South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast
South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast | |||||||||||
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Autonomous oblast of the Georgian SSR | |||||||||||
1922–1990 | |||||||||||
Map of the Georgian SSR, 1957–1990. The South Ossetian AO is in the middle, highlighted in yellow. | |||||||||||
Capital | Tskhinvali | ||||||||||
• Type | Autonomous Oblast | ||||||||||
History | |||||||||||
• Established | 30 April 1922 | ||||||||||
• Disestablished | 10 December 1990 | ||||||||||
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The South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast (
The population of the South Ossetian AO consisted mostly of ethnic Ossetians, who made up roughly 66% of the 100,000 people living there in 1989, and Georgians, who constituted a further 29% of the population as of 1989.
History
Establishment
Following the
There was discussion to create a united republic for Ossetians, incorporating both North and South Ossetia. This was indeed proposed by Ossetian authorities in July 1925 to
End of the South Ossetian AO
Concerned with the upswing in Georgian nationalism, exemplified by Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the South Ossetian AO began to look to leave Georgia.[7] On December 11, 1990 it declared itself to be a Democratic Soviet Republic under direct control of the Soviet Union.[8] The same day the Georgian parliament dissolved the South Ossetian AO, reducing it to a region of Georgia.[9]
Culture and society
Demographics
The main ethnic group of the South Ossetian AO was the Ossetians. Throughout the entire existence of the region, the Ossetians represented a stable majority of over two-thirds of the population. Georgians constituted the only significant minority, with between 25 and 30% of the population. No other ethnic group constituted more than 3% of the total population.[10] About half of all families in the region were of mixed Ossetian–Georgian heritage.[11] Considerable numbers of Ossetians lived elsewhere in Georgia as well, with upwards of 100,000 spread across the country.[12]
Ethnicity | 1926 | 1939 | 1959 | 1979 | 1989 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ossetians | 60,351 (69.1%) | 72,266 (68.1%) | 63,698 (65.8%) | 66,073 (66.5%) | 65,232 (66.2%) | ||||
Georgians | 23,538 (26.9%) | 27,525 (25.9%) | 26,584 (27.5%) | 28,125 (28.3%) | 28,544 (29.0%) | ||||
Jews | 1,739 (2.0%) | 1,979 (1.9%) | 1,723 (1.8%) | 1,485 (1.5%) | 396 (0.4%) | ||||
Armenians | 1,374 (1.6%) | 1,537 (1.4%) | 1,555 (1.6%) | 1,254 (1.3%) | 984 (1.0%) | ||||
Russians | 157 (0.2%) | 2,111 (2.0%) | 2,380 (2.5%) | 1,574 (1.6%) | 2,128 (2.2%) | ||||
Total | 87,375 | 106,118 | 96,807 | 99,421 | 98,527 | ||||
Source:[10] |
Language
Most people in the South Ossetian AO spoke Ossetian, with smaller numbers using Russian and Georgian; all three were official languages of the region. Though Georgian was the language of the Georgian SSR, of which South Ossetia was part of, most people in the South Ossetian AO did not speak the language; as late as 1989 only 14% knew Georgian, and it was a proposal in August 1989 to make Georgian the only official language of public use that instigated the independence movement.[12] Originally written in Cyrillic, Ossetian was switched to a Latin-based script in 1923 as part of the Latinization campaign of the Soviet Union.[13] This was abandoned in 1938 with nearly every Latinized language switching to a Cyrillic script. Ossetian and Abkhaz were the only exceptions; both used a Georgian script (only in South Ossetia; North Ossetia used Cyrillic). This policy lasted until 1953 when they abandoned the Georgian script for a Cyrillic-based one.[14]
See also
- Provisional Administration of South Ossetia
- South Ossetian Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia
Notes
- ^ "Конфликты в Абхазии и Южной Осетии: документы 1989-2006 гг". Официальный сайт МГИМО МИД России. Retrieved 2021-05-09.
- ^ Souleimanov 2013, p. 99
- ^ a b c Souleimanov 2013, pp. 112–113
- ^ Saparov 2015, pp. 66–89
- ^ Marshall 2010, p. 189
- ^ Martin 2001, pp. 397–398
- ^ Suny 1994, pp. 323–325
- ^ Zürcher 2007, p. 125
- ^ Suny 1994, p. 325
- ^ a b Kolossov & O'Loughlin 2011, p. 5
- ^ Zürcher 2007, p. 124
- ^ a b Cornell 2001, p. 153
- ^ Saparov 2015, p. 144
- ^ Broers 2009, pp. 109–110
Bibliography
- Birch, Julian (1996), "The Georgian/South Ossetian territorial and boundary dispute", in Wright, John F.R.; Goldenberg, Suzanne; Schofield, Richard (eds.), Transcaucasian Boundaries, London: UCL Press Limited, pp. 150–189, ISBN 1-85728-234-5
- Broers, Laurence (June 2009), "'David and Goliath' and 'Georgians in the Kremlin': a post-colonial perspective on conflict in post-Soviet Georgia", Central Asian Survey, 28 (2): 99–18, S2CID 144297310
- ISBN 978-0-70-071162-8
- George, Julie A. (2009), The Politics of Ethnic Separatism in Russia and Georgia, New York City: Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-1-349-37825-8
- Hewitt, George (2013), Discordant Neighbours: A Reassessment of the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian Conflicts, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, ISBN 978-9-00-424892-2
- Kolossov, Vladimir; O'Loughlin, John (2011), "Violence in the Caucasus: Economic Insecurities and Migration in the "De Facto" States of Abkhazia and South Ossetia", Eurasian Geography and Economics, 52 (5): 1–24, doi:10.2747/1539-7216.52.5.1 (inactive 31 January 2024))
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link - Marshall, Alex (2010), The Caucasus Under Soviet Rule, New York City: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-41-541012-0
- Martin, Terry (2001), The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, ISBN 978-0-80-143813-4
- Saparov, Arsène (2015), From Conflict to Autonomy in the Caucasus: The Soviet Union and the making of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh, New York City: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-41-565802-7
- Souleimanov, Emil (2013), Understanding Ethnopolitical Conflict: Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia Wars Reconsidered, London: Palgrave Macmillan
- ISBN 978-0-25-320915-3
- ISBN 978-0-81-479709-9