Constituent Assembly on South-West Georgia

Abstract

The legislative body of Georgia has repeatedly responded to the difficult political and economic situation and public mood in the Batumi district, whose materials are preserved in the archive and Georgian studies section of the National Library of Georgia.
On March 21, 1919, the fourth session of the Constituent Assembly was held, at which Evgeny Gegechkori vastly spoke about the severe economic crisis created in the world after the First World War, and how it affected Georgia as well. He emphasized the difficult situation created in the peripheries of Georgia, which was mainly inspired by foreign forces. According to Mr. Gegechkori, the solution to the problem was as follows: "The government should clearly state that clandestine reactionary elements in peripheries of Georgia are trying to overthrow the republic and are using external forces for this purpose. The government is paying special attention to Abkhazia and Muslim Georgia. Our goal is to ensure a peculiar development in these districts, organize a domestic management board with local forces, and deliberately connect to the motherland..."
The government will soon introduce national self-government into those Uezds that still lack this institution, and will hasten to organize the small national units which will form the basis of a democratic republic and strengthen the rule of the people."
The socialist-federalist faction also considered the introduction of national self-government in South-West Georgia as a kind of solution. At the fifth session of the Constituent Assembly (March 22, 1919), they declared that "great attention should be paid to ensuring the rights of national minorities. If we do not implement the declared self-government in Abkhazia and Muslim Georgia the matter will become much more difficult, and we will not be able to gather the scattered elements around us..."
According to the national democrats, the difficult situation created in South-West Georgia was not the fault of the world economic and political crisis but the fault of the ruling party, the social democrats. According to National-Democrat Spyridon Kedia: the government made mistake after mistake in the peripheries of Georgia. Sukhumi District, Batumi, and Zakatala Districts, also Borchalo, Akhalkalaki, and Akhaltsikhe Uezds, these corners are an obvious picture of our government's wrong policy.
Key words: Constituent Assembly, Southwest Georgia, Political parties, parliamentary factions, government