George Hewitt
(Professor of Caucasian Languages, SOAS, London University)


Demography

Though the data from the last (Soviet) census (1989) in these parts of the Caucasus are already a decade old, they at least provide a basis for discussing ethnic divisions.

1a. Figures for the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (capital = Tbilisi):

Main Population of Georgia (1979 & 1989)

                                             1979                   1989                1979             1989
Whole Population                  4,993,182           5,400,841        100%            100%

'Georgians'                            3,433,011           3,787,393        68.8%           70.1%

Armenians                             448,000              437,211           9.0%             8.1%

Russians                                371,608              341,172           7.4%             6.3%

Azerbaydzhanis                     255,678              307,556           5.1%             5.7%

Ossetians/Ossetes                  160,497              164,055           3.2%             3.0%

Greeks                                  95,105                100,324           1.9%             1.8%

Abkhazians                            85,285                95,853             1.7%             1.8%

1b. The Abkhazian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (capital = Sukhum):

Main Population of Abkhazia (1979 & 1989)

Whole Population                  486,082              525,061           100%            100%

  Abkhazians                            83,097                93,267             17.1%           17.8%

'Georgians'                            213,322              239,872           43.9%           45.7%

 Armenians                             73,350                76,541             15.1%           14.6%

 Russians                                79,730                74,913             16.4%           14.2%

 Greeks                                  13,642                14,664             2.8%             2.8% 

Ukrainians                             10,257                11,470             2.1%             2.2% 

1.c The Adzharian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (capital = Batumi):

Main Population of Adzharia (1979 & 1989)

Whole Population                  354,224              392,432           100%            100%

'Georgians'                            283,872              324,806           80.2%           82.8%

Russians                                34,544                30,042             9.75%           7.7%

Armenians                             16,101                15,849             4.5%             4%   

Greeks                                  7,072                  7,379               2%                1.9%

Ukrainians                             5,402                  5,943               1.5%             1.5% 

Belorussians                          481                     712                  0.13%           0.2% 

2. The Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (capital = Nal'chik):

Main Population of Kabardino-Balkaria (1979 & 1989)

                                             1979                   1989                Percentage       % in 1989
                                                                        Growth

Whole Population                  666,546              753,531           13.1%              100%

Kabardians                            303,604              363,351           19.7%              48.2%

Russians                                234,137              240,721           2.8%                31.9%

Balkars                                  59,710                70,571             18.2%              9.4% 

Ukrainians                             12,139                12,826             5.7%                1.7% 

Ossetians/Ossetes                  9,710                  9,996               2.9%                1.3% 

Germans                                9,905                  8,569               -13.5%            1.1% 

3. The Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Oblast (capital = Cherkessk):

Main Population of Karachay-Cherkessia (1979 & 1989)

                                             1979                   1989                Percentage       % in 1989
                                                                              Growth

Whole Population                  367,364              414,970           13%                 100%

Russians                                165,604              175,923           6.2%                42.4%

Karachays                             109,196              128,746           17.9%              31%   

Cherkess                               34,430                40,230             16.8%              9.7%  

Abazas                                  24,245                27,475             13.3%              6.6%  

Nogays                                 11,872                12,933             9.4%                3.1%  

[Kabardians                          756                     1,030               36.2%]             0.25% 

4. The Adyghe Autonomous Oblast (capital = Maykop):

Main Population of Adyghea (1979 & 1989)

                                             1979                   1989                Percentage       % in 1989
                                                                        Growth

Whole Population                  404,390              432,046           6.8%                100%

 Russians                                285,626              293,640           2.8%                68%   

 Adyghes                                86,388                95,439             10.5%              22.1%

Ukrainians                             12,078                13,755             13.9%              3.2%  

Armenians                             6,359                  10,460             64.5%              2.4%

       Elucidation of ethno-linguistic terms

The term 'Georgian' has been used since circa 1930 within Georgia/former USSR as a general designation (superordinate) for speakers of all four of the South Caucasian (Kartvelian) languages, namely Georgians proper, Mingrelians, Svans, and Laz (though this last ethno-linguistic group lives almost in its entirety in the Laz traditional homeland, which today is incorporated within Turkey, running from the Turko-Georgian border along the Black Sea coast towards Rize) -- there are also large numbers of ethnic Georgians who have ended up on the Turkish side of the border. I myself do not use the term 'Georgian' in what I deem to be this deliberately misleading enlarged sense (N.B. this obfuscation of ethnic categories does not apply in Turkey), preferring the term 'Kartvelian', the same term as is widely used by linguists to refer to the relevant language-family, which, as far as one can determine, is an isolate, seemingly being unrelated to any language/language-family spoken either today or in the past. Mutual intelligibility among these four sister-tongues is only possible between Laz and Mingrelian. It will be important to bear in mind the ethno-linguistic distinctions within the Kartvelian family during the discussion below.

The other indigenous language-family with whose speakers we shall be concerned in this section is North West Caucasian. This small family consists of Abkhaz (the most divergent dialect of which is Abaza), Circassian and Ubykh (extinct since 1992). A common synonym for Circassian is Cherkess -- in Turkey the term 'Cherkess' has the wider sense of 'North Caucasian'. Linguistically speaking, the Circassian language, which is universally known to its native speakers as 'Adyghebze', can be divided into a western and an eastern group of dialects; somewhat confusingly, the western dialects alone are commonly referred to as 'Adyghe', and this is the source of the name of Adyghea (Adyghe Autonomous Oblast), where the majority of western Circassian speakers remaining in the Caucasian homeland are concentrated -- a further 10,000 or so speakers of the western dialect Shapsugh are found around the Black Sea town of Tuapse ('Two Rivers' in its Circassian eytmology) in Russia's Krasnodar Region. Eastern Circassian comprises the two dialects of Kabardian and Bes(le)ney. When the Soviet administrative divisions were set up in the N.W. Caucasus, eastern Circassians living outside Kabardino-Balkaria were styled 'Cherkess' -- hence 'Karachay-Cherkessia'. As a general rule, all dialects of Circassian are mutually intelligible, though it is easier for western dialect speakers to understand eastern Circassian than vice versa. Similarly, though speakers of the two Abkhazian dialects still to be found on their Abkhazian ancestral lands (viz. Abzhywa, base for literary Abkhaz, and Bzyp) can with some difficulty communicate with speakers of Abaza, it is easier for speakers of the Abaza dialects (viz. Ashkharywa and T’ap’anta, base of literary Abaza) to understand the speech of (Bzyp or Abzhywa) Abkhaz. There is no mutual intelligibility between Circassian and Abkhaz-Abaza. It has not been finally demonstrated to universal satisfaction that N.W. Caucasian is related to any other language or language-family, though some think that the long-extinct Anatolian Hattic (plus whatever the contemporary Kasks might have spoken) may have been related. There is, however, growing acceptance of the theory that N.W. Caucasian derives from the same proto-language as the other North Caucasian language-family of Nakh-Daghestanian.

All the other ethno-linguistic groups mentioned in the above-tables are deemed to be non-autochthonous to the Caucasus, speaking either Indo-European (Slavonic Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian; Armenian; Greek; German; Iranian Ossetic) or Turkic languages (viz. Azeri; Nogay; Karachay and Balkar, which two, linguistically, are regarded as essentially dialects of one language) -- there is a small community of speakers of Semitic Assyrian in Georgia, where speakers of Iranian Kurdish are also found. Georgia also has small communities of Chechens, all the 5,000 or so speakers of Chechen-Ingush's sister-language, Bats, as well as small numbers of speakers of Daghestanian languages. Read more... (CircassianWorld.com)