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The Project seeks to study various activities of different ethnic and religious groups living in Tbilisi in the 19th c. -beginning of the 20th c. Several aspects of their interactions will be also examined. From the early medieval times different ethnic and religious groups cohabited in Tbilisi, but the epoch, chosen for the study, has been characterized by the unprecedented ethnic and confessional diversity of the city’s population. Tbilisi, which was known by its traditional ethnic and religious tolerance, attracted migrants from the various parts of the Russian Empire, the Middle East and Europe. This led to the permanent increase in the population of the city. These communities preserved their uniqueness and culture. At the same time, their coexistence created the unique phenomenon – syncretic urban culture of Tbilisi citizens regardless of their ethnic, confessional or social origin.
In the 19th century Tbilisi was the political, economic and cultural center of the South Caucasus. Armenians, Persians, Azerbaijanis, Turks, Russians, Europeans, etc. peacefully coexisted in the city (There were, of course, some cases of the confrontations between communities but those were quickly solved by the common efforts). Alongside the Georgians, these communities played an active role in the city’s political, economic and cultural life.
The aim of the project is to collect and explore materials about different activities (economic, cultural, political, educational, etc.) of each ethnic and religious group and to fit these materials into a single framework. Some activities of separate groups are partly studied but there is no common and comparative study of the Tbilisi population of this period and such approach undoubtedly represents the research novelty of the Project. The Project seeks to collect and explore various primary sources (works of travelers, archival materials, etc.) which are not studied yet. The execution of this kind of research work will be useful both for the professional researchers and for a wide audience interested in these issues. Of course, also relevant information from already published works and various documents will be studied. The complex study of different ethnic and confessional groups of the Tbilisi population, executed in such way, based on current realities, is of great relevance. The interdisciplinary character of the research is conditioned by the study of different activities of these groups and various aspects of their interactions. Such kind of large-scale research will be carried out in Georgia for the first time.
During the period selected for examination, Armenians formed the most numerous ethnic group in Tbilisi along with Georgians. They played the leading role in the economic life of the city. At the same time, Tbilisi represented an important Armenian cultural and educational center.
Russians were another numerous ethnic group. Besides military officials and bureaucratic strata, there were also groups exiled here – Russian intellectuals linked to the Decembrists, sectarians displaced by the Tsarist government to Georgia, etc.
The Muslim community consisted of Persians, Azerbaijanis, Turks, Volga Tatars, and North Caucasians. Sometimes they were named in census list under the common name of ‘Tatars’ (so, Muslim residents of Tbilisi were often distinguished not by their ethnic affiliation but by their confession).
Among Europeans most numerous were Germans who created their settlement – ‘colony’ – in outskirts of Tbilisi, subsequently included within the city boundaries. There were also Frenchmen, Italians, Poles, Greeks, Jews, Ossetians, Assyrians, etc.
During the 19th c. Tbilisi gradually obtained traits of a European city. It concerned many aspects of the city life – social, economic or cultural. This multiethnic and multicultural city with the mix of Eastern, local and Western traditions, the role of ethnic communities in these processes, represented special interest for European and Eastern travelers.
While working on the Project, different types of writing sources will be studied on Georgian, European, Armenian, Azerbaijani/Turkish, Persian, Russian languages. Special attention will be given to the study of the information of foreign travelers about Tbilisi.
The overall objectives of the Project are: 1) the creation of the common database of materials concerning ethnic and religious communities of Tbilisi and of their interactions. 2) Publication of the collection of research papers, where results of the research work executed by the research team will be presented.
As a result of the implementation of the Project, a complete picture, which reflects activities of different ethnic and religious groups, will be presented. From the point of view of the Project participants, the implementation of such project will contribute to the historical studies in Georgia.
The aim of the project is to study various activities of the different ethnic and confessional groups living in Tbilisi. To pursue this objective attention will not be payed to the examination of the Georgian community and focus will be made exclusively on the study of interactions of Georgians with other groups. In line with the scope of the project, works of European, Russian, Eastern travelers and authors will be examined (already published and less-known or unknown primary sources obtained by the members of the research team in the archives of the European, Caucasian and Middle Eastern countries); archival documents, materials from newspapers published on different languages (Georgian, Russian, French, Armenian, Persian, Azerbaijani/Turkish) will be also studied.
As the aim of the Project is to study different aspects of the lifestyle and activities of the ethnic and confessional groups of the Tbilisi of the 19th-beginning of the 20th cc., the research therefore has an interdisciplinary character and will be useful for the research work in the different sub-fields of the historical science and other fields of humanities and social sciences.
The implementation of such kind of the project undoubtedly fully corresponds to the interests of the country. Based on the current troublesome situation in the South Caucasian region and in general in the world, with the frequent ethnic and religious confrontations, the complex study of the Tbilisi of this epoch, where different ethnic and confessional groups coexisted peacefully, preserved their identity but at the same time created a unique community of the city, is of utmost importance and relevance to Georgia. From this point of view, Tbilisi of this epoch represents a unique case and is a vivid example of the merging of cultures.
The Project is carried in the G. Tsereteli Institute of Oriental Studies of the Ilia State University.