"evropuli qartia saqarTvelo "European Charter for Regional or ...

- 1801-1990 years: period of Russian occupation and annexation (except
for 1918-1920 period);
- From 1991 until the present-day period: revival of independence of
Georgian state and de jure recognition of the occupant status of the Russian
army (1991, 2008); commencement of de-occupation and integration
of Georgian state into the civilized world.
The basis of such segmentation is the fact that none of the occupants
have ever done more harm to the spiritual and cultural values of
Georgians as the Russian empire starting from 1801. Namely, when reviewing
the history, we realize that unlike the Greek, Persian, Arab or
Turkish conquerors, the Russian occupants, in addition, attempted to
eliminate ethnic-linguistic unity of Georgians.
The 1801-1990 period is a substantially different phase; the Russians,
unlike others, aimed (and still do) not only at the politicaleconomic
annex ion, but Russian politicians also strove (and are still
striving) towards elimination of Georgian identity by destroying its ethno-cultural
and linguistic psychology. Unfortunately, today the very
threat is even bigger than ever (below see the "concepts" of Koryakov-
Dugin and some of their western or eastern "colleagues") 252 .
In this part of the book we deal with the part of documents dated
18 th – 20 th
centuries, those elaborated, on the one hand, by Russian officials
and, on the other hand, by Georgian public figures.
Russian attitude towards Georgia was formed in parallel to Russia’s
imperial ambitions. The text of the secret letter by Count Nikita
Panin – the chancellor of the Russian Empire, dated July 16, 1770, addressed
to the General Totleben says:
"You must act in Georgia so that the inhabitants have Russian
soul and Georgian body" ("...была бы душа здешняя, а тело
грузинское").
In 1810 A. Tormasov, the General, Commander-in-Chief (1809-
1811) of the Georgia-based Russian army wrote about Western Georgia
to the Russian Emperor Alexander I (1801-1825): "by dividing this quite
252 The events of 1992-2008 period demonstrated that the Russian empire does its best
to contribute to disintegration of Georgia and the Georgian nation. So, the threat is not
exaggerated, as some of the experts believe.
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