Kartli
Kartli
ქართლი | |
|---|---|
Samtskhe-Javakheti | |
| Capital | Tbilisi |
| Area | |
| • Total | 21,333 km2 (8,237 sq mi) |
| Part of a series on the |
| History of Georgia |
|---|
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Kartli (
separate kingdom
with its capital at Tbilisi. The historical lands of Kartli are currently divided among several administrative regions of Georgia.
The Georgians living in the historical lands of Kartli are known as Kartleli (ქართლელი) and comprise one of the largest geographic subgroups of the Georgian people. Most of them are
Eastern Orthodox Christians adhering to the national Georgian Orthodox Church and speak a dialect
which is the basis of the modern Georgian literary language.
Etymology
Look up ქართლი in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
The toponym "Kartli" first emerges in written accounts in the 5th-century Stephen H. Rapp of Georgia State University (Atlanta) assumes, "in order to impart the account with a sense of antiquity".[2]
The term itself ultimately derives from
Proto-Kartvelian root *kart- ("Georgian"), which is considered an ancient inner-Kartvelian formation by modern linguists.[3][4] See ქართლი and ქართველი
for more.
However, professor
Carduchi of the Classical sources.[6]
Early history
The formation of Kartli and its people, the Kartveli (ქართველი) is poorly documented. The infiltration of several ancient, chiefly
Arian-Kartli, the semi-legendary place of the aboriginal Georgian habitat found in the early medieval chronicle Conversion of Kartli.[7]
During the 3rd century BC, Kartli and its original capital
Iranian civilizations, Kartli developed a Christian culture, aided by the fact that it was the only Kartvelian area with its own written language. With the consolidation of Arab rule in Tbilisi during the 8th century, the political capital of Kartli shifted to its southwest, but the Georgian literati of that time afforded to Kartli a broader meaning to denote all those lands of medieval Georgia that were alike by religion, culture, and language. In one of the most-quoted passages of medieval Georgian literature, the 9th-century writer Giorgi Merchule asserts: "And Kartli consists of that spacious land in which the liturgy and all prayers are said in the Georgian language. But [only] the Kyrie eleison is said in Greek, [the phrase] which means in Georgian "Lord, have mercy" or "Lord, be merciful to us".[8]
After the
Sakartvelo. The Georgian circumfix sa-X-o is a standard geographic construction designating "the area where X dwell", where X is an ethnonym.[10]
Medieval subdivision
During the Middle Ages, Kartli was traditionally divided, approximately along the river Mtkvari, into the three principal regions:
- Shida Kartli (შიდა ქართლი), i.e., Inner Kartli, centered on Mtskheta and Uplistsikhe comprising all of central Kartli north and south of the Mtkvari and west of its tributary, the Aragvi;
- Kvemo Kartli (ქვემო ქართლი), i.e., Lower Kartli, comprising the lands in the lower basin of the Mtkvari and south of that river;
- Zemo Kartli (ზემო ქართლი), i.e., Upper Kartli, comprising the lands in the upper basin of the Mtkvari and south of that river, west of Kvemo Kartli.
Most of these lands are now part of Georgia's
Samtskhe-Javakheti (of which Akhaltsikhe its capital), and Mtskheta-Mtianeti (Mtskheta is the capital). A significant portion of Zemo Kartli is now part of Turkey.[11]
Later history
With the
fragmentation of the kingdom of Georgia during the 15th century, the kings of Georgia were left with Kartli alone, having Tbilisi as their capital. The kings of Kartli did not relinquish the titles of the all-Georgian monarchs whose legitimate successors they claimed to be. The Europeans, thus, knew it as "Georgia proper" and later also as Kartalinia via the Russian Карталиния [kartalinʲɪjə]. Similarly, the toponym Gorjestān (Georgia) was usually used in Persian in the narrower sense of Kartli.[12]
The kingdom of Kartli was a battleground of the
Russo-Persian War (1804-1813).[12]
Notes
- ^ Rapp (2003), p. 427
- ^ Rapp (2003), p. 136
- ISBN 9783110156584. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
- ISBN 9789004161092. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
- ^ Khintibidze (1998), pp. 90–97
- ^ Khintibidze (1998), p. 103
- ^ Giorgi L. Kavtaradze. The Interrelationship between the Transcaucasian and Anatolian Populations by the Data of the Greek and Latin Literary Sources. The Thracian World at the Crossroads of Civilisations. Reports and Summaries. The 7th International Congress of Thracology. P. Roman (ed.). Bucharest: the Romanian Institute of Thracology, 1996.
- ^ Translated by Donald Rayfield; Rapp (2003), p. 437
- ^ Flood, Finbarr Barry (2017). A Turk in the Dukhang? Comparative Perspectives on Elite Dress in Medieval Ladakh and the Caucasus. Austrian Academy of Science. p. 252, Fig. 19.
- ^ Rapp (2003), p. 420
- ^ Toumanoff (1963), pp. 493–5
- ^ a b c Sanikidze, George (2011). "Kartli", in: Encyclopædia Iranica, vol. XV, fasc. 6, pp. 628–629. Online (Accessed February 19, 2012).
References
- Khintibidze, Elguja (1998), The Designations of the Georgians and Their Etymology. ISBN 5-511-00775-7
- ISBN 90-429-1318-5
- Toumanoff, Cyril (1963), Studies in Christian Caucasian History. Georgetown University Press
