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From Stephen F. Jones, ed. The Making of Modern Georgia, 1918-2012: The First Georgian Republic and its Successors 1918-2009 (London: Routledge, 2014).

11 “From words to action!”Nationality policy in Soviet Abkhazia (1921–38)1

Timothy K. Blauvelt

As the Soviet regime consolidated its control over thevast territory and populations of the former tsaristempire, it made use of a conciliatory policy towardsethnic minorities that involved co-opting them intothe adminis-trative bureaucracy, industry, andcultural and educational institutions. This policy ofindigenization was referred to as nationalization orkorenizatsiia. It broadly included o cialffiencouragement of the cultural elements of nation-alityamong ethnic groups to speed up their “nationaldevelopment.” This would, it was conjectured, solidifytheir loyalty to the regime and stimulate theirparticipation in the building of a communist future.Yet in such a large and ethnically diverse space asthe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), theimplementation of this policy varied a great dealaccording to local conditions, the interests anddisposition of local elites, and their willingness andability to negotiate the meaning of the concepts inpractice. Thus Soviet nationality policy encountereddi erent challenges in diff fferent areas. Terry Martinpoints out that the Bolsheviks, in applying thispolicy, distinguished between “Western” or moreculturally developed nations with higher levels ofeducation, literacy and conceptions of nationalidentity, and “Eastern” or “culturally backward”(kul’turno-otstalye) nationalities which weresignificantly weaker in all these categories.2 Thuskorenizatsiia faced a variety of challenges shaped bylocally specific circumstances, and experienceddi erent levels of success. Within the category offf“Eastern” Soviet nationalities, conditions andapproaches could vary greatly. Abkhazia on the Black

Sea coast of the South Caucasus was one region thatpresented particular challenges: it was rich innational resources with a well-connected elite. It wasalso ethnically diverse with a minority titularnationality that con-formed to the category of“Eastern” nationalities in levels of urbanization,education, and literacy.Drawing on local archival and other primary sources,

this paper is a case study of the implementation ofSoviet nationality policy in Abkhazia from theestablishment of Soviet power in 1921 until thedestruction of the ethnic Abkhazian leadership and thee ective seizure of control by the central Georgianffleadership in 1936–38. It will examine theimplementation of Soviet nationality policy inAbkhazia in relation to other “Eastern” nationalterri-tories of the USSR, the ways in which localelites made use of these policies, and theopportunities that they presented for indigenouspopulations. The

“From words to action!” 233

reversal of the conciliatory nationality policytowards the Abkhazians after 1936 provides anopportunity to address the recent literature about theulti-mate fate of korenizatsiia by the late 1930s,whether such reversals were a “retreat” from theconciliatory approach, or rather a continuation of alonger-term policy of “state-sponsored evolutionism”aimed at incorporating smaller nationalities intolarger ones with the ultimate goal of fusing them intoa single communist whole.3

The context

Abkhazia was incorporated into the Russian Empire from1810, but con-solidation of Russian control took placeonly after the end of the war for Russian conquest ofthe Caucasus in 1864. The Abkhazians are closely rela-ted to the Adigei and Abaza in the North Caucasus,with a language belonging to the north-westernCaucasian family. They have a long historicalassociation with the Georgians, whose language belongsto the entirely sepa-rate Kartvelian language family.After the Caucasus war, waged against the NorthCaucasian mountaineers (it lasted approximately sixdecades, ending with Imam Shamil’s capture in 1859),the majority of the Abkhazian popu-lation eitherabandoned the region or were deported in the 1860s and1870s, leaving Abkhazia severely under-populated, anda large population of Abkhazian émigrés across theborder in Ottoman territories. Under tsarist rulelarge numbers of Mingrelians, a Georgian ethnicsubgroup speaking a Kartvelian language, resettled inAbkhazia from the neighboring region of Samegrelo,particularly in Abkhazia’s southernmost district,known as Samurzaqano or Gali. As malarial swamps weredrained at the end of the century, Armenians, Greeks,Russians and other ethnic groups emigrated to thearea, settling in the tobacco-growing areas and towns.Sukhumi became a cosmopolitan port city.

Following the collapse of the tsarist government, anAbkhazian under-ground resistance movement, calledKiaraz, led by Marxist revolutionaries N. A. Lakoba,E.A. Eshba and K.P. Inal-Ipa, emerged in the spring of1917 and quickly established contacts with theBolsheviks. With encouragement from Moscow, in thespring of 1918 the Kiaraz leadership attempted tocapture Sukhumi and establish a Military-RevolutionaryCommittee and an “Abkhazian commune” (along the modelof the Baku Commune). After the declaration of theDemocratic Republic of Georgia (DRG) on 26 May 1918,an Abkhazian National Council was established, whichconcluded an agree-ment with the Georgian governmenton 11 June for military assistance. By 22 June,Georgian troops commanded by General Maziashviliseized control of Sukhumi. The Bolshevik insurgents,led by Lakoba, fled to the North Cau-casus, where asthe “Abkhazian Hundred” they continued fightingtogether with Red Army units. The new Georgiangovernment faced daunting eco-nomic and administrativedi culties in Abkhazia, and was met with a series offfidemonstrations, mutinies and uprisings, often theresult of Bolshevik

234 Timothy K. Blauvelt

agitation. Underground Bolshevik cells regularlyreceived instructions, litera-ture and money from theCaucasian District Committee of the Russian CommunistParty.4 The Georgian government was willing to grantAbkhazia autonomous status, but the predominantlyGeorgian composition of the local leadership, theattempt to institutionalize Georgian as the statelanguage, and dissatisfaction with the pace of thenegotiations over autonomous status, arousedresentment among ethnic Abkhazians.5 Members of theGeorgian Constituent Assembly were sympathetic andreported that “the real interests of the Georgians andthe Abkhazians demand an immediate reversal of theone-sided and extreme policy of our government inAbkhazia, which is unacceptable for the majority ofthe Abkhazian population.”6 Not all of those whoagitated against the Georgian government in Abkhaziawere Bol-sheviks: a faction of “independents” in theAbkhazian National Council, including Samson Chanbaand Dmitrii Alania (both of whom would later join theSoviet government), criticized the Georgian governmentand its “chauvinistic policies” from the rostrum ofthe National Council.7 Not all of the Bolshevikinsurgents were ethnic Abkhazians; a number ofprominent Georgian Bolsheviks were active in theunderground in Abkhazia at this time. However, theKiaraz leaders remained the crucial figures behindanti-govern-ment agitation. In the spring of 1920 anunderground printing press began operating in Sukhumi,which helped the Bolsheviks agitate for a boycott ofelections to the Constituent Assembly of Georgia inMarch. Bolshevik sup-port for insurgencies in Abkhaziaintensified after the legalization of the RussianCommunist Party in Georgia, a condition of Georgia’s 7May 1920 treaty with Moscow. The treaty failed to holdoff Russian designs on Georgia, and the Georgiangovernment was driven into exile by the Red Army inlate February 1921. The Abkhazian insurgency leadersLakoba, Eshba and N.N. Akirtava, declared theestablishment of Soviet power in Abkhazia on4 March.8 On 31 March, Abkhazia received the status of a SovietSocialist Republic

(SSR), in part as a reward for the Abkhazians’ supportfor the Bolsheviks, but also to lend authority to thenew Abkhazian Bolshevik leadership among the localpopulation. In February 1922, this status was changedto “treaty republic” (dogovornaia respublika), andAbkhazia was attached to the Geor-gian SSR. InDecember 1922 Abkhazia entered the new TranscaucasianSocialist Federative Soviet Republic (TSFSR) throughGeorgia. Abkhazia’s status was downgraded in February1931 to an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic withinGeorgia, which itself remained part of the TSFSR untilthe latter’s dismantling in 1936. Abkhazia’s formalstatus prior to 1931 was unu-sual, but theadministration closely resembled that of autonomousentities elsewhere within union republics. Both partyand government institutions answered to Tbilisi (thenTiflis, the administrative capital of both the TSFSRand of the Georgian SSR), as well as to Moscow. Thestructure of the party organization reflected thissubordination, as the organization in Abkhazia had thestatus of a regional committee (oblastnoi komitet, orobkom) of the


Central Committee (TsK) of the Communist Partyorganization of Georgia, which in turn wassubordinated to the Transcaucasian Regional Committee(Zakavkazskii kraevoi komitet or Zakkraikom).Abkhazia’s geographic location and climate gave it

particular advantages, especially after the malarialswamps had been fully drained by the early 1920s.Called at first the “Soviet Florida,” and later the“Soviet Riviera,” Abkhazia’s subtropical climate madeit one of the largest producers of tobacco in theSoviet Union. Tea and citrus fruit production alsoincreased during this period. This growing incomeenabled the local leadership to self-finance nearlyall of its expenditures in the early 1920s (accordingto the Second Congress of Soviets of Abkhazia inDecember 1923, the budget was expected to be insurplus),9 and although the republic did receivefunding for highway, railroad and other developmentprojects from the Georgian and TSFSR authorities, thesense of financial dependency or entitlement thatdrove nationalization policies in other “Eastern”republics, such as Kazakh-stan, Chuvashia andDagestan, during this time is not evident.10 Abkhaziawas also an increasingly popular spot for governmentdachas and vacation resorts, including for Stalinhimself, who vacationed there for long periods duringthe 1920s and 1930s, and in the nearby resorts aroundSochi to the north. This gave local elitesopportunities to interact with central elites and todevelop valuable ties.11

The ethnic composition of the republic remainedunusually diverse, with significant populations ofGeorgians, Russians, Armenians, Greeks and others.12The titular Abkhazian nationality was in the categoryof “culturally backwards” (kul’turno-otstalaia), witha literacy rate of 11.2 percent.13 Although they heldthe key government positions in the Abkhazian adminis-tration, ethnic Abkhazians became a minority,comprising about 28 percent of the population in 1930(about 55,900 out of around 210,000).14 They were alsooverwhelmingly rural: in that same year 96.3 percentof Abkhazians lived in rural areas, making up 32

percent of the total rural population of therepublic.15 The urban Abkhazian intelligentsia wastiny: 6.4 percent of the Abkhazian population in 1930,or 2,063 individuals. According to the 1926 censusonly 2,738 Abkhazians (less than 5 percent) wereliterate in their own language.16 Ethnic Georgians(primarily Mingrelians) made up the plurality of thepopulation at about 34 percent, and were also largelyrural (87.4 per-cent). Ethnic Russians made up a tinyproportion (about 6 percent), but they weredisproportionately urban (60.6 percent, or 23.6percent of the entire urban population). The republicwas divided during this period into five dis-tricts(uezdy), from north to south, the Gagra, Gudauta,Sukhumi, Kodori and Gali districts. The geographicaldistribution of the ethnic populations was uneven. TheGudauta and Kodori districts were predominantlyAbkhazian, the Gali district predominantly Georgian,and the Gagra and Sukhumi dis-tricts had mixedpopulations. The ethnic groups tended to bedifferentiated by occupation, with tobacco farming andtrade in the towns conducted primarily by Greeks andArmenians (although Georgians and Abkhazians took up


tobacco production by the early 1920s), and theadministration by Russians. Abkhazians and Georgianswere involved mainly in other types of agriculture orsubsistence farming. From the establishment of tsaristrule, the Russian language had been the lingua francaboth of government administration and of inter-ethniccommerce. In the southernmost and primarily Georgian-populated district of Gali, however, the Georgianlanguage was predominant and was given official statusunder the DRG.Gregory Massell contends that the indigenous cadres

recruited into the party and the government were aninterchangeable and malleable group of people whounquestioningly fulfilled orders and “[t]o all intentsand pur-poses … were largely anonymous agents of powerand change, filling tem-porarily some slots on theassembly line of a great social upheaval.”17 DouglasNorthrop argues, to the contrary, that theseindigenous elites in the Soviet national regions inthe early Soviet period, like those in other colonialareas and periods, were not a faceless and anonymousmass, but situated between the central authorities andthe local populations, they played “a crucialmediating role between these worlds, and indeed wereinstrumental in bringing about their mutualtransformation.”18 These local Bolshevik elites“personally embodied many of the complexities andcontradictions of [the] Soviet colonial project.” Theyhad both the authority to make decisions and theincentive to subvert the interests of the state totheir own, and as such “give unique insight into theparadoxical functioning of the Soviet colonialsystem.” This is true in the case of the indigenousleadership group in Abkhazia surrounding NestorApollonovich Lakoba, who joined the party in 1912, andwho like Stalin had studied at the Tiflis Seminary (aschool for revolutionaries, as it turned out). Lakobahad long associations with Bol-shevik leaders in theCaucasus such as Sergo Orjonikidze, Sergei Kirov, LevKamenev, and Stalin himself. He headed an extensivepatronage network of Abkhazian elites, many of whomhad fought with him in the underground in thenationalist Kiaraz movement. Lakoba appears to havebeen genuinely popular among the ethnic Abkhazianpopulation.19 Thus unlike most indi-genous elites in

other “Eastern” republics who were distrusted by thecenter and seen by their own populations as centralgovernment representatives, Lakoba and hissubordinates had strong support both from Moscow andfrom the local population (especially amongAbkhazians). Lakoba’s power base and patronage networkwas in government; he was chairman of both theAbkhazian Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom)and the Abkhazian Central Executive Committee (TsIK)(the former was fused into the latter in 1930). Theposition of Abkhazian Party first secretary was secondto Lako-ba’s governmental authority, and at timesLakoba was openly defiant with the local party Obkom,which was directly subordinated to the Georgianleader-ship. Lakoba made a concerted effort to maintainsocial and ethnic harmony in Abkhazia, even when thatconflicted with Bolshevik demands for intensi-fiedclass conflict. Accusations of favoritism and nepotismregularly surfaced. He was accused of bypassing formalprocedures, and downplaying the social


divisions within the peasantry. Lakoba successfullydeflected these attacks, but they were used againsthim and his networks after 1936. One supporter laterwrote in her memoirs that his desire for unity“corresponded with his con-ceptions of a certainsocial harmony within the boundaries of Abkhazia,since Abkhazian life, [was] steeped in atalychestvo,20that is, milk-brotherhood, [which] has over the courseof many generations provided wide opportunities forinteraction among representatives of various layers ofsociety.”21 One dramatic example of this disregard forBolshevik class theory involved an intervention byStalin himself, when in October 1929 a Partycommission recommended Lakoba’s removal due to anumber of alleged transgressions.22 In a letter co-signed and endorsed by Orjonikidze (and preservedamong Lakoba’s personal papers), Stalin protectedLakoba from removal, but sub-jected him to sharpcriticism: “The mistake of Com. Lakoba is that, a)despite all of his Bolshevik experience, he sometimesmakes the mistake of seeking support in all layers ofthe population (this is not Bolshevik policy), and b)he finds it possible sometimes to not subordinatehimself to the deci-sions of the Obkom. I will notmention any such facts, as they are all well known. Ithink that Com. Lakoba can and must free himself ofthese mistakes.”23

The debate on linguistic korenizatsiia in AbkhaziaKorenizatsiia began from the very start in Abkhaziawith the appointment of ethnic Abkhazians fromLakoba’s circle to top leadership positions,especially in state agencies. Indigenization, as inother “Eastern” republics, was ham-pered by a deficitof minimally qualified Abkhazian personnel, and alsoby the underdeveloped state of the Abkhazian language.Abkhazian had only existed in written form since the1850s, and several alphabets had been designed for itscomplicated sound system. It was a complex languageand had never been used in administration or otherprofessional settings; it lacked the necessary

vocabulary. The language of government and business inAbkhazia within living memory had always been Russian.What was more, because of the lack of qualifiedAbkhazians, ethnic Russians filled a large percentageof the bureaucratic and technical positions ingovernment agencies (making up 40–50 percent of suchpersonnel throughout the 1920s and 1930s). Thus fromthe earliest days of Soviet power, the Abkhazianleadership showed little enthusiasm for the idea ofofficial status for local languages. Making Abkhazianthe official language would have deprived them of theservices of the majority of the availableadministrative staff (many of the ethnic Abkhazians inthe leadership were themselves more professionallycompetent in Russian than in Abkhazian) without givingthem any particular benefit in terms of recruitingethnic Abkhazian candidates, who were already in shortsupply. Granting official status for local languageswould have meant encouraging Georgian, which theAbkhazian leadership saw as a threat. UnlikeAbkhazian, Georgian was a fully developed literarylanguage, one

238 Timothy K. Blauveltthat for the most part they did not speak and was difficultto learn. It was the language of the Georgian republic towhich Abkhazia was officially (although rather ambiguously)subordinated.The issue of language in Soviet Abkhazia was first

brought up in the spring of 1921 by Sergo Orjonikidze,who was then head of the Kavbiuro. He expressedsupport for the transition to national languages. Hedeclared that language was:

absolutely inviolable and sacred for every people,as language is the only means through which therevolutionary sermon of communism can penetrate tothe very heart of the working masses of thatpeople. It would be naive, absurd, criminal andstupid to bring the sermon of communism to Chinesepeople in French or to Georgian workers andpeasants in a language that they do not understand.Therefore we, the communists of Georgia, appeal toOssetians, Armenians, Abkhazians and others intheir native language … if Georgians want to carryout their affairs in Geor-gian, then allow theArmenians and Abkhazians as well to carry out theiraffairs in their native language.24

Yet besides its introduction in early classes inprimary schools and the pub-lication of the newspaperApsny kapsh (Red Abkhazia) and some politicalliterature in Abkhazian, there was little success inimplementing Abkhazian language policies in theadministration.A plenum of the Georgian TsK in June 1923 focused on

the decisions of the 12th Communist Party Congress,and declared that Georgian would be the language ofcommunication in all republican agencies, both in thecenter and in the regions, with the exception of SouthOssetia and Abkhazia, where it should be Russian.25 TheGeorgian Central Committee plenum obligated republicanagencies to answer all communications from theregions, especially those populated by nationalminorities, in the language in which they weresubmitted. The Transcaucasian TsIK also took up thequestion of national languages later that month at itsSecond Session, issuing a “Declaration on languages of

state agencies and provision for the rights ofnational mino-rities,” which obligated the Georgian,Armenian and Azerbaijani TsIKs to publish a “Codex onthe use of the languages of both the majority and min-ority populations.” Based on this Declaration, on 13August 1923, the Transcaucasian TsIK issued a “Decreeon the Language of State Agencies in theTranscaucasian Federation,” which required that alllaws, decrees, and other legislative acts ofgovernment be published in Russian, Azeri, Armenianand Georgian.26 The Communist Party organization ofGeorgia, in its turn, declared at its First Congressthat “for communicating with central agencies of therepublic, in accordance with the expressed will of theworkers of each autonomous unit, the native languageof the given people will be used, and they mustreceive replies to their appeals in that samelanguage.” This prin-ciple was enshrined in the firstconstitution of Soviet Georgia in 1922, which


stated that “the national minorities of the GeorgianSSR are guaranteed the right for the free developmentand use of the native language both in their national-cultural and in their general state institutions.”27Yet in Abkhazia, little attention was paid at first

to the nationalities issue, and less still to theofficial use of the Abkhazian language. The Abkhazianintelligentsia, according to the Abkhazian historianB.E. Sagariia, was “for practical purposes ambivalentabout the nationalization of official commu-nication inthe Abkhazian language.”28 There was little discussionabout lan-guage status when the Abkhazian leadershipattempted to formalize the status quo by including anarticle in the republic’s new constitution, confirmedby the Sovnarkom on 1 April 1925, that made Russianthe official language. This provoked dissatisfaction inthe Gali district, where official communication withTbilisi was normally in Georgian. On 21 July 1925, theGeorgian TsK passed a resolution ordering theAbkhazian Obkom to “take measures to resolve the issueof language of communication of Abkhazian republicanorgans with districts in which the majoritypopulations are Georgian or other national minoritiesof Abkhazia (for example, the Gali district).”29Although the resolution mentioned the languages ofother national minorities, Gali was the only districtin Abkhazia with a non-Abkhazian majority population.It was clear that the issue under discussion wasreally the official status of Georgian in the Abkhazianrepublic.The Abkhazian leadership opened the issue to a

controlled public discus-sion on the pages of thelocal party and government organ Trudovaia Abkhaziia,starting with an article on 4 August 1925 signed byLakoba’s deputy, Dmitrii Alania.30 Alania laid out theleadership’s position on the issue; given the multi-ethnic nature of society in Abkhazia, no one locallan-guage should take priority in the state apparatus.This, de facto, recognized Russian’s continuingdominance. While introducing one local language as thestate language would mean ignoring the interests ofthe other nationalities, the Russian language had nosuch drawback, as it “occupies a special position inAbkhazia”—all the nationalities spoke it equally and

it had been the state language “under previousregimes.” Most importantly, it was “the language ofthe Great October Revolution and the victoriousproletariat.” Yet at the local level, Alania waswilling to consider the use of other languages.The first response, on 6 August, was from a Georgian,

N.Ia. Bokuchava.31 He argued that the use of Russian asthe state language was reactionary and a continuationof tsarist policy, and that although for practicalreasons it must continue to be used in state agencies,“in all of our organs in time we must switch toconducing paperwork in the language of the majority ofthe popu-lation of Abkhazia, and those languages areAbkhazian and Georgian.” It was not sufficient thatliterate people all speak Russian, Bokuchava empha-sized, “as we have to deal with the masses.” Thusmaking Abkhazian and Georgian official and excludingRussian was the “Leninist” solution, which wasparticularly important as “our Abkhazia is locatednear the East, and an unhealthy decision on thisquestion would deliver no small blow to the idea of


Soviet power in the East.” On the same issue,Abkhazian Supreme Court Judge V.G. Adleiba argued tothe contrary that Russian should be the sole officiallanguage; the idea that the other languages could beused at the local level was impractical. “One maythink at first glance that paperwork in the native(non-Russian) language could be introduced in villagesoviets in vil-lages with a single dominantnationality, such as Armenian, Greek and so forth; butin reality this is impossible, except in raresituations, as the agencies themselves will be unableto handle materials in all languages.” Should somebodythink otherwise, Adleiba concluded, “let him conductan experi-ment and introduce paperwork in his villagesoviet in the native language; I’m sure that afterseveral days he will himself be horrified by howimpossible it is. Only chaos could result from such anexperiment.”32

B. Ladaria and P.S. Bigvava took up the argument on 8August, attacking the position of Bokuchava, arguingthat the leadership’s approach to the nationalityquestion had been correct: “the filling of sovietorgans with local officials who are Mingrelians,Abkhazians, and Armenians, and the attentive approachto the cultural and economic concerns of eachnationality—all of this speaks to the correct conductof the nationality policy in the spirit of Lenin.”33The Abkhazian peasantry itself would tell Bokuchavathat Abkha-zian and Georgian cannot be officiallanguages: “The peasant knows that he does notcomprise the overwhelming majority of the populationof the region, that written Abkhazian is notdeveloped, that there is no source of cadres who canwrite in Abkhazian; finally, the language isinaccessible to the majority of the population.”Therefore even if it were decided “on paper” to makeAbkhazian a state language, in practice this would beimpossible to implement, so Russian was the onlypossible choice.The paper’s editors, presumably speaking for the

Abkhazian leadership, had the final word in thediscussion with an editorial entitled “From words toaction!”34 They argued that discussions about“Russification” and “Georgifi-cation” were out ofplace and had an air of nationalism about them. There

was no question, they stated, that resolving the issueof the state language in Abkhazia was complicated byethnic diversity and territorial complexity, but thisshould not be an obstacle. “In principle we are infavor of declaring Abkhazian an official language,” theywrote, but this could not be carried out in practice,since “we must come to terms with the fact that theAbkhazian language is not understood by the majorityof the population and that for the time being we donot have enough Abkhazian cadres to service the stateapparatus.” Since reality made the use of Abkhazianimpossible, the only clear choice for a state languagewas Russian, and since Abkhazian could not be madeofficial, “therefore it is redundant even to speak aboutdeclaring Georgian a state language.” The article thenlaid out practical solutions for language use atvarious levels: in districts with a majoritypopulation com-prising one nationality, the paperworkof all organs working at the district or regionallevel should be in the language of that nationality;where no one nationality comprises a majority theworking language should be Russian.


The same arrangement should obtain in village soviets;the language of com-munication between districts andtheir executive committees should be Rus-sian, nomatter what local language they use for paperworkunless both communicating districts used the samenational language. All citizens of Abkhazia shouldhave the right to appeal both to republican and local-level organs in the language that is most convenientfor them, and all decrees and acts of governmentshould be published in three languages: Abkhazian,Georgian and Russian.

The editors went beyond the issue of officiallanguages to the Abkhazian leadership’s approach tonationality policy more generally. Since the imple-mentation of korenizatsiia depended on the nationalcomposition of the per-sonnel of both republican anddistrict state agencies, the authors declared thepriority was to ensure that administrative compositionmatched the popula-tion of Abkhazia, “primarilythrough increasing the quantity of Abkhazian andGeorgian officials, and then that of Armenians andGreeks.” Keeping in mind the different levels ofcultural development among the ethnic groups (andparticularly among Abkhazians), the authors statedthat maximum attention should be given to raisingcultural levels through building more schools,providing the public with more literature andperiodicals in local languages, and creating acultural commission in the Commissariat for Edu-cation(Narkompros) to produce school textbooks in Abkhazian.They also criticized the “negative phenomenon” of theliteracy education program (Likbez) activities amongthe non-Russian population, which were conducted inRussian rather than in the language of thosenationalities.The Abkhazian Obkom discussed the issue on 13 August

and decided to keep Russian as the exclusive languagein state agencies.35 A month later the Zakkraikompassed a resolution suggesting that the AbkhazianObkom and Sovnarkom reconsider that decision based onthe existing decrees of the Transcaucasian and

Georgian Central Executive Committees (TsIK).36Speaking at the Fourth Congress of the GeorgianCommunist Party organi-zation in Tbilisi in Decemberof the same year, Orjonikidze objected that “if weintroduce Georgian [in Abkhazia] exclusively, then allthe other national-ities will be dissatisfied, and thesame applies in relation to the Abkhazian and Russianlanguages.”37 Lakoba, at the same congress, admittedthat the approach of the Abkhazian leadership had beenmistaken: “It all the time seemed to us that the issueof language did not demand any re-examination and thateverything seemed to be going well in this regard,” hesaid, but fur-ther study “demonstrated that thenumerical, cultural and economic balance of forces ofthe nationalities populating Abkhazia does not allowus to be satisfied with only the Russian language,even though it is the language of Great October andhas at the same time great political and cultural sig-nificance.” He admitted that “under the cover ofRussian, all other languages were to recede to secondplace; we have at least objectively reached such astate of affairs, although we did not consciouslycreate it, and we must correct this mistake.” As aresult, Lakoba introduced an amendment to the


Constitution of Abkhazia, approved by the AbkhazianTsIK and Sovnarkom in February 1926, that—borrowingthe language of the 1922 Georgian SSR Constitution—”All nationalities populating the SSR Abkhazia areguaran-teed the right of free development and use ofthe native language both in national-cultural and ingeneral state agencies.”38The issue was brought up again during the Third

Session of the All-Georgian TsIK, held in Sukhumi inJune 1926. Lakoba again demonstrated a contrite tone,but emphasized the practical difficulties:

A year ago the Abkhazians said “Why should we dealwith all these lan-guages? Let’s give it aBolshevik gesture [Davai makhnem po bol’-shevistski]—just Russian is enough for us.” But wecannot ignore the Greeks and the Armenians, thatmass of the population that together is greater innumber than the Abkhazians. The Abkhazian languagewill not take root because it is not sufficientlydeveloped. The same is not true for Georgian,Armenian and Greek. But for the Abkhaz it would begood to be able to write taxation lists in theAbkhazian language or some such requests, and itwouldn’t be a bad thing if they could speak with anold Abkhaz fellow in his native language when hiscase is heard in court. We guarantee for all otherpeoples the possibility to develop their lan-guagesboth in cultural-national institutions and ingeneral state agencies. In Greek and Armenian andother villages we allow paperwork in their nativelanguages. But for now we practically cannot gofurther than this.39

USSR Sovnarkom Deputy Chairman (and soon-to-be-namedTSFSR First Secretary) Mamia Orakhelashvili criticizedLakoba’s response. Seizing on an offhand remark byLakoba that “it sometimes happens that in June andJuly when the brain works a bit slower, certaincomrades give in to the urge to be original,”Orakhelashvili placed some of the blame on improperfulfillment by the apparatus: “If a hundred Abkhazian

comrades will correctly resolve the main question, itonly takes one June or July hero to come along and say‘let’s make Russian the state language for theAbkhazians and the Armenians and the Georgians andeverybody else’.” The suggestion in TrudovaiaAbkhaziia to give Russian official status because it wasthe language of the October Revolution “would mean todeny the entire point of the October Revolution.” Thusthe worker and peasant “would be denied the weapon ofcultural development, the possibility to relate toLeninism—and to Soviet construction”:

To the peasant we say: the language of youragencies—of the state, society, court and school—isyour language … We guarantee you the fullpossibility to use your language with regard toculture and with regard to the stateadministration. Here there can be no vacillation.It must be etched for all time that everynationality living in Abkhazia is entirely


guaranteed the right to use their native language,both as a language of cultural development and forappealing to the Soviet state and government.40

The Azatian commission and its consequencesUnderlying the discussion of official state languageswas a much more fun-damental conflict between theAbkhazian and the Georgian authorities overnationality policy and over Georgian governance inAbkhazia more generally. In the summer of 1925 theTranscaucasian TsIK sent a commission to inves-tigatethe situation in Abkhazia, headed by I. Azatian (anArmenian by origin), which produced a scathing secretreport. It began with a shocking assertion: “Abkhaziais a Soviet republic in name only; in its social-political life there is nothing at all to be found ofsocialism, or the socialist direction, or of yearningsfor socialism.”41 The report was particularly criticalon the nationality issue: “It can be said withoutexaggeration that the Abkhazia of 1925 is not a SovietSocialist Republic at all, but rather a case ofoligarchic rule over Georgians by ethnic Abkhazianswho have as their goal not the Sovietization orsocialization of the whole social-political tenor oflife, [but] an ‘Abkhazification’ of the country bygiving all possible privileges to ethni-callyAbkhazian citizens.” The authors wrote that it wascommon in all republics for opportunists to exploitSoviet power by pretending to be ardent communists,but in Abkhazia “to accomplish this goal it issufficient simply to declare oneself an Abkhazian or asupporter of Abkhazian dominance.” The report statedthat predominantly Abkhazian regions received the bestfinancial resources and that “although Abkhazians makeup 27 percent of the population, all of theresponsible posts in the center are concentrated intheir hands.” The police (militsiia), the reportnoted, was 44 percent ethnic Abkhazian. As the “mostflagrant example of [Abkhazian] nationalism,” thereport cited a circular of the central Obkom of theYoung Communist League (Komsomol) to its branches

stating that only young Abkhazians should be acceptedinto its ranks. Although the circular was retractedsoon afterwards, “the very possibility of itsappearance demonstrates how corrosive national-ismacts even on the youth, and shows what a demoralizingenvironment exists in the Komsomol.”42The authors made a more specific indictment: “In such

conditions, the dominance of particular individuals isinevitable, as is the emergence of a person who ruleseverything and commands everybody. Such an individualhas appeared in Abkhazia in the person of ComradeLakoba.” Lakoba had become “the only authority in thecountry, his word is law for all,” and all of theparty organizations “have lost their independence andhave been deprived of the right to take initiative andto work within their appropriate areas.” “What ismore,” the report continued, “certain individuals whofind favor with Comrade Lakoba are given full freedomof action, including things of a


criminal nature; nobody can even think of holding suchindividuals to account.”

A personalized regime [lichnyi rezhim] is always abad thing, always kills social life and weakensorganizations, demoralizes cadres and encourages aslavish passivity among them. But such a personalregime turns into the greatest misfortune for anycountry when it is linked with a person who isdevoid of a sense of responsibility, a person whois inexperienced and poorly prepared, andparticularly a person who is able to exploit thepower he has seized for personal, family or groupinterests. Abkhazian Sovnarkom Chairman Lakoba isan individual who must be placed in precisely thiscategory. Soviet power must be recreated completelyfrom scratch. Right now Abkhazia is a Sovietprincedom … it is time to turn it into a Soviet andsocialist republic.43

At the heart of this attack on Lakoba lay theperceived dominance of ethnic Abkhazians in theleadership and the failures in implementation ofSoviet nationality policy, particularly regardinglanguage: all correspondence of the soviets inAbkhazia was conducted in Russian, and althoughGeorgians, Abkhazians, Armenians, Greeks andrepresentatives of ethnic groups spoke in their ownlanguages at meetings of the soviets and theirpresidiums, the protocols were written in Russian,which they could not understand:

This terrible phenomenon—a complete renunciation ofSoviet power—is explained and justified by the factthat the state language is Russian. The problem isthat to transfer paperwork into Abkhazian isdifficult or impossible, and transferring it intoGeorgian, Armenian and Greek is not considered tobe in the interests of the Abkhazian people. Thecrux of the problem is that the Abkhaziancommunists govern with only one desire: to make theAbkhazian people dominant in the economic and

cultural life of the country. This is the holy ofholies of their entire political exis-tence. Andsince Georgians, Armenians and Greeks are morecultured than the Abkhazians and the free use oftheir languages would be a ser-ious obstacle tomaking the Abkhazians into the dominant nation, theleaders of Abkhazian social-political life areartificially restraining the cultural and economicgrowth of other nationalities.44

Not only were village soviet members and otherpeasants unable to under-stand Russian, but themajority of soviet chairmen were also illiterate inRussian, and had to approve transcriptions of meetingprotocols without understanding their contents. Inevery soviet, only one secretary was respon-sible forcompiling the protocols, and those secretaries wereusually ethnic Russian, former Tsarist bureaucrats whowere still referred to by the Tsarist title of“scribe” (pisar’), while the Soviet chairmen wereusually referred to as “village elder” (starshina).45

More generally, the report held that the


Abkhazian leadership did not take the ethniccomposition of the republic into account in recruitingcadres, so that the “ethnic Abkhazians always have theadvantage, and … people who are not Abkhazian declarethemselves to be so in order to get work.” Ethniccomposition was ignored when sending students toRussia for study. The report found the explanation forall this was the “low level of development ofAbkhazian culture.” As a result “ … Russian andRussification have turned into a weapon to fightagainst the growth of other national cultures.”The report had three direct results: Georgian

Bolshevik Giorgi Sturua was assigned to serve as firstsecretary of the Abkhazian Obkom; Lakoba was summonedto Tbilisi to report to the Fourth Congress of theGeorgian Party organization; and the Third Session ofthe All-Georgian TsIK was held in Sukhumi to focusattention on Abkhazia. In his speech to the Congress,Lakoba admitted mistakes:

Mingrelians, Armenians and Greeks have recentlybegun to say that they can accept Lakoba or so-and-so and so-and-so, but they cannot agree that allthe administration in Abkhazia should beexclusively in the hands of the Abkhazians. Werealized our mistakes and set out to correct themin good faith … And then we come to the infamousso-called Azatian commission. What did thiscommission uncover? What it “examined” and “dug up”I leave to the consciences of its members. For mypart it will be sufficient to state that we did notindiscriminately disparage this report, although wefundamentally disagreed with it. This commissiongave us no small amount of practically usefulindications, and spoke to us of some ratherunpleasant truths.46

Lakoba then made it very clear that he had strong support at the level of the Transcaucasian Federation Regional Committee:

But we were interested most of all in what theZakkraikom said. The Zakkraikom discarded all ofthe literary exaggerations [belletristika] from thereport of this commission, and with theparticipation of myself and Comrade Alania itintroduced a series of decrees, on the basis ofwhich one must decisively declare that theZakkraikom did not consider the Abkhazianorganization to be so infirm that the mistakescould not be corrected by the responsible Abkhazianofficials.47

Georgian TsIK Chairman Pilipe Makharadze, in hisopening speech at the Third Session of the All-Georgian TsIK in Sukhumi in June 1926, made it clearthat the “Abkhazian question” was still a priorityissue.48 Following Sturua’s critical report, the plenumof the Georgian Central Committee passed a Resolution“On the Work of the Abkhazian Obkom of the Party,”which pointed out the weaknesses of the Abkhaziangovernment: improper regulation of the growth of partyorganizations, weak party-organizational


work, poor selection of leading party cadres, andinsufficient leadership of the Komsomol and the laborunions (profsoiuzy). It also complained of “unheal-thyphenomena in the Abkhazian organization,” such asconflicts, patronage networks (gruppirovki), and non-implementation in certain areas of decisions of thehigher party organs on the issue of nationalization ofthe party appa-ratus. It confirmed a resolution of theGeorgian TsK Presidium on the “pre-sence ofnationalistic deviations, Georgian, Abkhazian andRussian, and also the necessity of decisive struggleon the part of the Obkom against these derivations inimplementing positive relations among the variousnationalities populating Abkhazia.” It proposed to theAbkhazian Obkom that it “imme-diately undertake theindigenization of the Soviet apparatus and the use oflanguages understandable by the local population;strengthen and improve publishing in languagesaccessible to the population; strengthen work amongnational minorities, and take into consideration the‘national moment’ in party construction and in thework of the Komsomol.”49Some measures were taken at the level of the village

soviets. A protocol of the Presidium of the SukhumiDistrict TsIK “On the introduction of three statelanguages” of 28 July 1926, mandated official languagesfor each of the 16 village soviets with dominantnationalities, including six which were Greek and onewhich was Armenian. Commissions were sent to the othervillages to determine which language should be used.50In principle, the central Abkha-zian agencies weresupposed to conduct business with regional agencies inthe official languages of those regions: the officiallanguage of the Georgian-populated Gali district wouldbe Georgian; that of the primarily Abkhazian districtsof Gudauta and Kodori would be Abkhazian; and theGagra and Sukhumi districts and the city of Sukhumiwould conduct business in Rus-sian. Village soviets inthose districts could choose which of the three lan-guages to use as their official language. By September1926 it was reported that executive committees in theKodori and Gudauta regions had switched over to theAbkhazian language, but also that the transition wasmore diffi-cult in rural areas because of a lack of staffliterate in Abkhazian. According to an Abkhazian NKVD(Narodnyi komissariat vnutrennykh del—People’sCommissariat for Internal Affairs) investigation at the

beginning of 1927, the Abkhazian language was in usein only nine village soviets out of 19 in the Kodoridistrict, and 10 out of 21 in the Gudauta district,and in all other villages of Abkhazia official businesswas still being conducted in Russian. The noteworthyexception was the Gali district, where all of the 21Georgian village soviets were functioning fully inGeorgian.51 Thus, apart from some changes at the levelof the village soviets and in Gali, the use of Russianas the official language remained largely unchanged.Speaking about the issue at a party plenum in Abkhaziain July 1928, Lakoba was circumspect:

Here in Abkhazia we speak of three state languages,this is called for by living reality … Theconditions of life force us to deal with thatlanguage that is most beneficial for all thepeoples of Abkhazia. Could we have all


20 or 22 languages spoken in our apparatus? Thiswouldn’t work. So far in reality we have notpractically been able to implement even three lan-guages. We need typists—Georgians, Abkhazians,Russian—it’s hard to find somebody who can speakall three languages. There’s an adminis-trator inthe People’s Commissariat for Agriculture(Narkomzen) who can speak all three, but they jokethat he’s a former officer. Let’s get rid of him tooand replace him with three administrators, but forthat you have to find money in the budget, and thisis not so easy to do. But we should not bedistracted even for a minute from our task ofshifting paperwork in the regions (and as far aspossible in the center) into the national lan-guages. Things are going well only in Gali. But …we publish all main government directives, decreeson agriculture, on cooperation, etc., in all threelanguages where our technical capabilities andmaterial resources allow.52

The issue of cadresA less sensational but significant result of theselanguage policy discussions was the recognition thatnationalization in Abkhazia should be understood inproportional terms, according to the composition ofthe population. Thus, unlike some other nationalrepublics, the goal in Abkhazia was formally stated asalignment of the ethnicity of personnel with theethnic breakdown of the population (although as theAzatian Commission showed, there was less enthusiasmfor implementation in practice).53 A decree of theAbkhazian Obkom of 13 August 1925 ordered “as apriority, the national composition of officials [should]correspond with the national composition of thepopulation of Abkhazia.” At a plenum of the AbkhazianObkom in July 1926, a decree demanded that cadres forsoviets and economic agencies be recruited from localnationalities, and to “reject conservatism in thisquestion.”54Given the deficit of qualified Abkhazian cadres, the

principle of propor-tionate ethnic representation ingovernment organs must have been seen by the Abkhazian

leadership as overly optimistic. However, thepromotion of ethnic Abkhazians was successful in theranks of the Communist Party, where their rateincreased from 10 percent in 1922 to 25.4 percent in1926, and to a high 28.3 percent in 1929,approximately equal to the overall proportion ofAbkhazians in the population (about 28 percent in1930). The actual numbers involved were rather small,though, as the entire party organization in thisperiod numbered fewer than 2,000 full and candidatemembers.55 Between 1929 and 1931 the percentage ofAbkhazians in the party precipitously drop-ped from28.3 percent to 18.5 percent, with the differenceapparently being made up by ethnic Russians, whoincreased from 24.5 percent to 36.8 percent. Thepercentage of other nationalities remained about thesame. This partly reflects cuts in the governmentapparatus, which began in 1927 and concluded with thefusing of the Sovnarkom and TsIK staff in 1930. Theincrease in

248 Timothy K. Blauveltoverall party membership in this period, and theinflux of competent Russian personnel as part of thedevelopment of the coal mining industry in Tkvarcheli,and the expansion of the hydroelectrical, timber andresort industries in the late 1920s and early 1930s aspart of Stalin’s “socialist offensive,” also explainsdiminishing Abkhazian percentages.56

As Russians made up only 6.2 percent of the overallpopulation, their pro-minence in governmentinstitutions is striking. According to Lakoba’s reportto the Third Congress of Soviets of Abkhazia in March1925, ethnic Abkha-zians made up 10.2 percent of the1,280 employees of the state commissariats inAbkhazia, Russians 52.7 percent and Georgians 20percent.57 According to his report to the Third Sessionof the All-Georgian TsIK in June 1926, of the nearly5,000 employees of the state apparatus as of Februaryof that year, only 569, or 11.6 percent, wereAbkhazians, while 2,059, or 42 percent, wereRussians.58 Ethnic Georgians comprised 25.4 percent ofgovernment employ-ees (as opposed to at least 34percent of the total population). An internal study ofthe government apparatus in March 1930 found a nearlyidentical breakdown, with 11.5 percent of personnelAbkhazians, 24.8 percent Geor-gians, and 40.8 percentRussians.59 This trend continued throughout Lakoba’srule, as statistics for November 1936 (a month beforeLakoba’s death) showed that the percentage ofAbkhazians in state agencies dropped to 7.2 percentand that of Georgians to 16.6 percent, while thepercentage of Russians increased to 52.5 percent ofthe total.60 The March 1930 study found that whileoverall 48.3 percent of government positions were“leadership” (otvetstvennye) and 51.7 percent of themtechnical, the Abkhazians were better represented inleadership positions (at 16.3 percent), but verypoorly represented in technical positions (with only 5percent of the total). The situation in the stateagencies appears to parallel those described by TerryMartin in other “Eastern” republics, wherenationalization led to titular nationals in leadershippositions (they experienced no “glass ceiling” to

advancement within the republic). Yet at the same timethere was a “hole in the middle” in which titularnationalities were poorly represented in technicalpositions and among “the trained professionals who hadcontact with the ‘national masses’.” The latter wereresponsible for the success of linguistic kor-enizatsiia in “Western” republics such as Ukraine, andelsewhere in Georgia.61

Confrontation between Russians and the titular group,characteristic of other “Eastern” republics in CentralAsia and elsewhere, was not widespread in Abkhazia,although Lakoba, in his June 1926 speech to the ThirdSession of the All-Georgian TsIK, after reporting thesmall increase in Abkhazian state employees in thecourse of the previous year, declared that “the largenumber of Russian white-collar workers is explained bythe fact that from the start of Soviet power in alldistricts and in the center, paperwork was con-ductedin Russian.” With regard to the ethnic composition ofstate employees, he continued, “we do not expect anyserious resistance to indigenization, but we do notintend to resolve this very important question with abilly club (s dubinkoi). In implementingindigenization of the apparatus and introducing


the three languages, thoughtless resistance ispossible from one or another established group ofwhite-collar workers. We have resolved this issue inthe interests of the population, avoiding excessiveaggravation, avoiding mutual misunderstanding.”62 Alead article in Sovetskaia Abkhaziia on 18 January1927 declared that “in certain agencies we come acrossopen opposition to the activities carried out by thecommission for nationalization and kor-enizatsiia ofthe state apparatus … Certain people suggest, in vain,that under the cover of korenizatsiia of the apparatuswe have in fact concealed persecution of one oranother of the national minorities that populate ourrepublic.” Shortly afterwards, in a report in March1927, Lakoba was clear about the rather precariousstatus of the Russian population in Abkhazia. Unlikeother “Eastern” republics where ethnic Russians hadplayed a cen-tral role in implementing Soviet power,in Abkhazia “we had many Rus-sian bureaucrats in ourapparatus who came to us at a certain time from theCrimea, when the Soviet Army was driving Wrangel out.63

This enemy element of Soviet power receivedhospitality from the Mensheviks.”64 Many of them, heclaimed, had links to the Whites, or were suspiciousbecause they spoke five, six or seven languages andyet were willing to work in the apparatus for amiserly sum, so therefore “in place of these people wemust bring into the apparatus representatives of theAbkhazians, Georgians, Armenians, Greeks and soforth.” He insisted this should not be misinterpretedas an ethnically based dislocation of honest Russianworkers:

Some of our activities of this sort have beeninterpreted as discriminatory towards Russians, andthat we’re not allowing Russians to live theirlives [chto russkim tut zhit’sia ne daiut]. Thisopinion is common even among “honest” Sovietofficials and, perhaps, certain Russian communists …

We are clearly not forcing Russians out … We ridourselves of the unneeded element, and we also putin their place some Russians demobilized from theRed Army who are honest Soviet workers … Abkhaziais a multi-national republic, so therefore weshould not look at it as a country belonging onlyto the Abkhazians and the Georgians or only tothese two nationalities together, but to the othernationalities that populate Abkhazia as well.65

Lakoba returned to the issue of nationality and hiringin his report to the Fifth Congress of Soviets ofAbkhazia in April 1929, emphasizing the approach thatwas elsewhere referred to as “functionalkorenizatsiia,” and was defined in Abkhazia not byknowledge of the Abkhazian language but rather oflocal conditions: “We should not simply replace aRussian with an Abkhazian or an Armenian with aGeorgian. There might be truly able people among officeworkers of non-local nationalities who have studiedlocal conditions well and know our region, and topurge such an employee just because he doesn’t knowAbkhazian, I think, should not be done.”66


Conditions for nationalization were much morefavorable at the local and village levels, whereethnic Russians were far fewer. A comparison of thestate and local apparatuses in early 1931 showed thatwhile Abkhazians made up only 9.2 percent of thecentral apparatus, they comprised 18.8 percent of theregional apparatus. Russians, in contrast, made up42.6 percent of the central apparatus but only 34.4percent of the regional one.67 The situation in thesoviets was even more encouraging for the nationalminorities. By April 1926, 38.9 percent of sovietpersonnel were ethnic Abkhazian, 34.0 percent Geor-gian, and only 4.3 percent Russian (as well as 12.8percent Armenian and 7.2 percent Greek).68 Thepercentage of Abkhazians in the soviets decreased to32 percent in 1927, with Georgians increasing to 38.5percent, Armenians to 13.5 percent and Greeks to 9.9percent, and Russians decreasing to 3.8 per-cent. Thenumbers were very similar for 1929, with a smallincrease in the percentage of Russians (to 4.7percent) and Armenians (to 14.8 percent).69 Abkhazianswere also well represented among the chairmen ofvillage soviets. In 1930 they held 36.8 percent ofsuch positions.70 Georgians held 35.8 per-cent (or 34positions, 21 in Gali, eight in the Sukhumi district,three in Kodori and two in Gagra), and Russians heldonly 5.3 percent (five positions, three in the Gudautadistrict and two in the Sukhumi district).71 TheAzatian commission report noted that Russians were ingreat demand in the soviets as secretaries, but rarelyheld leadership positions there. Those who did wereusually in the districts closer to the towns. Thelargest representation of ethnic Abkhazians was in themilitsiia, where they made up 43 percent of the 235officers in the republic according to a 1926 governmentreport.72 Georgians were also well represented,claiming 47.7 percent of the total, while only 13 ofthe officers were Russians (5.5 percent).73

Education and Abkhazian identityKorenizatsiia policies in Abkhazia resulted inparticular emphasis on primary education. In the 1921–

22 school year, 20 Abkhazian schools were created, aswell as 33 Georgian schools, 31 Armenian schools and34 Greek schools.74 The total number of schools in therepublic increased from 146 (of which 20 wereAbkhazian) in 1922 to 273 (of which 43 were Abkhazian)by 1927. The number of students nearly doubled in thesame period from 10,468 (of which 2,015 wereAbkhazian) in 1922 to 19,179 (of which 6,073 wereAbkhazian) in 1927.75 Most of these schools were seven-year schools, although those refer-red to as Abkhazianhad tuition in the titular language only up to thefourth year, after which instruction was conducted inRussian. Nearly all of the textbooks and syllabi werebrought in from the RFSFR.76 Despite the success increating schools, only a fraction of the population ofschool-aged children actually enrolled—one third in1921, and slightly more than half in 1926.77 In the1930/31 school year, based on a plan approved at theFifth Congress of Soviets of Abkhazia, primaryeducation for the entire republic was finally mademandatory.78 Teacher training courses were started soonafter the


implementation of Soviet power in Abkhazia in 1921,with the first courses held in the Sukhumi CityTheater. The Abkhazian People’s Commissariat ofEnlightenment (Narkompros) instituted two-yearpedagogical courses in Sukhumi after 1926. By 1940there were 2,855 teachers in the republic, but lessthan 22 percent had any kind of higher education.79 Asin other “East-ern” republics, given the demand forcompetent and literate titular minorities, it was verydifficult to retain qualified teaching staff in theeducation sector, especially in the village schools.Lakoba commented on this sarcastically in his reportto the Fifth Congress of Soviets of Abkhazia in April1929: “It’s hard to find Abkhazian teachers; theydon’t want to work in schools. They love to take upthe affairs of the Chinese revolution, to resolve theissues of London or Paris and they abandon theschools. It’s much harder to find an Abkhazian teacherthan it is to construct a collective farm in the mostback-ward village.” As a result, most of the teachersin Abkhazian schools were either Russian or Georgian.“I know people who have graduated from fiveuniversities,” he complained, “but have never taught afew peasants as much as the alphabet. What use aresuch people? We must develop a cadre of tea-chers andmake them work in the villages!”80 On the secondarylevel, a spe-cialized school (tekhnikum) was createdin November 1921, with chemistry, medicine,agricultural and electrical engineering departments.By 1931, there were nine functioning tekhnikums in therepublic. The Abkhazian Obkom gave stipends to ethnicAbkhazian students to study in universities in Moscow,Tbilisi and other cities. Some 106 stipends were givenin 1921, and 73 in 1926 (funded through the AbkhazianSovnarkom). Unlike other “East-ern” republics wherefew titular representatives filled reserved spots incentral universities,81 this was not a problem for theAbkhazian leadership, and a whole generation ofAbkhazian intelligentsia received higher education inthis manner.82 A small number of Abkhazian cadres weresent to study in the Communist University of Workersof the East in Moscow.83

Despite the small size of the Abkhazianintelligentsia, the republic was able to createscientific institutions that were typical of unionrepublics. The insti-tutions and policies that made up

Soviet nationality policy during this period clearlyplayed a role in the development of Abkhazian nationalidentity. In Abkhazia, as in Turkmenistan, localelites and intelligentsia were not just “passiverecipients of a natural culture invented in Moscow,”but “played a major role themselves in shaping theinstitutions and discourses of nation-hood in the1920s and 1930s.”84 Abkhazian national identity hademerged prior to the establishment of the Sovietregime. There had been efforts to develop Abkhazianprimers since the 1890s; the first Abkhazianliterature was published by D.I. Gulia in 1912–13, andthe first Abkhazian newspaper, Apsny, was published in1919.85 Soviet nationality policy intensified this nas-cent national identity through the creation ofAbkhazian schools and other educational institutes,theaters, publishing houses, and radio stations.Through novels, plays and academic works (such asGulia’s six-volume His-tory of Abkhazia, published in1925), Abkhazian intellectuals made use of


Soviet policy and cultural institutions to promotetheir national identity. The Abkhazian ScientificSociety was created in August 1922, and in October1925, on the initiative of the academician NikolasMarr, the Academy of Abkhazian Language and Literaturewas founded in Sukhumi; in 1931, it was renamed theAbkhazian Scientific-Research Institute of Languageand Lit-erature. The Sukhumi Central Malaria Stationwas created in August 1922 and the AbkhazianSubtropical Institute in 1926.86 On the basis of thelatter, the All-Union Institute of SubtropicalAgriculture was created in 1932, and that same yearthe Sukhumi State Pedagogical Institute was opened,both of which had the formal status of “highereducational institution” (VUZ). In 1931 the AbkhazianZonal Experimental Station of the USSR All-UnionTobacco Research Institute began its operations, andin 1932 the Sukhumi Filial of the All-Union Instituteof Experimental Medicine was created.Soviet nationality policy toward written forms of the

Abkhazian language paradoxically created morecomplications than benefits. In 1926 the Cyrillic-based alphabet, developed for Abkhazian in thenineteenth century, was replaced by a Latin-based onedevised by Marr. Latinization of national alphabetswas receiving increasing attention in Central Asia,the Volga basin and the North Caucasus at this time.This had a direct influence on the issue in Abkhazia.The second plenum of the All-Union Central Committeefor the New Turkish Alphabet, a committee establishedto create a uniform alphabet for all Turko-Tatarlanguages, was held in Tashkent in 1928. It wasdecided to create a North Caucasian Regional Committeeand unify Latin-based alpha-bets of the NorthCaucasus. As a result, yet another Latin-basedalphabet was created for Abkhazian. Similar to the newAdygei and Abaza alphabets, it was introduced inAbkhazian schools in 1929. Thus in the course of 1921–37, Abkhazians had three different alphabets, whichcreated obstacles to written Abkhazian both ingovernmental and educational spheres. Yet despite suchcomplications and the lack of interest in implementingthe Abkhazian language at the official level, Abkhazianusage expanded substantially during this early periodof Soviet rule.

In late February 1931, mass demonstrations of ethnicAbkhazians against collectivization took place in theGudauta district. The Abkhazian peasants insisted onthe reversal of measures undermining their traditions,and demanded that they be allowed to emigrate toTurkey. Lakoba and the Abkhazian leadership were ableto negotiate a settlement, and although the secretpolice was mobilized, unlike the North Caucasus andelsewhere, the “Gudauta Incident” did not result inbloodshed.87 The examination of the incident by theGeorgian TsK and the Zakkraikom focused on the inade-quacies of korenizatsiia in Abkhazia. In the“Resolution on the Abkhazian Question,” the Bureau ofthe Georgian TsK blamed the protests on the “dis-tanceof village soviets and executive committees from thepoor and middle peasants,” and highlighted the“absolutely insufficient involvement of ethnicAbkhazians in the soviet and collective farmapparatus, [the] feeble imple-mentation ofkorenizatsiia and weak nationalization of theapparatus in the


center and in the regions.” Despite the effort andheralded successes in intro-ducing local languages,“official business is conducted in the Abkhazian vil-lage soviets in Russian, which is unintelligible tothe local population, and even teaching in manyAbkhazian primary schools is in Russian.”88 In addi-tion to exhortations for better cooperation with poorand “middle” peasants to improve the situation in thecountryside, the Georgian TsK ordered offi-cials fromSukhumi (two thirds of whom should be ethnicAbkhazian), Abkhazia and Tiflis, to deploy for long-term work in the regions. It appealed to the All-UnionTsK for the recall of ethnic Abkhazian studentsstudying in higher educational institutions in theRussian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR),to work in Abkhazia. Finally, the Georgian TsK orderedall secretaries of village soviets in Abkhazianvillages who did not speak Abkhazian to be replaced byethnic Abkhazian party or Komsomol members, or by“reliable and trusted” non-party members, within onemonth. “Analo-gous work” was to be conducted withregard to village soviets in non-Abkhazian villages;it demanded that “indigenization of the apparatus, andthe introduction of official business in the languageunderstandable by the population, be implementedimmediately.”89 The Abkhazian leadership had to“decisively and firmly implement the korenizatsiia ofthe apparatus from top to bottom.” In addition,“continuous six-month courses should be started inSukhumi for 80 people,” for which the GeorgianCommissariat of Finance would provide the necessaryresources. The Sukhumi Party School was to be expandedand ethnic Abkhazian children from “the proper socialstrata” should be “more boldly” recruited into thetekhnikums and other educational institutions. Nofewer than 100 students from Abkhazia (“primarily fromamong ethnic Abkhazians”) were to be accepted intohigher educational institutions in Georgia, and theGeorgian Narkompros was to organize preparatorycourses for them.90

The Georgian party’s interest in furtheringkorenizatsiia in Abkhazia may have had as much to dowith the wish to maintain it within the Georgian

republic as it did with improving relations with theAbkhazian peasantry.91 However, as with previous partyexhortations, there is little indication that theGeorgian TsK’s instructions brought significantresults. A special government commission was formed inApril 1931 to examine the issue, and presented areport that called for more short-term courses forlocal officials. The Abkha-zian TsIK ordered typewriterswith Abkhazian script in June 1931, and courses werestarted in Sukhumi for Abkhazian typists.92 On 29 Julyof that year, the Bureau of the Abkhazian Obkomharshly criticized a Department of Land (Zemotdel)secretary from the Gudauta district (one of the mostheavily Abkhazian districts) for forbidding a villagesoviet from communicating with Zemotdel in Abkhazian.The Obkom then obliged all soviet, collective farm andlabor union organizations to work out concretemeasures for korenizatsiia and nationalization of theapparatuses.93 At the 13th Abkhazian Oblast’ PartyConference in 1932 there were more exhortations toimprove the central and local soviet apparatus and“particularly korenizatsiia and the preparation


of cadres from the local nationalities.”94 TheAbkhazian TsIK ordered another study of the situationin October 1934. At the Seventh Congress of theSoviets of Abkhazia in 1935, Lakoba pointed outinsufficiencies in implementation: “The principles ofSoviet construction demand that in the localities andthe villages, official business be carried out in locallanguages. In this regard, with the exception of theGali district where official business in Georgian isgoing well, the situation is unfavorable.”95 TheCongress ordered the government “to ensure in thecourse of 1935 the transfer of official busi-ness ofvillage soviets and collective farms into the languageof the majority of the population,” and urged“selection and preparation of village sovietsecretaries from among people speaking locallanguages.”96

Policy reversalA dramatic reversal of korenizatsiia began in late1936 with the arrest of several Abkhazian officials,including such important figures as Abkhazian ObkomSecretary V.K. Ladariia, and E.A. Eshba, a co-signerof the declara-tion of Soviet Abkhazia in 1921. Suchmoves intensified following the death of Lakoba inDecember of that year. Early in 1937, Lakoba was post-humously declared an “enemy of the people,” and theGeorgian party appa-ratus and NKVD launched awidespread assault on Lakoba’s patronage networkwithin the Abkhazian leadership. Show trials werestaged in the summer of 1937 of ethnic Abkhazianleaders from the Abkhazian Obkom and TsIK; party andgovernment apparatuses were severely purged. Some 51percent of employees of the staff of state agencies inthe Kodori, Gudauta and Gagra districts were replacedin 1936–37, and at just two sessions of the TsIK inJuly and November 1937, 60 out of the 76 members wereremoved as “counterrevolutionary Trotskyites, doubledealers and enemies of the people.”97 The primaryvictims were ethnic Abkhazians and Russians, mostlyreplaced by Georgians from Lavrentii Beria’s ownpatronage network.98 The proportion of Abkhazians inthe Abkhazian party organization dropped from 21.8percent in 1936 to 14.9 percent in 1939, and that ofRussians dropped from 29.1 percent to 16.3 percent.

Over the same period, the percentage of Georgiansnearly doubled, from 26.3 percent to 48.2 percent, atrend that would continue for the remainder of theStalin period.99 By the late 1940s, party members whohad joined during the 1933–36 period made up onlyabout 0.02 percent (that is, about four individuals)of the total party mem-bership in Abkhazia.100 Althoughnewspapers and textbooks continued to be published inAbkhazian, and representative quotas for Abkhazianstudents remained in place,101 the large-scalecollectivized expansion of citrus and tea farming ledto a massive “resettlement” of Georgians, mostlyMingrelian peasants from western Georgia, between 1937and through World War II.102 The overall population ofAbkhazia grew by about a third to more than 300,000,with ethnic Georgians making up a majority by theearly 1950s.103 More symbolic Georgianization tookplace, such as the change of place


names in Abkhazian to Georgian variants and spellings.The Latin-based script of the Abkhazian language wasreplaced by a Georgian-based script, a rare occurrenceof a national alphabet being replaced by anothernational alphabet that was not Cyrillic. In most othernational areas, Cyrillic-based alphabets replacedLatin ones as part of a more general policy ofRussifica-tion. The process in Abkhazia, by contrast,culminated in the replacement of both Abkhazian andRussian with Georgian as the language of instructionin all schools in the 1944/45 school year (this waslater reversed in 1954, after the death of Stalin).104The most prestigious scientific and educational insti-tution in Abkhazia, the Sukhumi Subtropical Institute,was liquidated and incorporated into the GeorgianAgricultural Institute in Tbilisi.105

ConclusionThe implementation of nationality policy in Abkhaziain the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s showedsome similarities to that of other “Eastern”republics. The Soviet regime set about winning thesupport of the titular Abkhazian population;korenizatsiia played a central role in the attempt todifferentiate Soviet rule from the “chauvinism” of theGeorgian social demo-cratic government. Yet there wasa persistent deficit of qualified titular per-sonnelto fill positions in the governing bureaucracy, bothin the center and in the regions. Korenizatsiia wasmost successful in placing titular nationals in topleadership positions, and in gaining a representativeethnic balance at the regional level in government andsoviet apparatuses; it had much less success in thetechnical area, and in the mid-level bureaucracy.Despite difficulties in recruiting and retaining titularnationals as teachers, much of the korenizatsiia effortwas put into pedagogical training and short courses.The Abkhazian intelligentsia, as indigenousintelligentsias elsewhere in national territories,made effective use of Soviet nationality policy andcultural institutions to further their aims ofconstructing the building blocks of Abkhazian nationalidentity.In other ways, though, the Abkhazian case was

different from other “Eastern” territorial units. Its

peculiar status gave it an unusual vertical structure,although the complex arrangement of triplesubordination to the Georgian SSR, the TSFSR, andMoscow allowed local Abkhazian elites to play one“center” off against another using their informalnetworks and con-tacts. Lakoba and the local Abkhazianleadership were able, for example, to delaycollectivization and the repressions of nationalelites that took place much earlier in other “Eastern”republics, and to diminish the consequences ofnegative evaluations from various levels of theparty.106 At the same time, local elites had to dealwith the threat of “great power chauvinism” andcultural and linguistic influence not so much fromRussia, but from resurgent Georgian nationalism.Despite being a titular ethnic minority in their ownrepublic, and designated as “culturally backward,” therepublic was well endowed with resources such astobacco, tea and citrus fruits, coal and hydro-power.Its


resorts were frequented by regional and centralelites. This gave Abkhazian elites resources that theycould use to their advantage, but it also increasedthe republic’s value to Georgian elites keen onestablishing their dominance in Abkhazia.Abkhazia had an unusually diverse ethnic and

linguistic composition. It had a large contingent ofethnic Russians in the urban centers and in the statebureaucracies. This Russian population was similar tothose in other “East-ern” republics. It was moreeducated and literate than the local ethnic groups,but because the Russians in Abkhazia did not play amajor role in imple-menting Soviet power, theyoccupied a precarious position. Russian resent-ment at“mechanical korenizatsiia,” though often expressed,was rather limited in Abkhazia. A crucial factor inAbkhazia, in contrast to other “Eastern” republicswhere alliances between Russians and non-titularminor-ity groups evolved, was the tactical alliancebetween the titular Abkhazian elite and the Russianmiddle-level bureaucracy against the political andcul-tural influence of Georgians. This partly explainsthe lack of interest among Abkhazian elites inlinguistic korenizatsiia, and their support of Russianas the official lingua franca (pressure for linguistickorenizatsiia at this time came almost exclusivelyfrom the Georgian leadership). Unlike Central Asia andelsewhere, the Abkhazians did not adopt the Sovietemphasis on language as a critical component ofnational identity. Their approach paralleled that ofnative elites in some post-colonial African countrieswho implemented French or English as the officiallanguage in order to maintain ascendency in ethni-cally and linguistically heterogeneous conditions.Ultimately, the wrangling over Russian versus locallanguage reflected an elite strategy for stemmingGeorgianization. Despite the absence of linguistickorenizatsiia, the Abkha-zian elites were able to makeuse of the official mechanisms, categories andnarratives of nationality in order to pursue their ownagenda and maintain control of local leadershippositions. Abkhazia in the 1930s demonstrates well thelinkages between Soviet nationality policy and localclientelism.Yet after 1936, the attitude from the center towards

Abkhazia changed, and the Georgian leadership underBeria was given a free hand to displace ethnicAbkhazian elites and begin large-scale“Georgianization” of the republic. The delicatearrangement that the Abkhazian leadership had forgedover the pre-ceding 15 years could offer no defense,especially after Lakoba and his top lieutenants wereremoved. The question, raised at the beginning of thischap-ter, is whether this shift reflected a reversalof ethnic entitlement policy and a “retreat” fromkorenizatsiia, or if it was part of longer-term policyfocused on the merger and consolidation of ethnicgroups into a smaller number of “developed” nations.In many ways, Georgian control in Abkhazia after 1936had a stronger political element than an ethnic one.Stalin unleashed the Great Terror of 1936–38 in partto uproot territorially based patronage net-works suchas Lakoba’s, and to eliminate local power bases thatcould obstruct the implementation of centraldirectives. Beria had many incentives to gain firmercontrol over the region and eliminate its irritatingleaders. At


the same time, the change in the locus of power fromgovernment, the basis of Lakoba’s authority, to theparty, was something that had happened in most otherplaces much earlier, and was long overdue in Abkhazia.The destruction of Lakoba’s entourage in 1937–38 camewith accusations of favoritism, nepotism, corruptionand patronage, but there were also allegations of“bourgeois nationalism.”107 This reflected a change inthe central leadership’s understanding of the“greatest danger” threatening Soviet nationalitypolicy, which by 1937 had shifted from “great powerchauvinism” to “local nation-alism.”108 Beria and theGeorgian leadership made good use of this, but therewas no attempt to question the standing of Abkhazianethnicity more gen-erally, and though Georgiansdisplaced the Abkhazian elite, the Georgian leadershiphad no incentive to devalue korenizatsiia. It wasessential for their own national project. Somepolicies of linguistic korenizatsiia stayed in place.The Abkhazians remained a distinct group in thereduced list of nationalities in the 1939 census whenBeria was petitioning Stalin to incorporate Acharans(Muslim Georgians) into the Georgian ethnic category.There was no attempt to merge Abkhazians with theclosely related Abaza and Adygei ethnic groups in thenearby north-west Caucasus.109

What took place in Abkhazia during the 1930s was adiminution of the status of the Abkhazians, but noserious attempt at incorporation of the Abkhaziansinto a larger group. There was a deliberate policyaimed at repressing the Abkhazian language in 1944–45,and there was consideration after World War II ofdeporting the Abkhazians en masse to Central Asia asan “enemy people.”110 This was not part of the agendain 1936–38, but it was a logical conclusion to thereversal in nationality policy in the 1930s, and atacit acceptance of the rise of local Georgiannationalism. Perhaps a more appropriate explanationfor the fate of korenizatsiia in Abkhazia and themovement toward repression—even deportation—of theAbkhazians, lies in the relationship between ethnic

cleansing and the Soviet view of “enemy nations.”111 Bythe 1930s, the Abkhazians were viewed by the centralautho-rities as a diaspora nationality, with largenumbers of their ethnic kin living in Turkey involvedin conflicts over status and territory with theGeorgians, and by implication, with the Soviet state.The Abkhazians, like other diaspora nationalities,were seen as potentially disloyal. By the late 1930s,as Yuri Slezkine points out, “[n]ationality policy hadabandoned the pursuit of countless rootlessnationalities in order to concentrate on a few full-fledged, fully equipped ‘nations’.”112 This change ofemphasis, and the Soviet state’s border insecurities,favored the Georgians at the expense of theAbkhazians.Ultimately, Soviet nationality policy failed to

create harmony between Abkhazians and Georgians. The“affirmative action” aspects of this policy gave ethnicAbkhazian elites an opportunity to become dominant inlocal leadership positions, but privileges andentitlements were directly tied to ethnic identity;consequently ethnic identity became politicized to theexclu-sion of other types of identity—and created apotential basis for conflict in the future. Aselsewhere in the USSR, Soviet nationality policysolidified and


perpetuated ethnic categories in the Caucasus and madethem the basis for competition over resources. Oneimagines that the Abkhazian elites of the 1920s (and,indeed, their Georgian colleagues as well) would havebeen shocked and horrified to learn that ethnicrelations in Abkhazia would one day result in violentconflict. From the speeches, communications and mem-oirs of this period, one gets the sense that Abkhazianelites sincerely believed that a new, more progressiveera of national harmony had dawned with Bol-shevikpower and that such conflicts were a thing of thepast. Perhaps because of this belief, Abkhazian elitesrealized that for them the goal of Soviet nationalitypolicy was not just about harmony, but about guardingagainst cultural absorption by Tbilisi. Politicalresistance was conducted through patronage networksthat were perceived as ethnic, and consequently theiractions were seen as ethnically motivated. Thus thedestruction of Lakoba’s patronage network in Abkhaziaby Beria in the late 1930s was remembered not as aconflict between two groups of political actors, butas an historical wrong committed by the Georgiannationality against the Abkhazians.

Notes1 The author would like to thank Stephen Jones, JeremyJohnson, Gavin Slade and Jeremy Smith for theirsuggestions and comments on earlier versions of themanuscript, and Kara Downey for assistance in gainingaccess to documents from the Hoover Institution.

2 As Terry Martin points out, for the Bolshevik regime onlythe Russians, Ukrai-nians, Georgians, Armenians, Jews andGermans were considered developed enough to be classifiedas “Western nationalities,” while the vast majority ofSoviet nationalities were in the “Eastern” category. TheAffirmative Action Empire, Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress, 2001, 23.

3 The former view is reflected in Martin, The AffirmativeAction Empire, and the latter argument is advanced byFrancine Hirsch, Empire of Nations, Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 2005.

4 G.A. Dzidariia et al., Istoriia Abkhazskoi ASSR (1917–1937), Sukhumi: Alashara, 1983, 52.

5 See the chapter by Cory Welt in this volume. 6 Dzidariia et al., Istoriia Abkhazskoi ASSR, 57. 7 Z.V. Anchabadze, Ocherki etnicheskoi istorii Abkhazskogonaroda, Sukhumi: Alashara, 1976, 110.

8 Eshba and Lakoba themselves were apparently on a

diplomatic mission to Turkey in the months preceding theSoviet takeover in Abkhazia. See “V rossiiskom Gosarkhivesotsial’no politicheskoi istorii naideny otchetyabkhazskikh gosu-darstvennykh i politicheskikh deiateleiNestora Lakoba i Efrema Eshba” (“In the Russian StateArchive of Social-Political History Reports Found onAbkhazian State and Political Figures Nestor Lakoba andEfrem Eshba”), ApsnyPress, 28 October 2012,apsnypress.info/news/7029.html (accessed 4 January 2012).

9 Nestor Lakoba, Stat’i i rechi, Sukhumi: Alashara, 1986,86–88.

10 See Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, chapter 4. The Georgian official BuduMdivani in 1923 accused Lakoba of saying “I don’t want to take money fromfilthy Georgian hands!” Lakoba, Stat’i i rechi, 74.

11 See Timothy Blauvelt, “Abkhazia: Patronage and Power inthe Stalin Era,” Nationalities Papers 35, 2 (2007), 203–32.


12 One delegate to the Transcaucasian Conference on Workamong National Mino-rities referred to Abkhazia as “asmall-scale Comintern.” See Section II of the Archive ofthe Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia (sakartvelosshinagan sakmeta saministro (shss) arkivi (II), formerlyknown as the Party Archive of the Central Committee ofthe Communist Party of Georgia, or Partarkhiv TsK KPG),f. 13, o. 4, d. 559, l. 172.

13 Natsional’naia politika v tsifrakh VKP(b), Moscow:Izdatel’stvo Kommunis-ticheskoi Akademii, 1930, 271–72;Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ 1926 goda, Part 3, Moscow: TsSU,1929, 6.

14 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 1, d. 3516, l.34. Very similar numbers are given for 1927 inNatsional’naia politika v tsifrakh, table 7; andVsesoiuznaia perepis’ 1926 goda, 8–12.

15 Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ 1926 goda, 6. 16 6,373 Abkhazians were literate in general. See

Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia, part 3, 16. See B.E.Sagariia, Obrazovanie i ukreplenie sovetskoinatsional’noi gosudarstvennosti v Abkhazii (1921–38),Sukhumi: Alashara, 1981, 178.

17 G.L. Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women andRevolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia,Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974, xxxii–xxxiv.

18 Douglas Northrop, Veiled Empire: Gender and Power inStalinist Central Asia, Ithaca: Cornell University Press,2004, 210.

19 This is reflected in the Fazil’ Iskander novel Sandro izChegema (Sandro from Chegem). The journalist ZinaidaRikhter described him in her book Kavkaz nashikh dnei(The Caucasus of Our Days), in 1924 thus: “[t]o Nestor,as the pea-sants simply call him one on one, they comewith any little thing, bypassing all official channels, incertainty that he will hear them out and make a decision.The predsovnarkom (Chair of the Council of Ministers) ofAbkhazia, Comrade Lakoba, is beloved by the peasants andby the entire population. Comrade Zinoviev, when he wasin Abkhazia, joked that Abkhazia should be renamedLakobistan.” Cited in S. Lakoba, “Ia-Koba, a ty-Lakoba,”in G. Gublia (ed.) Nestor: agealashearak’ea, Sukhum:Apkheyntshek’et’yzh’yrn’a, 2006, 198.

20 From the Turkish “Atalyk,” or fatherhood, referring tothe tradition of aristo-cratic families having their sonsraised by servant families.

21 A. Abbas-olgy, Ne mogy zabyt’, Moscow: ACT, 2005, 101. 22 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 7, d. 3516, ll.,

1–3. 23 Hoover Institution Archives (HIA), N.A. Lakoba Papers,

Box 1, Folder 55.

24 G.K. Orjonikidze, Stat’i i rechi v dvukh tomakh, Moscow:Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury,1957, 227.

25 V.N. Merkviladze (ed.), Ocherki istorii Kommunisticheskoipartii Gruzii, 1883–1981, Tbilisi: metsnieroba, 1982,396.

26 Ibid., 397–98. 27 Ibid. 28 Sagariia, Obrazovanie, 190. 29 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 1, ch. 1, d.

1367, l. 321. 30 “Ochen’ vazhnyi vopros. Na kakom iazyke dolzhno byt’

deloproizvodstvo v Abkhazii,” Trudovaia Abkhaziia, 4August 1925.

31 “Vopros postavlen svoevremenno (K postanovke voprosa t.Alaniia),” Trudovaia Abkhaziia, 6 August 1925.

32 “K voprosu o iazyke (V poriadke obsuzhdeniia),” TrudovaiaAbkhaziia, 6 August 1925.

33 “O gosudarstvennom iazyke v Abkhazii (V poriadkeobsuzhdeniya),” Trudovaia Abkhaziia, 8 August 1925.

34 “Ot slov – k delu! K voprosu o gosudarstvennom iazykeAbkhazii,” Trudovaia Abkhaziia, 9 August 1925.

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260 Timothy K. Blauvelt35 Central State Archive of Abkhazia (TsGAA), f. 1, o. 2, d.

29, l. 62, cited in Sagariia, Obrazovanie, 181. Thisarchive was burned in 1992, although some documentssurvived or have been reproduced here and in collectionssuch asAbkhaziia: dokumenty svidetel’stvuiut (1992); and Abkhazskii arkhiv: XX vek. Vypusk I (2003).

36 TsGAA, f. 1, o. 2, d. 29, l. 62. 37 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 1, ch. 1, d.

1360, l. 172. 38 Sagariia, Obrazovanie, 182. 39 Lakoba, Stat’i i rechi, 208. Also printed in Trudovaia

Abkhaziia, 19 June 1926. 40 “Rech’ tov. Mamiia Orakhelashvili,” Trudovaia Abkhaziia,

16 June 1926. 41 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 2, d. 485, l. 49.

This commission also inclu-ded A.Kh. Urushadze and aComrade Gik.

42 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 2, d. 485, ll.53–55.

43 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 2, d. 485, l. 54.44 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 2, d. 485, l. 54 45 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 2, d. 485, l. 56.46 Lakoba, Stat’i i rechi, 179. 47 Ibid. 48 “Tsentral’nyi vopros sessii GruzTsIK’a v Sukhume. Stat’ia

PredTsIK SSRG t. F. Makharadze,” Trudovaia Abkhaziia, 16June 1926.

49 “Rezoliutsiia plenuma TsK KP(b) Gruzii po dokladuAbkhazskogo Obkoma partii,” Trudovaia Abkhaziia, 12 June1926.

50 Sovety Abkhazii (1922–1937 gg.). Sbornik dokumentov imaterialov, Sukhumi, 1976, 136–37.

51 Ibid.; also, Sagariia, Obrazovanie, 186. 52 Lakoba, Stat’i i rechi, 282. 53 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 140. 54 Sagariia, Obrazovanie, 184. 55 Abkhazskaia oblastnaia organizatsiia kompartii Gruzii v

tsifrakh, 1921–80, Sukhumi: Alashara, 1980. 56 It may also have resulted from an imbalance given the

large number of new inductees into the party. Accordingto an Abkhazian Obkom study in September 1931(sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, p. 6, d. 285, l.184), the proportion of Abkhazian and Georgian newmembers had increased significantly in the first half of1931 compared to the previous year (from 16.4 percent to25.3 percent, and from 14.6 percent to 26.0 percent,respectively), while that of Russians had declinedsharply (from 42.2 percent to 27.4 percent). See also D.Slider, “Crisis and Response in Soviet Nationality

Policy: The Case of Abkhazia,” Central Asian Survey 4(1985): 51–68. Slider’s argument that this reduction inthe percentage of Abkhazian cadres in this period was dueto anti-Abkhazian discrimination, however, seems far offthe mark.

57 Lakoba, Stat’i i rechi, 166. 58 Ibid., 209. 59 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 1, d. (3516) 33,

ll. 8–12. 60 TsGAA, f. 1, o.2, d. 1510, l. 10, reproduced in Sagariia,

Obrazovanie, 203–4. 61 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 141–42. 62 Trudovaia Abkhaziia, 16 June 1925. 63 Baron P.N. Wrangel commanded the anti-Bolshevik White

Army in southern Russia towards the end of the RussianCivil War.

64 Lakoba, Stat’i i rechi, 217. 65 Ibid., 218. 66 Ibid. 67 TsGAA, f. 1, o. 2, d. 300, ll. 3–4, cited in Sagariia,

Obrazovanie, 196. 68 Sovety Abkhazii, 129.



69 TsGAA, f. 1, o. 1, d. 985, 45; f. 1, o. 2, d. 300, l. 48,both reproduced in Sagariia, Obrazovanie, 191.

70 That is, 35 out of 95 in total, mostly in the Gudauta andKodori districts, and four in the Gali district.

71 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 1, d. 285, l.184.

72 Sovety Abkhazii, 131. 73 Ibid. 74 Z.V. Anchabadze, G.A. Dzidariia, A.E Kuprava and B.E.

Sagariia (eds), Istoriia Abkhazskoi ASSR (1917–1937),Sukhumi: Alashara, 1983, 145.

75 V.B. Kuraskua, Abkhazskaia natsional’naia shkola (1921–1958), Sukhum: Abkhazian State University, 2003, 24–25.

76 Anchabadze et al., 1983, 146–47. 77 Ibid., 149. 78 Ibid., 260. 79 Kuraskua, Abkhazskaia natsional’naia shkola, 93. 80 Lakoba, Stat’i i rechi, 332. 81 See Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 166–67. 82 A partial list would include the writers I.A. Kogoniia,

M.L. Khashba, M.A. Lakerbaia, the economist M.K.Tsaguriia, the agronomists D. Khagba, V. Nako-piia, andT. Chengeliia, and the doctors D. Eshba and E. Lakoba.See Anchabadze et al., 1983, 149–50.

83 Ibid. 84 A.L. Edgar, Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet

Turkmenistan, Princeton: Princeton University Press,2004, 5.

85 Kh.S. Bgazhba, Iz istorii pis’mennosti v Abkhaziia,Tbilisi: metsnieroba, 1967, 56– 57. There does seem tohave been some fluidity in ethnic categories,particularly those of Abkhazians and Mingrelians. Manysurnames are indistinguishable or have variants in bothlanguages (the Abkhazian Lakerba and Mingrelian Laker-baia, for example), and there seems to have been somedegree of intermarriage, interrelatedness andbilingualism, all of which allowed people some leeway tocategorize themselves as either ethnicity, depending onwhich was more advanta-geous at a particular time. SeeBlauvelt, “Abkhazia,” 218–19; and D. Muller,“Demography,” in G.B. Hewitt (ed.) The Abkhazians: AHandbook, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1998, 218–40.

86 Anchabadze et al., 155. 87 See Blauvelt, “Abkhazia,” 211–13; and “Resistance and

Accommodation in the Stalinist Periphery: A PeasantUprising in Abkhazia,” Ab Imperio 3 (2012), 78–108.

88 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 1, d. (3516) 33,

ll. 23–24. 89 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 1, d. (3516) 33,

l. 25. 90 sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 1, d. (3516) 33,

l. 26 91 See Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 171. 92 Sagariia, Obrazovanie, 194. 93 Sovetskaia Abkhaziia, 5 August 1931. 94 Cited in Sagariia, Obrazovanie, 195. 95 TsGAA, f. 8, p. 2, d. 1025, l. 1, cited in Sagariia,

Obrazovanie, 201. 96 Sagariia, Obrazovanie, 203. 97 Cited in Sagariia, Obrazovanie, 205–6. 98 See sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 11, d. 209. 99 Abkhazskaia oblastnaia organizatsiia kompartii Gruzii v

tsifrakh, 25–56. 100Blauvelt, “Abkhazia,” 229, note 81. 101See sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 11, d. 209;

f.14, o. 10, d. 135, l. 526 and f. 14, o. 11, d. 209, ll.30 and 54; and f. 14, o. 13, d. 318, ll. 9 and 10.

102See, for example, sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o.13, d. 437 (“Dokladnye zapiski i dr. materialy ob itogakhobsledovaniia peresekencheskikh kolkhozov


262 Timothy K. BlauveltAbkhazskoi ASSR,” July–December 1939); f. 14, o. 13, d.428 (“Dokladnye zapiski i dr. materialy o proverkerealizatsii postanovleniia Biuro TsK KP/b/ Gruzii ot 22avgusta 1939 g. O sostoianii pereselencheskikh kolkhozovAbkhazs-koi ASSR, vyvody i predlozheniia po godovomuplanu pereselencheskikh mer-opriiatii gruzinskoi SSR na1940 g,” July 1939–February 1940); and f. 14, o. 13, d.225, ll. 101–5 and 113–16.

103See sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o. 13, d. 437and F. 14, o. 13, d. 438; also Abkhaziia: dokumenty svidetel’stvuiut, 21–23.

104Ibid., 486–89. 105sakartvelos shss arkivi (II), f. 14, o.11, d. 152, ll.

30–31. 106In addition to the 1925 and 1929 Party investigations

described above, Lakoba appealed to Stalin, Beria,Kaganovich, Molotov and Rudzutak in December 1932, afterbeing censured publically by the Georgian TsK forsupposedly trying to reduce the tobacco requisition planfor Abkhazia and thereby “introducing an element ofdisorganization into the course of requisitioning.”“Draft Letter to L. Beria,” HIA, N.A. Lakoba Papers, Box1, Folder 55. Again, in 1934 he protested the results ofan investigation by USSR Prosecutor I.A. Akulov whichfound in Abkhazia “a complete collapse of theprosecutorial, judicial and investigative apparatus … andan unhealthy situation of nepotism [semeistvennost’] andpro-tectionism that is widely spread in all branches ofthe Party-Soviet apparatus of Abkhazia.” “ExplanationRegarding Accusations,” HIA, N.A. Lakoba Papers, Box 2,Folder 20.

107See, for example, “O nekotorykh itogakh rabotyprokuratury Abkhazskoi ASSR za 1937 g.,” SovestkaiaAbkhaziia, 6 January 1938.

108 Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 260–62. 109An attempt to portray the current Abkhazians as recent

arrivals in the region would be made much later in the1950s by Georgian academician Pavle Ingor-oqva and histheory of ethno-genesis that held that the trueAbkhazians were actually originally ethnic Georgians. Bythis time, Abkhazian elites had already regained theirascendency in the republic’s leadership and theGeorgianization policies of the Stalin era had beenreversed. See B. Coppieters, “In Defense of the Homeland:Intellectuals and the Georgian-Abkhazian Conflict,” in B.Coppieters and M. Huysseune (eds) Succession, History andthe Social Sciences, Brussels: VUB Brussels UniversityPress, 2002, 93–94.

110See R.G. Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation,Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994, 289.

111 See Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 335–43. 112Y. Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment,” Slavic

Review 53, 2 (1994), 445.