The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire. Margus Kolga
Russian state reforms of 1870 laid the basis for an acceleration in the development of capitalism. In agriculture money rent and market orientation became the new passwords. Tobacco, tea and subtropical crops became more widely grown. Industries (coal, timber) began to develop. Health resorts started to be built. The overall economic rise favoured a rise in the national self-consciousness of the Abkhaz people and fostered the development of a local intelligentsia.
By the year 1917a strong nationalist and separatist movement had developed coming to a head following the democratic February Revolution. In 1917a provisional Government was set up in Sukhumi. In November 1917 an Abkhaz National Council was formed with the aim of securing an autonomous Abkhazia. During 1918—1921 there was constant warring which ceased only with the stifling of the nationalist movement by the Soviet power. In February 1921 the Abkhaz SSR was established, in December of that year it was incorporated into the Georgian SSR according to the Union treaty.
The Soviet period in Abkhazia was divided into two phases by World War II. The first part is characterized by “Red Terror” to a backdrop of a general economic boom, the second by a weakening of the national tradition and mentality. Abkhazia being an agrarian region the land reform effected through collectivization had an important role in sovietization. During 1929—1935 the number of collective farms rose from 14 to 472. By 1940 the rate of collectivization had reached 93.8%. Such outstanding results could hardly have been achieved without the physical elimination of the opposition, or least their banishment or deportation to the Tkvarcheli coal mines. The uniting of plots into large fields made it possible for the kolkhozes to specialize in the monocultivation of tobacco, tea and subtropical crops. The increase in the production of agricultural raw material laid the basis for food and tobacco industries which in their turn worked for the growth of cities and urbanization. The Abkhaz were 5% urban in 1926, 15% in 1939, 28% in 1959 and 34.5% in 1970. Soviet economic policy had exhausted its potential by the 1960s when the first signs of stagnation and regression appeared.
The mentality of a people is most influenced by changes in culture and everyday life. This is why the Soviet authorities launched a campaign of “Cultural Revolution” by means of which the whole cultural life was to be subordinated to their ideological pattern. A Latin-based alphabet for the Abkhaz language had already been devised by P. Uslar in 1862. Three years later the first Abkhaz books were published, and by 1912 a vernacular prose had developed. Yet the Soviet power found it necessary to change the alphabetic basis of the language on as many as four occasions: in 1926 the analytic alphabet of N. Marr was introduced to be replaced by Roman letters in 1928, Georgian ones in 1938 and Slavic ones in 1954. Such somersaults could hardly have benefited Abkhaz cultural life. Periodicals only started to be appear in the Abkhaz language in 1954.
In tsarist Russia the Abkhaz received their education in Russian. In 1864 the Tsar issued an order allowing non-Russian students to be instructed in their mother tongue as a special subject, but in practice it never became very popular. Vernacular education reached the Abkhaz people in the first years of Soviet rule. Until 1932 Abkhaz was used in the first and second forms, later even up to the fourth, although senior classes remained conducted in Russian. The positive effect of a partly vernacular education to the preservation of national identity is reflected in the fact that the language retention rate of the Abkhazian Abkhaz is higher than that of the Adzharian Abkhaz whose language of literacy and education has been Georgian. On the other hand it is of no little importance what mentality is carried by the educational system. Strong ideological-grounded education has always been an effective weapon in the hands of the central authorities.
One of the most acute problems of the modern Abkhaz people is that they are a minority on their native territory. This has happened as a result of the colonization policy that followed the Mahadzhir emigration and the strong tendency to Georgianization characteristic of the peripheral regions of Abkhazia. According to the 1979 census statistics the percentage of the ethnic Abkhaz in the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Republic was ohly 17.1 in Abkhazia, while Georgians made up 43.9%, Russians 16.4% and Armenians 15% of the population. The status of a minority certainly does not favour either the political or cultural self-assertion of the Abkhaz people.
Ethnic culture. During the past thirty years several changes have occurred in the Abkhaz material culture and folk traditions. The reasons are twofold: the advance of European urban culture and the Soviet propaganda that has been directed against national cultures. The elements of folk tradition still common in the Abkhaz villages in the 1950s have been lost or are on their way out. In most cases national costumes are not worn any more. The former traditional settlement planning and vernacular architecture has given way to planned villages and urban dwellings. Owing to religious conservatism more has been retained of old customs.
The Soviet national policy has sharpened contradictions between the Abkhaz and the Georgian people and this has led to several open conflicts. The political change effected in the Soviet Union since the middle of the 1980s has enlivened Abkhaz society. Open talks of a separate national existence and autonomy have been heard. Demands for a vernacular university have been aired. The situation became aggravated in June and July of 1989 when the Abkhaz people repeatedly demonstrated against the Georgian government.
THE AGULS
The habitat. In the high mountains of southeastern Dagestan there live people who speak the Agul language belonging to the Lezgian-Samur or south-eastern group of the Dagestan languages. They inhabit a near inaccessible valley isolated from the rest of the world by four forbidding mountain chains (the Aguldere, Gushandere, Magudere, and Khyukdere). Water comes from two rivers: the Tshirakh-Tshay and Kurakh-Tshay. The climate is severe, and the winters are especially hard with their snowstorms and icy colds. Before the building of the Tpoig-Kasumkent highway the Aguls were almost completely isolated. The mountains also impede communication between the Agul communities: contact is possible only in spring and autumn when the narrow mountain-paths are negotiable. This has been a major caose in the development of dialectal differences. At present three Agul dialects are distinguishable: Agul, Kere and Koshan.
Self-designation. The name the Aguls call themselves is agiul shui. Their neighbours are the Dargwas to the north, the Tabasarans to the east, the Lezgians to the south and the Rutuls to the west.
Administratively the Agul settlements are situated in the Agul region of the Dagestan ASSR. Its centre is Tpig. The region is divided into eight subdivisions. There are 19 Agul and 5 Dargwin villages. After Tpig the next largest villages are Richa, Burkihan and Khoredzh. Census statistics on the Agul population are as follows:
| native speakers | ||
| 1886 | 6,522 | |
| 1895 | 7,185 | |
| 1926 | 7,653 | 100% |
| 1933 | 9,300 | |
| 1959 | 6,700 | 99.4% |
| 1970 | 8,831 | 99.4% |
| 1979 | 12,078 | 98.3% |
| 1989 | 18,740 | 94.9% |
Like the other Lezgian peoples the Aguls are natives of the Caucasus. This is proved both by anthropological and cultural data.
Their religion is Sunnite Islam which was spread during the 15th— 18th-century Turkish and Persian conquests. According to oral tradition a part of the Aguls had adhered to Judaism, and a part to Christianity before that. Because of the previous importance of religion in Agul society the new Soviet power made great efforts to weaken it: mosques were turned into store-rooms, clergymen into peasants, and a cult of prophets quite different from Muhammad was propagated.
Geographical isolation failed to protect the region from invaders. The land of the Aguls was coveted by Arab, Mongolian-Tatar and Turkish conquerors. The Aguls of Aguldere established their own territorial and political unit, a free community that was incorporated into the Kasikumukh Khanate in the 17th—18th centuries. Other communities that were not self-governing continued to be subjected to the local feudal lords (e.g. the Tabasaran qadi) who levied taxes. Owing to such political disunion the Aguls did not develop a state which retarded their development into a nation. In 1813 the Agul territories were incorporated into Russia within the Kürin Khanate which then became the Kürin District. The superiority of the nobility and the clergy,