The Abkhazians: A Handbook

by Brian George Hewitt (Editor)

The Abkhazians are an ancient Caucasian people living mainly on the eastern shores of the Black Sea in the shadow of the Great Caucasus Mountains. Aside from their Caucasian homeland of Abkhazia, there are significant numbers of Abkhazians and their descendants settled throughout Russia and the Middle East, particularly Turkey. Their history, like other peoples and nations of the region, has been closely linked with the expansion of the Russians; the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, resulted in further domination, this time by the Georgian Republic, leading to the catastrophe of the War of 1992-3 and the scattering of the people that followed. With the publication of this book, which includes an entirely new interpretation of Abkhazia's union with Russia over the period from the 18th century to 1917, the relevant facts about Abkhazia have finally become accessible to the English-speaking world.

Genres: History

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Amra]

With most of the sections of this book written by Abkhazians, and including first hand accounts of events leading upto and during the 1992 war, this makes for one of the only detailed publications of Abkhazian history and culture from our perspective that have been translated into English. This was also published in 1999, long before the events in 2008 that have led to so much misinformation being propagated and confused by some Western and mostly young Georgian accounts. While it is undoubtedly quite 'anti-Georgian' in the accounts of the war, it does nonetheless provide key arguments against many theories put forth by Georgian scholars during Stalin's era of the USSR, regarding the origins and history of Abkhazians, that are still being claimed to be true by general media and Georgian propaganda. I borrowed this from my university's library as it was practically the only source on Abkhazia actually written by Abkhazians (there are some lovely translations of folk tales that I am excited to read). I particularly enjoyed reading the later chapters of this book that really comprehensively discuss the details of art, language, culture and religion - the latter two being aspects that I often struggle to be able to explain to people.

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

WoW!
Bias and anti-Georgian rhetoric!
Poor recourses!
Where is the history?

All materials (essays) come from so-called Abkhazians (mind that Abkhazia is just a name of the territory where Apsny (proclaimed Abkhazians) were always less than 20% of the population), hence trustworthiness is not something you would say about the source and the book itself.

Fortunately, book is so bad that any reader (even those who have no idea of the existence of Caucasian region) will figure out this book is a propaganda booklet.

And if anyone ever tells you that Abkhazia is the land of Apsny, well ask them who was the ruler in BC, in 5th century, 10th century, 15th century, and anytime up until Soviets. You can also google old maps, where you will see that Abkhazia has always been ruler and owned by Mingrelians, and search for the period of Levan 2 Dadiani, when Apsny moved into Abkhazian region.