Georgia: An Introduction
Georgia (Sakartvelo to the Georgians) is an ancient country with a complex history. Located next to the Black and Caspian seas, Georgia is bounded by the snow-clad Caucasus Mountains to the north, along which looms Russia. To the east and southeast lie the plains of Azerbaijan, which separates Georgia from the Caspian Sea. Armenia and Turkey lie to the south. To the West lies the infamous Black Sea where inhabitants of the Caucasus go often to spend their holiday.
Georgians derive from early inhabitants of the Caucasus region and are ethnically part of the Kartvelian people - hence the name Sakartvelo. Unlike much of the region of Central Asia, where the concept of national identity is somewhat of a recent phenomenon, the Georgian nation has been forming for over two millennia. Like the Armenians, this is in part because of their unified Christian religion. Georgians trace their lineage to the Apostle Andrew in the first century and became Christian in the fourth century. The Byzantine Empire heavily influenced the formation of the Georgian Apostolic Autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church. Originally, the church was under the Apostolic See of Antioch, but became autocephalous in 466.[7]For more on the ancient Christianity in Georgia, see Tamila Mgaloblishvili (ed.), Ancient Christianity in the Caucasus (Surrey, England: Curzon Press, 1998). Because of the strategic location of Georgia as a crossroads between the East and the West, numerous empires including the Romans, Persians, Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Mongol, and Russians have sought after the area of Georgia.
After the 1917 revolution, traditional music was replaced by that celebrating communism and USSR nationalism.
