User:Nanobear~enwiki/SO war background

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The Ossetians, an Iranic-speaking people, look to the Don River area for their ethnic origins. In the 13th century, they were pushed southwards and settled along the border with Georgia during the Mongol invasions.[1][2][3] Ossetians and Georgians have had a long and complex history with periods of peaceful coexistence interspersed with violence from both sides.

In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Georgia stayed Menshevik controlled, while the Bolsheviks took control of Russia. In June 1920, a Russian-sponsored Ossetian force attacked the Georgian Army and People' Guard.

"The Georgians reacted with vigour and defeated the insurgents and their supporters in a series of hard-fought battles. Five thousand people perished in the fighting and 20,000 Ossetes fled into Soviet Russia. The Georgian People's Guard displayed a frenzy of chauvinistic zeal during the mopping-up operations, many villages being burnt to the ground and large areas of fertile land ravaged and depopulated."[4]

Eight months later, the Red Army successfully invaded Georgia[5] and in 1922 the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast was created.

In 1990, as the USSR neared collapse, the longtime anti-Soviet dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia was emerging as Georgia's first independent leader. In basing his campaign for the presidency on a nationalist platform,[6] dubbed Georgia for Georgians,[7][8][9][10] he projected ethnic Georgians, who at the time constituted 70% of the population, as the country's true patriots, to the debasement of South Ossetians as newcomers.

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Q&A: Violence in South Ossetia". BBC News. 2008-08-08. Retrieved 2008-08-09.
  2. ^ Carlos Quiles, "A Grammar of Modern Indo-European ", Published by Carlos Quiles Casas, 2007. pg 69: "Ossetian, together with Kurdish, Tati and Talyshi, is one of the main Iranian languages with sizeable community of speakers in the Caucasus. It is descended from Alanic, the language of Alans, medieval tribes emerging from the earlier Sarmatians
  3. ^ James Minahan, "One Europe, Many Nations", Published by Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000. pg 518: "The Ossetians, calling themselves Iristi and their homeland Iryston are the most northerly Iranian people. ... They are descended from a division of Sarmatians, the Alans who were pushed out of the Terek River lowlands and in the Caucasus foothills by invading Huns in the fourth century A.D.
  4. ^ A Modern History of Georgia, pp. 228–9. Lang, David Marshall (1962). London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. "In the spring of the following year, the Caucasian Bureau of the All-Russian Communist Party formed a special South Ossetian Revolutionary Committee to lead an armed revolt against the Georgian government. A Russian-sponsored Ossete force crossed the border from Vladikavkaz in June 1920 and attacked the Georgian Army and People's Guard. The Georgians reacted with vigour and defeated the insurgents and their supporters in a series of hard-fought battles. Five thousand people perished in the fighting and 20,000 Ossetes fled into Soviet Russia. The Georgian People's Guard displayed a frenzy of chauvinistic zeal during the mopping-up operations, many villages being burnt to the ground and large areas of fertile land ravaged and depopulated."
  5. ^ A Modern History of Georgia, pp. 232–6. Lang, David Marshall (1962). London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference ny was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Brooke, James (2 October 1991). "As Centralized Rule Wanes, Ethnic Tension Rises Anew in Soviet Georgia". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-09-13.
  8. ^ Barry, Ellen (6 September 2008). "Soviet Union's Fall Unraveled Enclave in Georgia". New York Times. Tskhinvali. Retrieved 2008-09-13.
  9. ^ Hughes, James (2001-11-01). "Multinationality, Regional Institutions, State-Building, and the Failed Transition in Georgia". Ethnicity and Territory in the Former Soviet Union. Duffy Toft, Monica (1st ed.). Routledge. p. 133. ISBN 9780714652269. Retrieved 2008-09-14. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ Goltz, Thomas (2006). "The Silver Fox". Georgia Diary: A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the Post-Soviet Caucasus. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe. pp. 48–55. ISBN 9780765617101. OCLC 63187439. Retrieved 2008-10-01.
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