Abkhazeti

 By Dr. Ramaz Mitaishvili

The lingering ethnic discord in Abkhazia exacerbated when, on March 18, 1989, the Abkhaz nationalists, who viewed an increasingly active movement for Georgia's independence as a threat to their political privileges of a "titular minority", signed a petition to the central Soviet government at a mass meeting at Lykhny, Abkhazia, demanding the rights to secede from Georgia.

In 1008, the Bagrationi (Georgian Royal House) ruler Bagrat III of Georgia united the kingdoms of Abkhazia (Apkhazeti) and rest of Georgia into a single Georgian feudal state. The second half of the 11^th century was marked by the disastrous invasion of the Seljuk Turks who by the end of 1040s succeeded in building a vast nomadic empire including most of the Central Asia and Iran. In 1071 Seljuk army destroyed the united Byzantine-Armenian and Georgian forces in the battle of Mantsikert, and by 1081, all of Armenia, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria and most of Georgia were conquered and devastated by the Seljuks.