GEORGIA

The Deep South. one of the 13 original states of the United States of America, lying in the South Atlantic region, southeastern U.S. It is bounded on the north by Tennessee and North Carolina, on the east by South Carolina and the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Florida, and on the west by Alabama. The capital is Atlanta. The Creek and Cherokee Indians were Georgia's original inhabitants. The state was the last of the original 13 American colonies to be settled by European colonists. A charter to settle Georgia was given to James Oglethorpe in 1732 by King George II of Great Britain. Oglethorpe's intention was to set up a colony where convicts, debtors, and other poor people could get a new start. He founded Savannah in 1733, but the colony did not grow immediately. After the American Revolution, white settlement accelerated, especially in a westward direction from Augusta, through the future cotton counties of middle Georgia. This movement forced the removal of the Indians to areas beyond the Mississippi River. The American Civil War (186165) was particularly hard on Georgia. General William Tecumseh Sherman's army burned Atlanta and devastated the countryside in the course of his famous March to the Sea. Atlanta recovered, however, to become the premier city of the postwar South. Northern Georgia is located within the southern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains (part of the Appalachian Mountain system). The state's highest point is in this range and reaches 4,784 feet (1,458 m) above sea level. South of these mountains is an area known as the Piedmont, a stretch of sandy hills extending from east to west the breadth of the state. South of the Piedmont is the rolling terrain of the coastal plain. Maritime tropical air masses dominate the climate in summer, but in other seasons continental polar air masses are not uncommon. January temperatures average between 39 and 49 F (4 and 10 C); August, 79 to 82 F (26 to 28 C). In northern Georgia, rain usually averages about 50 inches (1,270 mm) annually. The east-central areas are drier, with about 44 inches (1,100 mm) annually. In Georgia's earliest days, settlers included English, blacks, Austrian Salzburgers, Scottish Highlanders, New England Congregationalists, and Jews. Except for the increasing number of blacks (44 percent of the population by 1860), foreign immigration was insignificant after the earliest days. Though the state grew in population during the 20th century, its out-migration exceeded its in-migration until 1960. Black out-migration has been an important factor in the state's demographic makeup, but in the late 20th century blacks nevertheless accounted for almost 27 percent of the total population. As in other southern states, Georgia's population growth rate is well above the national average. Agriculture in Georgia has followed national trends: in recent decades farms have become fewer in number but larger in size. Cotton is still a major crop and so are peanuts (groundnuts) and tobacco. Poultry, cattle, and pigs are raised. Marble and granite are exploited, as is kaolin, a white clay used in ceramic and paper products. Lumber, plywood, and paper are major products, as are naval stores, made from Georgia's extensive pine forests. Cotton-textile production remains one of Georgia's major industries. Other manufacturing activities include airplane and automobile assembly, mobile homes, chemicals, and food processing. The federal government represents a significant addition to Georgia's economy through its major military installations. Navigation of Georgia's inland waterways has been revived, and Savannah and Brunswick are the state's two Atlantic ports. Atlanta has become an important air-travel centre, its airport ranking as one of the nation's busiest. Communications media are highlighted by the Atlanta Constitution, long recognized as being among the nation's outstanding newspapers. Public institutions of higher learning are headed by the University of Georgia in Athens and by the Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia State University, both located in Atlanta. Area 58,910 square miles (152,576 square km). Pop. (1993 est.) 6,917,000. officially Republic of Georgia, Georgian Sakartvelo, or Sakartvelo Respublikis country of Transcaucasia located at the eastern end of the Black Sea on the southern flanks of the main crest of the Greater Caucasus Mountains. It covers an area of about 26,900 square miles (69,700 square kilometres) and is bounded on the north and northeast by Russia, on the east and southeast by Azerbaijan, on the south by Armenia and Turkey, and on the west by the Black Sea. Georgia includes three ethnic enclaves: Abkhazia, in the northwest (principal city Sokhumi); Ajaria, in the southwest (principal city Bat'umi); and South Ossetia, in the north (principal city Ts'khinvali). The capital of Georgia is T'bilisi (Tiflis). The roots of the Georgian people extend deep in history; their cultural heritage is equally ancient and rich. During the medieval period a powerful Georgian kingdom existed, reaching its height between the 10th and 13th centuries. After a long period of Turkish and Persian domination, Georgia was annexed by the Russian Empire in the 19th century. An independent Georgian state existed from 1918 to 1921, when it was incorporated into the Soviet Union. In 1936 Georgia became a constituent (union) republic and continued as such until the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet period the Georgian economy was modernized and diversified. One of the most independence-minded republics, Georgia declared sovereignty on Nov. 19, 1989, and independence on April 9, 1991. The 1990s were a period of instability and civil unrest in Georgia, as the first postindependence government was overthrown and separatist movements emerged in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. constituent state of the United States of America. The largest of the U.S. states east of the Mississippi River and by many years the youngest of the 13 former English colonies, Georgia was founded in 1732, at which time its boundaries were even largerincluding much of the present-day states of Alabama and Mississippi. Its area of 58,910 square miles (152,576 square kilometres) presents numerous contrasts, with more soil types than any other state as it sweeps from the Appalachian Mountains in the north (on the borders of Tennessee and North Carolina) to the marshes of the Atlantic coast on the southeast and the Okefenokee Swamp (which it shares with Florida) on the south. The Savannah and Chattahoochee rivers describe much of Georgia's eastern and western boundaries with South Carolina and Alabama, respectively. The capital is Atlanta. For most of the 19th century Georgia was the capital of the cotton empire of the South, but poultry products now account for many times the income from cotton. Although industry has far outstripped agriculture in economic importance, a high proportion of industrial workers remain in farm- or forestry-related jobs such as lumber production, food processing, and textile manufacture. Atlanta has long been the economic and cultural centre of the Southeast. Its name evokes the largely romantic legends of the pre-Civil War South, of the traditions of Southern gentility, and of white-columned mansions along Peachtree Street, its best-known thoroughfare. The history of the state is marked by events of the Civil War: the many major battles fought there, the Confederate prison at Andersonville, in which nearly 13,000 Union prisoners died, and the burning of Atlanta and the devastating March to the Sea by Union forces under General William Tecumseh Sherman. The degree to which the wounds of this history have been healed in Georgia is most strikingly exemplified in modern Atlanta. Since the 1960s, black citizens have played an increasingly important role in the city's administration; the first black mayor was elected in 1973. During the same period, Atlanta has become a nationally oriented city, attracting major corporations as well as citizens from all parts of the United States. officially Republic of Georgia, Georgian Sakartvelo, or Sakartvelos Respublika, a country of Transcaucasia, formerly one of the constituent union republics of the Soviet Union. It lies in the Caucasus Mountains on the southeastern shores of the Black Sea. Georgia is bounded to the north by Russia and to the south by Turkey, and to the south and southeast by Azerbaijan and Armenia. Within Georgia are the autonomous republics of Abkhazia and Adzharia, inhabited mostly by non-Georgian ethnic groups. The capital of Georgia is Tbilisi. Area 26,831 square miles (69,493 square km). Pop. (1989) 5,443,359; (1997 est.) 5,377,000. Additional reading The geography, economy, culture, and history of the region are explored in Glenn E. Curtis (ed.), Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia: Country Studies (1995). Roger Rosen, The Georgian Republic (1992), is essentially a guidebook, but it provides important information on the country, its traditions, and its people. Another travel book, focusing on immediate encounters with the people of present-day Georgia, is Mary Russell, Please Don't Call It Soviet Georgia: A Journey Through a Troubled Paradise (1991). David Braund, Georgia in Antiquity: A History of Colchis and Transcaucasian Iberia, 550 BCAD 562 (1994), chronicles the history of ancient Colchis, Iberia, and Lazica, based on current Russian and Georgian scholarship. David Marshall Lang, The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, 16581832 (1957), is a detailed study of the period in question. W.E.D. Allen, A History of the Georgian People from the Beginning Down to the Russian Conquest in the Nineteenth Century (1932, reprinted 1971), is a major study of the state and national formation, insightfully keeping in perspective the contemporary history of neighbouring states. David Marshall Lang, A Modern History of Soviet Georgia (1962, reprinted 1975), surveys the 19th century and also treats fully the impact of Russian and European ways on the Caucasian peoples. Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation (1988), traces national formation and deals extensively with Georgia in the Soviet period. G. Melvyn Howe Ronald Grigor Suny Additional reading Detailed overviews of the state, past and present, are found in Writers' Program, Georgia: A Guide to Its Towns and Countryside (1940, reprinted as Georgia: The WPA Guide to Its Towns and Countryside, 1990), still a useful source; Lawrence R. Hepburn (ed.), Contemporary Georgia (1987); and Thomas W. Hodler and Howard A. Schretter, The Atlas of Georgia (1986). DeLorme Mapping Company, Georgia Atlas & Gazetteer (1998), focuses on the state's topography. James C. Bonner, A History of Georgia Agriculture, 17321860 (1964); and Willard Range, A Century of Georgia Agriculture, 18501950 (1954), cover an important topic. The treatment of Native Americans in Georgia, both in prehistoric and historic times, can be found in Charles Hudson, The Southeastern Indians (1976), an excellent and nontechnical overview. Georgia Journal (bimonthly) features articles on Georgia's arts and crafts, nature, history, and travel.Introductions to Georgia's history are presented in Harold H. Martin, Georgia: A Bicentennial History (1977); Kenneth Coleman (ed.), A History of Georgia (1977), a collection of essays; and E. Merton Coulter, Georgia: A Short History, rev. and enlarged ed. (1960), dated but still highly readable, with the flavour of the preintegration South. Francis Lee Utley and Marion R. Hemperley (eds.), Placenames of Georgia: Essays of John H. Goff (1975), informally tells Georgia's history through accounts of its colorfully named places. Particular periods are examined in Kenneth Coleman, Colonial Georgia: A History (1976, reissued 1989); Harvey H. Jackson and Phinizy Spalding (eds.), Forty Years of Diversity: Essays on Colonial Georgia (1984), a collection of scholarly essays; Edward J. Cashin (ed.), Colonial Augusta: Key of the Indian Countrey (1986), valuable essays examining the often overlooked early history of Georgia's backcountry; Michael P. Johnson, Toward a Patriarchal Republic: The Secession of Georgia (1977); Horace Montgomery, Cracker Parties (1950), a study of the politics of antebellum Georgia; John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 19001920 (1977, reissued 1980); and Numan V. Bartley, From Thurmond to Wallace: Political Tendencies in Georgia, 19481968 (1970), a review of post-World War II politics in the state. Along with scholarly articles on all historical periods, The Georgia Historical Quarterly publishes an annual bibliography of Georgia's history. Louis De Vorsey The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica Administration and social conditions Government In 1992 Georgiawhich had been operating under a Soviet-era constitution from 1978reinstated its 1921 pre-Soviet constitution. A constitutional commission was formed in 1992 to draft a new constitution, and after a protracted dispute over the extent of the authority to be accorded the executive a new document was adopted in 1995. The head of state is the president, who is given extensive authority. A prime minister and cabinet are appointed by the president. The legislature is a 235-member Supreme Council. The judicial system includes district and city courts and a Supreme Court. The Communist Party of Georgia, controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was until the 1980s the only political party. With the increase in nationalist sentiment and the reforms of the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, many diverse political groups emerged. Major political organizations now include the Citizens' Union, an alliance formed by the Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze; the reformist National Democratic Party; the Georgian Popular Front, formed in 1989 to promote Georgian independence; and the Georgian Social Democratic Party, which was established in 1893 but dissolved after the Soviet takeover. Georgia became a member of the United Nations in 1992 and joined the Commonwealth of Independent States in 1993. Armed forces and security In the early years of independence Georgia's armed forces were divided, but they were gradually becoming unified by the mid-1990s. The primary state military organization is the National Guard; paramilitary groups also are present. A two-year period of military service is compulsory for adult men, though draft evasion is widespread. Substantial numbers of Russian troops remain on Georgian territory. The Ministry of Internal Affairs oversees the regular police force. Crime rates in Georgia increased after independence because of the social dislocations resulting from the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a lack of civil authority in parts of the country, and regional instability caused by the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Cultural life Georgia is a land of ancient culture, with a literary tradition that dates to the 5th century AD. Kolkhida (Colchis) early housed a school of higher rhetoric in which Greeks as well as Georgians studied. By the 12th century, academies in Ikalto and Gelati, the first medieval higher-education centres, disseminated a wide range of knowledge. The national genius was demonstrated most clearly in Vepkhis-tqarsani (The Knight in the Panther's Skin), the epic masterpiece of the 12th-century poet Shota Rustaveli. Major figures in later Georgian literary history include a famed 18th-century writer, Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani, and the novelist, poet, and dramatist Ilia Chavchavadze. The 19th-century playwright Giorgi Eristavi is regarded as the founder of the modern Georgian theatre. Among other prominent prerevolutionary authors were the lyric poet Akaki Tsereteli; Alexander Qazbegi, novelist of the Caucasus; and the nature poet Vazha Pshavela. The novelist Mikhail Javakhishvili and the poet Titsian Tabidze were executed during the Stalin era, and the poet Paolo Iashvili was censured by the government and committed suicide. Giorgi Leonidze and Galaktion Tabidze were well-known poets, and Konstantin Gamsakhurdia was celebrated for his historical novels. The Abkhazian literary tradition dates back only to the late 19th century. Notable writers include the poet, novelist, and scholar Dmitri Gulia, the novelist and playwright Samson Chanba, the poet Bagrat Shinkuba, and Fazil Iskander, a popular satirist who writes in Russian. Important individuals in other arts include the painters Niko Pirosmani (Pirosmanashvili), Irakli Toidze, Lado Gudiashvili, Elena Akhvlediani, and Sergo Kobuladze; the composers Zakaria Paliashvili and Meliton Balanchivadze (father of the choreographer George Balanchine); and the founder of Georgian ballet, Vakhtang Chabukiani. Georgian theatre, in which outstanding directors of the Soviet period were Kote Mardzhanishvili, Sandro Akhmeteli, and Robert Sturm, has had a marked influence in Europe and elsewhere. The Georgian film Repentance, an allegory about the repressions of the Stalin era, was directed by Tenghiz Abuladze. It won the Special Jury Prize at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival and was widely praised for its political courage. The ancient culture of the republic is reflected in the large number of architectural monuments, including many monasteries and churches; indeed, Georgian architecture (with Armenian) played a considerable role in the development of the Byzantine style. Georgia has a long tradition of fine metalwork. Bronze, gold, and silver objects of a high technical and aesthetic standard have been recovered from tombs of the 1st and 2nd millennia BC. Between the 10th and 13th centuries AD, Georgian goldsmiths produced masterpieces of cloisonn enamel and repouss work, notably icons, crosses, and jewelry. A number of newspapers and periodicals are published, most of them in Georgian. Radio programs are broadcast in Georgian and in several minority languages, and television programs are broadcast in Georgian and Russian. Mikhail Leonidovich Djibladze G. Melvyn Howe