As for the maps, I've scanned them in from a book I recently acquired, Konflikty v Abkhazii i IUzhnoi Osetii: Dokumenty 1989-2006 gg. I was expecting a dry compilation of documents and perhaps some black-and-white maps - imagine my surprise when the book arrived with two inlaid full-color maps and maps on each of the endpapers.
The book is published in Moscow and at least one of the maps appears to have been authored by a relative of Abkhazia's de facto leader Sergei Bagapsh, so it is quite possible that the maps are designed to make subtle and perhaps deceptive political points (this is also suggested by the somewhat tendentious title of the second map - rough translations of the map titles appear as captions below).
Nevertheless, they are so well-designed that I couldn't resist posting them (though I'll be happy to take them down if the copyright holders object!), and I would imagine that at least the ones based on 1989 figures are reliable. The map titled "peacekeeper deployment" also contains ethnic breakdown figures, but they are based on the questionable 2002 census figures arrived at by the de facto Abkhazian authorities.
Click on the images to expand them:
Ethnic minorities in Georgia (based on the 1989 census)
Ethnic minorities within (the internationally recognized borders of) Georgia(based on 2002 figures)
Abkhazia: an ethnic map based on the 1989 census
Republic of Abkhazia and peacekeeper deployment
4 comments:
I think the graphic below could be interesting for you.
Demographic change in Abkhazia
http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/georgia-abkhazia/graph2.php
And this one;
The ethno-demographic aspect of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict by Teymuraz A. Achugba
http://www.circassianworld.com/Achugba.html (Please see the graphic below of page)
The mass-immigration of Kartvelians (mostly Mingrelians) goes back to the late 1930s. Abkhaz's script was then altered from a roman to a Georgian base. Abkhaz-language schools were summarily closed in 1945-6, following by a ban on broadcasting and publications. The Abkhazians as a nation were due to face transportation (like the numerous other peoples transported by Stalin from the Koreans in the late 1930s through to Abkhazia's Greeks in the late 1940s), and, as a 'scholarly' justification for that, the literary-historian P'avleIngoroq'va was commissioned to argue in print that the Abkhazians only arrived in Abkhazia in the 17th century, conquering the 'original' Abkhazians of history, who were thus a 'Georgian' tribe. This calumny was revived in the heady days of Georgian nationalism from 1988 AND IS WIDELY BELIEVED BY MANY ORDINARY KARTVELIANS, who for this reason still regard the Abkhazians as unentitled to be living in Abkhazia. The Georgian general leading the invading forces in the autumn of 1992, Gia Q'arq'arashvili, stated on TV that he would sacrifice 100,000 Georgians to kill all 93,000 Abkhazians, if that is what it took to keep Georgia's borders inviolate', and a similar threat came from the head of Georgia's wartime administration, Giorgi Khaindrava, on the pages of Le Monde Diplomatique in April 1993.
It was no accident that the Abkhazian research-institute and archives were torched (after cherry-picking) in Nov 1992 -- it was done to try to erase documentary proof of the Abkhazians' presence over the centuries (not to say millennia) on Abkhazian soil.
Also, when it comes to the fate of refugees and their right to return home, what is to be said of those Abkhazian descendants (over 300,000) of those more or less forced to leave Abkhazia, when it was populated virtually exclusively by Abkhazians, in 1864?
More maps
Map of Europe in Year 800, Southeast
ttp://www.euratlas.com/travel_time/europe_south_east_0800.html
Map of Europe in Year 900, Southeast
http://www.euratlas.com/travel_time/europe_south_east_0900.html
Map of Europe in Year 1000, Southeast
http://www.euratlas.com/travel_time/europe_south_east_1000.html
Mtn, thanks, I had seen that Conciliation Resources graphic (and even used it in a paper I wrote to explain the main root Abkhaz grievance), on the other hand I don't think it necessarily works to rewind history to some prior point when one's "favored" group was the majority and demand that borders be based on that situation. At some point, actually, that argument will work against Georgia's territorial integrity, as maintaining the GSSR borders will represent "rewinding" to a point in the past. But the point is that picking some point in the past when group X controlled the territory will just be countered by supporters of group Y pointing out a different point in time when they controlled the territory.
I know, also, though not it seems as much as you, about the politicization of history during the Soviet period and the degree to which it sowed the seeds (or perhaps "added gasoline to the fire" would be a better metaphor) of some of the ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus. Tendentious things were written and published on all sides of all conflicts, as far as I know, because at the time they were not conflicts but simply different groups being allowed to define their national "histories" within the boundaries of narratives acceptable to Soviet power.
As for the over-1000-year-old maps, they may be interesting as historical curiosities but in my opinion they are of less than zero value in addressing the current situation on the ground.
In any event, I was glad to discover your blog as it looks like a good compilation of current info and reports on Abkhazia.
A nice map of Abkhazia http://caucasica.org/lore/detail.php?ID=1233
Good work...
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