“Georgia is going to be handed over to Russia—that is precisely why they constantly have to appeal to the Treaty of Georgievsk,” diplomat Gia Japaridze wrote on social media.
He described another statement by Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze regarding the benefits of the 1783 Treaty of Georgievsk as an “immoral lie.”
According to Japaridze, Russia violated this treaty immediately after signing it—just as it violated and continues to violate all other agreements concluded later.
“The Treaty of Georgievsk was not concluded between Georgia and Russia. This treaty was signed between the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti and the Russian Empire.
Imereti, Samegrelo, Abkhazia, and the rest of Georgia were conquered by Russia later. They were conquered after Russia, specifically through the Treaty of Georgievsk, completed the subjugation of Kartli-Kakheti.
At that time, there was no issue of ‘saving the nation’ or ‘saving Christianity.’ Even more so, the problem of saving the nation, faith, or language did not exist in the kingdoms and principalities of Western Georgia. This is a Russian revision of history, a falsification of history in the Russian fashion.
The reality is quite the opposite: it was specifically after this agreement that Russia began conquering the Georgian kingdoms and principalities. The Treaty of Georgievsk was bait.”
Japaridze believes that by exploiting the topic of the treaty, the current authorities are “justifying their pro-Russian policy, the shift in Georgia’s foreign policy course, betrayal, and the desecration of the historical choice of Rustaveli and Ilia Chavchavadze.”
According to the diplomat, the ruling party is diverting the public’s attention from acute, pressing issues to historical debates:
“So that we do not think about the fuel supplied to the occupiers in Abkhazia, the latest price hikes, international crime involving call centers, murders of children, boundless corruption, rampant crime, power outages, the collapse of the education system, poverty, political persecution and political prisoners, rigged elections, international isolation, the report under the OSCE Moscow Mechanism, the BBC investigative report, mass emigration from Georgia, the demographic catastrophe, the youth robbed of their future, a state captured by a single family, and so forth.”
