Ossetians in Trialeti

Trialeti Ossetians are shown as the extreme southern area of the Ossetian population.

Map of Georgia in 1922 with Ossetian ethnic groups shown

The Ossetians in Trialeti are a group of ethnic Ossetians, settling the central Georgian districts of Khashuri and Borjomi,^[1] historically part of the Trialeti province. The Ossetians resettled there in the 19th century from Samachablo, South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast at the time of USSR.^[2]

In 1922, after the conflict between the Georgian government forces and Bolshevik-sympathizing Ossetian rebels, and the forcible Sovietization of Georgia, the recently created South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within the Georgian SSR claimed the villages, mainly settled by Ossetians in Trialeti as its exclave - to no avail, however.^[3][4]

In 1989 there were 38,000 Ossetians in the region, living in 134 villages.^{[5][dubious – discuss]} They had been incorporated into the Georgian society with a high degree of intermarriages with Georgians. During the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War, the area was unaffected by armed confrontation, but many Ossetian families had to flee rising ethnic discord to South Ossetia and Russia's North Ossetia-Alania.^{[citation needed]}

References

1. ^ The Forsaken People: Case Studies of the Internally Displaced by Roberta Cohen, Francis Mading Deng. Brookings Institution Press, 1998. ISBN 0815715137, 9780815715139, page 296. The May 1996 memoramdum (......). Some Ossetians and even some Georgians have returned to South Ossetia, and some Ossetians have also returned to cities elsewhere in Georgia, such as Borjomi an Tbilisi.
2. ^ [1]
3. ^ (Russian)Tsutsiev, Artur (2007). Atlas etnopoliticheskoy istorii Kavkaza (1774-2004). Evropa. ISBN 978-5-9739-0123-3.
4. ^ (Russian) Map with claimed territories
5. ^ Soviet Census (1989)