The
Mingrelians (Mingrelian: მარგალი,
margali; :
megrelebi) are a subethnic group of
GeorgiansThe Georgians are a South Caucasian people and nation mainly centered in Georgia. They also live in Turkey, Russia, the United States, Iran, and other countries....
that mostly live in
SamegreloMegrelia, Mingrelia or Samegrelo/Samargalo is a historic province in the western part of Georgia, formerly also known as Odishi.It is inhabited by the Mingrelians, an ethnic subgroup of the Georgians....
(Mingrelia) region of
GeorgiaGeorgia Georgia Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the east by Azerbaijan...
. They also live in considerable numbers in
AbkhaziaAbkhazia is a disputed region on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Since its declaration of independence from Georgia in 1991 during the Georgian–Abkhaz conflict, it is governed as the partially-recognized Republic of Abkhazia.Georgia considers Abkhazia part of its territory and has designated...
and
TbilisiTbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form Tp'ilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
. Approximately 180,000-200,000 people of Mingrelian provenance have been expelled from Abkhazia as a result of the
Georgian-Abkhaz conflictThe Georgian-Abkhazian conflict refers to the ethnic conflict between Georgians and Abkhazians in Abkhazia, which is presently a de facto independent partially recognized republic...
in the early 1990s and the ensuing
ethnic cleansing of GeorgiansThe Ethnic Cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia, also known as the Massacres of Georgians in Abkhazia — refers to ethnic cleansing, massacres and forced mass expulsion of thousands of ethnic Georgians living in Abkhazia during the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict of 1992-1993 and 1998 at the hands of...
in this separatist region.
Most Mingrelians speak both the Mingrelian and
GeorgianGeorgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 3.9 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
language which belong to the
South Caucasian (Kartvelian) linguistic familyThe South Caucasian languages are spoken primarily in Georgia, with smaller groups of speakers in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia and Israel. There are approximately 5.2 million speakers of this language family group worldwide.It is not known to be related to any other language group in the world...
, but use only the
Georgian alphabetThe Georgian alphabet is the writing system currently used to write the Georgian language and other South Caucasian languages , and occasionally other languages of the Caucasus...
.
History
The Mingrelians are descendants of several
ColchianIn ancient geography, Colchis or Kolkhis was an ancient Georgian , state kingdom and region in the Western Georgia , which played an important role in the ethnic and cultural formation of the Georgian nation and its subgroups...
tribes which later came under the influence of their ethnic kin from eastern Georgia (
IberiaIberia , also known as Iveria , was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli , corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia...
). Early in the Middle Ages, their aristocracy and clergy, later followed by laymen, adopted Georgian as a language of literacy and culture. After the fragmentation of the Kingdom of Georgia in the 15th century, Mingrelia was an autonomous principality which was embroiled in a series of conflicts with other Georgian polities until being annexed by the
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in the 1800s.
In several censuses under the Russian Empire and the early
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, Mingrelians were considered a separate group, but were classified under the broader category of Georgian in the 1930s. Currently, most Mingrelians identify themselves as "Georgian" and have preserved many characteristic cultural features including the Mingrelian language, but the number of its speakers have declined.
The first President of an independent Georgia,
Zviad GamsakhurdiaZviad Gamsakhurdia Zviad Gamsakhurdia Zviad Gamsakhurdia (Georgian: ზვიად გამსახურდია, (March 31, 1939 — December 31, 1993) was a dissident, scientist and writer, who became the first democratically elected President of the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet era...
(1939-1993), was a Mingrelian. Therefore, after the violent
Coup d'etatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
of December 21, 1991 - January 6, 1992, Samegrelo became the centre of a
civil warThe Georgian Civil War consisted of inter-ethnic and intranational conflicts in the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia , as well as the violent military coup d'etat of December 21, 1991 - January 6, 1992 against the first democratically elected President of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia and his...
, which ended with the defeat of Gamsakhurdia's supporters.
Notable Mingrelians
- Konstantine Gamsakhurdia
Konstantine Gamsakhurdia was a Georgian writer and public figure, who, along with Mikheil Javakhishvili, is considered to be the most influential Georgian novelists of the 20th century...
, one of the most influential Georgian writers of the 20th century
- Zviad Gamsakhurdia
Zviad Gamsakhurdia Zviad Gamsakhurdia Zviad Gamsakhurdia (Georgian: ზვიად გამსახურდია, (March 31, 1939 — December 31, 1993) was a dissident, scientist and writer, who became the first democratically elected President of the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet era...
, first president of post-Soviet Georgia
- Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Soviet politician, and chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Stalin. He was top deputy of the NKVD during the Great Purge, responsible for many of the millions of imprisonments and killings...
, StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
's chief of secret police
- Merab Kostava
250px|thumb|Merab Kostava, 1988Merab Kostava was a Georgian dissident, musician and poet; one of the leaders of the National-Liberation movement in Georgia...
(National Hero of Georgia)
- Katie Melua
Ketevan "Katie" Melua is a Georgian/British singer, songwriter and musician. She was born in Georgia, but moved to Northern Ireland at the age of eight and then relocated to England at the age of 14. Melua is signed to the small Dramatico record label, under the management of songwriter Mike Batt,...
, British singer
- Levan Kenia
Levan Kenia is a Georgian footballer who plays for Schalke 04 in the Bundesliga and the Georgian national team.-Club career:...
, Georgian international footballer