Our History
The Republic of Abkhazia is an independent nation located in the Caucasus, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Abkhazia borders Georgia and Russia.
Greek trading posts were established in what is now Abkhazia as long ago as the 6th Century B.C. The capital city of Sukhum, originally known as Dioscurias, is more than 2,500 years old. The region flourished under the Roman and Byzantine Empires, and most of Abkhazia converted to Christianity early in the first millennium A.D. For nearly 200 years from the 8th through the 10th centuries, the Kingdom of Abkhazia extended over much of what is now the Republic of Abkhazia and western Georgia. The contemporary boundaries of Abkhazia were established in the 17th Century.
Abkhazia's modern history begins in 1801, when in tandem with several Georgian areas the country sought protection against Ottoman rule from the Russian Empire. In 1810, Czar Alexander I designated Abkhazia as an autonomous principality under Russian protection. Later in the 19th Century, oppressive Russian rule drove about half the Abkhaz population to flee.
During the Russian Revolution, Abkhazia was briefly annexed by the Menshevik government of Georgia, but by 1921 the victorious Bolsheviks established the Abkhazian Soviet Socialist Republic as an entity separate from Georgia. However, the Soviet era saw a steady whittling down of Abkhaz independence, with Joseph Stalin and Lavrenti Beria pursuing a policy of forced "Georgification" that suppressed the great ethnic diversity of the region and undermined Abkhaz language and culture.
Abkhazia persisted in its demands for autonomy throughout the Soviet era, and large Abkhazian protests in 1978 were among the first public demonstrations that would soon lead to the decline and eventual collapse of the USSR and the Eastern Bloc countries.
Beginning in 1988 the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic unilaterally adopted measures aimed at stamping out the autonomy of Abkhazia and other distinct regions. When the new Soviet Union treaty was signed in 1990, Abkhazia declared its sovereignty. In 1992, an Abkhazian proposal of territorial sovereignty and a federation with Georgia was accepted by the United Nations but rejected by Georgia, which launched an invasion of Abkhazia.
The resulting war between Georgia and Abkhazia lasted more than a year, and in September of 1993 Abkhaz troops finally ousted Georgian forces. The United Nations, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe agreed in 1994 to a plan for peaceful settlement of the conflict and deployment of CIS peace-keeping troops in the area.
On November 26, 1994, Abkhazia adopted a new constitution and held national elections. Georgia rejected the results. Russia, Georgia and other CIS nations imposed economic sanctions on Abkhazia. This has had severe impacts on the economic growth and development of Abkhazia.
Following Georgia's defeat in the August 2008 war, Russia abandoned its economic sanctions, and on August 26, 2008 became the first nation to recognize independent Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
