The Uprising of the Pkhovians and the Didoans

(Toward a History of Social Relations in Georgia during the „Golden Age“)

Abstract

Over the course of its many centuries of history, Georgia reached the summit of its development in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in the epoch known as the „Golden Age“. In terms of its level of political, socio-economic, and cultural development, Georgia not only did not lag behind the world›s leading countries of that time, but frequently set the tone for them in political and cultural achievements as well. The successes attained rested upon highly developed economic and social relations. Along with the diversity of the country›s natural and geographical conditions, its various regions also diffffered from one another in the pace and level of their economic, and correspondingly social, development. In this respect, the mountainous regions lagged behind the highly developed lowland regions even during the „Golden Age“.

A number of historians (Iv. Javakhishvili, S. Janashia, N. Berdzenishvili, G. Melikishvili, M. Lortkipanidze, R. Metreveli, and others) have devoted studies to the problems of Georgia›s social and economic development in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries; nevertheless, the scarcity of written sources has hindered, and continues to hinder, a thorough investigation of this question.
In the twelfth century, the strengthening and expansion of the unified, centralized Georgian state was accompanied by a deepening and consolidation of feudal relations. This process actively affected the mountainous region of Georgia as well, where the customs of communal organization were still widely preserved. It appears that the mountain-dwellers offered fifierce resistance to feudalization. Confirmation of this is found in Kartlis Tskhovreba (The Life of Kartli), in the recorded fact of „the revolt of the mountain peoples, the men of the Pkhovians and the Didoans“. In the old Georgian sources, „Pkhovians“ designated the ancestral tribes of the present-day Pshavs and Khevsurs, while „Didoans“ designated one of the tribal-ethnic groups of Dagestan. Thus, this social uprising touched not only the mountainous region of Georgia but also that part of Dagestan then under Georgia›s political inflfluence. The scale of
this uprising is attested by the following: Queen Tamar dispatched the royal army under the command of Ivane Atabag, and called upon „all the mountain peoples“ for assistance. Ivane Atabag was compelled to carry out a strategic maneuver so that the uprising would not spread further – he „advanced into the mountain of the Pkhovians and the Didoans, where no one had gone before him“. Despite this, the suppression of the uprising required three months –„and they spent three months there: June, July, August“.
In the end, the royal army defeated the rebels, punished them severely, took hostages, and imposed a tax upon them. By this, the royal authority of Georgia established full control over the mountainous region.
It is true that the strong and centralized Georgian state succeeded in suppressing this acute and dangerous domestic uprising, which had arisen on social-political grounds; nevertheless, the causes that had given rise to it remained, and these subsequently resurfaced once again under conditions of the weakening of Georgian statehood.