents in the Zaqatala region, which is disputed with Armenia . The Lori neutral zone was also a bone of contention after Soviet Armenia demanded that Georgia withdraw its troops stationed there after the fall of the Armenian Republic.

Occupation by the Red Army

The peace between Russia and Georgia, which was initially strongly supported by Lenin, ended on February 11, 1921 when Armenian and Georgian Bolsheviks initiated an uprising in Lori. The 11th Army of the Red Workers 'and Peasants' Army stationed in Armenia crossed the border on February 16, 1921. The desperate resistance of the poorly organized Georgian People's Guard was wiped out on February 25 near Tbilisi. Over 300 cadets from the Tbilisi Military School were killed in defense of the capital. The Georgian Bolsheviks proclaimed the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic .

The DRG government first fled to Kutaisi , after the attack by the 9th Army of the Red Workers 'and Peasants' Army from the west to Batumi . On March 18, she left Georgia with the French ship Ernest Renan . The National Assembly had met one last time the day before and had decided that the government should go into exile in France .

politics

Legal system

Nikolos Tschcheidze, President of the National Assembly

The declaration of independence of May 26, 1918 underlined the main features of future democracy. In it , the Democratic Republic of Georgia guarantees every citizen equal political rights within its borders, regardless of their nationality, belief, social rank or gender . On the same day, the National Assembly set up a government led by Noe Ramishvili. In October 1918, the National Assembly was renamed Parliament and prepared new elections for February 14, 1919.

During its two-year activity from 1919 to 1921, the newly elected parliament passed 126 laws. These included the citizenship law, regional elections, national defense, the official language, the agricultural system, the legal system, political and administrative regulations for ethnic minorities (including a law on the People's Council of Abkhazia), public education, and various laws and regulations on financial policy, the Georgian Railways , Trade and Domestic Production. On February 21, 1921, Parliament passed the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. It was the first modern constitution in Georgian history.

The prime minister was the highest office in the executive branch . Its owner was elected by parliament for one year. The office could only be extended by one year at a time. The prime minister appointed the ministers and was responsible for governing the country and representing Georgia abroad.

The government records of the Democratic Republic of Georgia have been stored at Harvard University in Cambridge , Massachusetts since 1974 . In 1997 they were handed over to the State Archives in Tbilisi.

geopolitics

The borders of Georgia arose between 1918 and 1921 from border conflicts with neighboring states and the subsequent treaties and agreements.

In the north, Georgia bordered various polities (later: mountain republic ) that had emerged during the Russian civil war until the Bolsheviks finally established their power in the spring of 1920. The border between Soviet Russia and Georgia was regulated by the Moscow Peace Treaty of May 7, 1920. In the Sochi conflict with the Russian White Army , the Sochi district temporarily came under Georgian control.

In the southwest, the border with Turkey changed in the course of the First World War and was modified again after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. Georgia gained control of Artvin, Ardahan, parts of Batumi Province, Akhaltsiche and Akalkalaki. Batumi was fully incorporated into the DRG after Great Britain withdrew from the area in 1920.

The border conflicts with Armenia over part of the Borchalo district led to a brief war between the two countries in December 1918. The Lori neutral zone, created after the British intervention, was retaken from Georgia after the breakup of the Armenian Republic in late 1920.

To the southeast, Georgia bordered Azerbaijan, which claimed control of the Zaqatala district . However, the confrontation never resulted in combat, and relations were generally peaceful until the Sovietization of Azerbaijan. Both the concepts of the DRG government and the Georgian constitution of 1921 granted Zaqatala, like Abkhazia and Ajaria, a certain degree of autonomy.

After the Soviet occupation of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, fundamental territorial changes occurred, through which Georgia lost almost a third of its national territory. Artwin, Ardahan and parts of the Batumi province were ceded to Turkey, and Armenia got the area around Lori. Azerbaijan received the Zaqatala district. Part of the Georgian border areas in the Greater Caucasus became part of Russia.

Government in exile

After the annexation of the Democratic Republic of Georgia by Soviet Russia , the DRG government first settled in the French capital Paris , where it operated an official embassy until 1933 , then the so-called Georgian office . In 1922 it took its seat in Leuville-sur-Orge , 25 kilometers from the French capital. France recognized the government in exile as the official government of Georgia until 1974.

The government-in-exile supported Georgian guerrilla units in resisting the occupation. In the August uprising of 1924 they tried to regain power in the Democratic Republic. But the attempt failed. Thousands of Georgian opponents of the regime were murdered in the weeks that followed. Some managed to flee abroad.

military

The People's Guard was the country's official army. It was founded on September 5, 1917, initially as the "Workers Guard", then renamed the "Red Guard" and finally got its final name. Their organization was highly politicized and was directly under the control of the Georgian parliament. The Department of Defense had limited authority. The commanding officer of the guard from 1917 to 1921 was the Menshevik Valiko Jugheli.

The Democratic Republic of Georgia also formed a regular army. Only part of her was under arms in peacetime. The majority of soldiers were on leave from the front and were waiting for orders. If the republic were threatened, the General Staff would have called them to arms. Although Georgia had close to 200,000 World War I veterans, including many trained generals and officers, the government failed to establish an effective defense system. In 1921 this contributed to the fall of the first republic.

Education, science and culture

The most important cultural event in the Democratic Republic of Georgia was the founding of the Tbilisi State University in 1918. This fulfilled a long-cherished wish of the Georgian intelligentsia, who had felt neglected by the tsarist regime for decades. In addition to the university, high schools in Tbilisi, Batumi, Kutaisi, Osurgeti, Poti and Gori, the military school in Tbilisi, the educational seminar in Gori and the educational seminar for women provided access to higher education . There were also various schools for ethnic minorities.

The new freedoms of the first republic gave the literary circle Blue Horns a strong impetus, which initially felt obliged to symbolism and then to Dadaism and which made a name for itself through radical literary experiments. The National Museum of Georgia , theaters in Tbilisi and Kutaisi, the Tbilisi National Opera House and the National Academy of Arts were also cultural pioneers.

Influential newspapers were Sakartvelos Respublika ( Ger . The Georgian Republic ), Sakartvelo ( Georgia ), Ertoba ( Unity ), Samshoblo ( Fatherland ), Sakhalkho Sakme ( Public Affairs ). In English appeared The Georgian Messenger and The Georgian Mail on German the Caucasian newspaper .

economy

Agriculture was the backbone of the economy of the Democratic Republic of Georgia . Georgia was a typical agricultural country with a winemaking tradition going back centuries . A land reform implemented by the Georgian government contributed to a certain stability in this area.

Manganese mining in Chiatura was of great importance as a raw material for Western European heavy industry. At the beginning of the 20th century , 70% of the world's manganese came from Georgia. In addition, in 1918 Georgia had been the most important transit corridor for oil transports from the Caspian Sea for decades . The most important export port was Batumi, where the Transcaucasian Railway from Baku in Azerbaijan ended.

The lack of international recognition and the government's unsuccessful economic policy hampered the country's development and Georgia went through an economic crisis. However, in 1920 and 1921 there were first signs of economic recovery.

Aftermath

Georgia's independence between 1918 and 1921 was short-lived, but it had a lasting impact on the development of Georgians' national sentiment . It was the main reason why the country became one of the most active forces pushing for more independence in the Soviet Union. National movement leaders in the late 1980s repeatedly referred to the Democratic Republic of Georgia as a symbol of victory over the Russian Empire and drew parallels with the contemporary situation.

When Georgia declared its independence on April 9, 1991, it became the legal successor to the Democratic Republic of Georgia. The Supreme Soviet of Georgia passed a law on the restoration of Georgia's state independence . The state symbols of the DRG were adopted by parliament and were in use until 2004. The foundation day of the DRG, May 26th, is Independence Day and a national holiday in Georgia .

The self-image of the German Social Democrats towards the KPD was also strongly shaped by the history of the first Republic of Georgia. She was seen as a model example of how the Russian Communist Party dealt with social democrats from other nations. The text Georgia: A Social Democratic Peasant Republic , written by Karl Kautsky in 1921, evaluates the Red Army's actions as "Moscow Bonapartism" . Bolshevism has become "a synonym for constant war, hunger and poverty and also for the abolition of all freedom for proletarian movements" .

literature

Zurab Avalishvili: The independence of Georgia in international politics 1918-1921 . Headley, London 1940.
Matthias Dornfeldt, Enrico Seewald: Germany and Georgia. The history of official relations , be.bra Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-95410-233-4
Irakli Iremadze: The Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921) - A Model of the European Welfare State? In: Luka Nakhutsrishvili (ed.): Georgia, re-spelled. Politics and culture of a country on the way to Europe . transcript, Bielefeld 2018. ISBN 978-3-8376-4533-0 , pp. 63–74.
Karl Kautsky: Georgia. A social democratic peasant republic. Impressions and observations . Wiener Volksbuchhandlung, Vienna 1921.
Georgij Kvinitadze: Moi vospominanija v gody nezavisimosti Gruzii 1917-1921 . YMCA, Paris 1985 (Russian).
Eric Lee: The Experiment. Georgia's Forgotten Revolution 1918-1921 , ZED, London 2017.
Alexandre Manvelichvili: Histoire de la Géorgie . Editions de La Toison d'Or, Paris 1951.
Clemens Martin: Georgia and the founding of the USSR . University of Munich, Master's thesis, Munich 1981.
Iraklij Tseretelli: Séparation de la Transcaucasie et de la Russie et Indépendance de la Géorgie . Imprimerie Chaix, Paris 1919.
Werner Zürrer: Caucasus 1918–1921. The struggle of the great powers for the land bridge between the Black and Caspian Seas . Düsseldorf 1978.

Web links

Commons : Democratic Republic of Georgia - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

George Tarkhan-Mouravi: 70 years of Soviet Georgia (English)
Avtandil Menteshashvili: Some national and ethnic problems in Georgia (1918–1922) (English)
Levan Urushadze: Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918–1921) (English)
Karl Kautsky: Georgia: A Social-Democratic Peasant Republic - Impressions And Observations (an anti-Bolshevik pamphlet; English)
Leon Trotsky: Between Red and White (a Bolshevik justification; English)

Individual evidence

^ Mart Martin: The Almanac of Women and Minorities in World Politics. Westview Press Boulder, Colorado, 2000, p. 143.
↑ - New Parline: the IPU's Open Data Platform (beta). In: data.ipu.org. November 22, 1918, accessed October 1, 2018 .
↑ Deutsche Welle: Georgian presidential front-runner aims at multilateralism to thaw frozen conflicts , October 31, 2018

[Martin143-1] Mart Martin: The Almanac of Women and Minorities in World Politics. Westview Press Boulder, Colorado, 2000, p. 143.

[ipu-413401-2] - New Parline: the IPU's Open Data Platform (beta). In: data.ipu.org. November 22, 1918, accessed October 1, 2018 .

[3] Deutsche Welle: Georgian presidential front-runner aims at multilateralism to thaw frozen conflicts , October 31, 2018