Names of Georgia

Georgia (/ˈdʒɔrdʒə/^ⓘ) is an exonym for the nation in the Caucasus whose self-designation (autonym) is Sakartvelo (Georgian: საქართველო, IPA: [sɑkʰɑrtʰvɛlɔ]). The exonym has been variously explained as being derived from the Greek γεωργος ("tiller of the land"), the name of St. George and, most plausibly, from ancient Persian designations of the Georgians. The native name is derived from the core central Georgian region of Kartli — Iberia of the Classical and Byzantine sources — around which the early medieval cultural and political unity of the Georgians was formed.

Autonym

The native Georgian name for the country is Sakartvelo (საქართველო). The word consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i (sing., ქართველ-ი), originally referred to an inhabitant of the core central Georgian region of Kartli — Iberia of the Classical and Byzantine sources. By the early 9th century, the meaning of "Kartli" was expanded to other areas of medieval Georgia held together by religion, culture, and language. The Georgian circumflex sa-X-o is a standard geographic construction designating "the area where X dwell", where X is an ethnonym.

The earliest reference to "Sakartvelo" occurs in the c. 800 Georgian chronicle by Pseudo-Juansher. Within the next 200 years, this designation was reconfigured so that it came to signify the all-Georgian realm which came into existence with the political unification of Kartli/Iberia and Apkhazeti/Abasgia under Bagrat III in 1008. However, it was not until the early 13th century that the term fully entered regular official usage.

The memory and dream of a united Georgia — Sakartvelo — persisted even after the political catastrophe of the 15th century when the Georgian kingdom fell apart to form three separate kingdoms: Kartli, Kakheti, and Imereti, and five principalities: Samtskhe, Mingrelia, Guria, Svaneti, and Abkhazia. Thus, the later kings of Kartli did not relinquish the titles of the all-Georgian monarchs whose legitimate successors they claimed to be. The idea of all-Georgian unity also dominated history-writing of the early 18th-century Georgian scholar and a member of the royal family, Prince Vakhushti, whose "Description of the Kingdom of Georgia" (agtsera sameposa sakartvelosa) had a noticeable influence on the latter-day conception of Sakartvelo. Although Georgia was politically divided among competing kingdoms and principalities during Vakhushti’s lifetime, the scholar viewed the past and present of these breakaway polities as parts of the history of a single nation. After the reunification of the kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti in 1762, the term Sakartvelo became an official synonym to this eastern Georgian state, but again covered all of Georgia, now under the Russian rule, in the 19th century. On May 26, 1918, the country was reincarnated as sakartvelos demokratiuli respublika – the Democratic Republic of Georgia. It became sakartvelos sabchota socialisturi respublika – the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic – on February 25, 1921, and sakartvelos respublika – the Republic of Georgia – on November 14, 1990. According to the 1995 constitution, the nation's official name is Sakartvelo, with "Georgia" as its English equivalent.

Exonym

The European "Georgia" probably stems from the Persian-Arabic designation of the Georgians – gurğ, ğurğ – which reached the Western European crusaders and pilgrims in the Holy Land who rendered the name as Georgia (also Jorgania, Giorginia, etc.) and explained its origin by the popularity of St. George among the Georgians. This explanation is offered, among others, by Jacques de Vitry and Franz Ferdinand von Troilo. Another theory, popularized by the likes as Jean Chardin, semantically linked "Georgia" to Greek and Latin roots, respectively, γεωργος ("tiller of the land") and georgicus ("agricultural"). The supporters of this explanation sometimes referred to the Classical authors such as Pliny and Pomponius Mela. The "Georgi" mentioned by these authors (Pliny, IV.26, VI.14; Mela, De Sita Orb. i.2, &50; ii.1, & 44, 102.) were merely agricultural tribes, so named to distinguish them from their unsettled and pastoral neighbors on the other side of the river Panticapea (in Taurica).

In fact, "Georgia" is apparently borrowed in the 11th or 12th centuries from the Syriac gurz-ān/gurz-iyān and Arabic ĵurĵan/ĵurzan, derived from the New Persian gurğ/gurğān, itself stemming from the Ancient Iranian and Middle Persian vrkān/waručān of unclear origin, but resembling the eastern trans-Caspian toponym Gorgan, which comes from the Middle Persian varkâna, "land of the wolfs". This might have been of the same etymology as the Armenian Virk' (Վիրք) and a source of the Greco-Roman rendition "Iberi" ('Ιβηρος), the ethnonym already known to them as a designation of Iberian Peninsula.

The Russian exonym Gruziya (Грузия ['gruzʲɪjə]) is also of Perso-Arabic origin. It first occurs in the travel records of Ignatiy Smolnyanin as gurzi (гурзи) (1389) and Afanasy Nikitin as gurzynskaya zemliya (Гурзыньская земля, "Gurzin land") (1466-72).

The Russian name was brought into the contemporary Hebrew as גרוזיה ("Gruziya"). It coexisted with the names גיאורגיה ("Gheorghia" with two hard g's) and גורג'יה (Gurjia), when "Gruziya" took over in the 1970s, probably due to a massive immigration of bilingual Georgian-Russian Jews to Israel at that time. In August 2005 the Georgian ambassador to Israel Lasha Zhvania asked that the Hebrew speakers refer to his country as "Gheorghia" and abandon the name "Gruziya".

Bibliography

• Template:Ka icon Paichadze, Giorgi (ed., 1993), საქართველოსა და ქართველების აღმნიშვნელი უცხოური და ქართული ტერმინოლოგია (Foreign and Georgian designations for Georgia and Georgians). Metsniereba, ISBN 5-520-01504-X