Country: Georgia

Group: Ajarians

Date Finalized: 9/19/2021

Team: Victoria Fuller (lead), Hunter Blevins, Kamaria Boyston

Content Warning: deportation, religious discrimination

Approximate Time Period: 1929

The Ajarians live mainly in Ajaria, a region in southwestern Georgia bordering Turkey and the Black Sea. The Ajarians began converting to Islam during the late 16th century after the Ottoman Empire incorporated Ajaria (Pelkmans, 2002). The Russian Empire incorporated Ajaria after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 (Sanikidze, 2019). After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the USSR uniquely designated Ajaria an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic based on religion instead of ethnicity in 1921 (Aydingün et al., 2019). During the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet Union instituted anti-religious policies which discriminated against Ajari Muslims (Pelkmans, 2002). In 1929 Ajarians rebelled against these anti-religious policies (Blauvelt, & Khatiashvili, 2016). In response to this conflict, the USSR evicted over 4,000 Muslim families from the Turkish border and deported them to Central Asia or exiled them (Minority Rights Group, 2018). Other Ajarians emigrated to Turkey (Minority Rights Group, 2018; Aydingün et al., 2019).

Both nonprofit organisations and peer-reviewed research have documented the forced migration of Ajarians, resulting in a data quality of 2/3. However, additional documentation and information would improve the data quality.

Sources

  1. Aydingün, A., Köskal, P., & Kahraman, A. (2019). Conversion of Ajarians to Orthodox Christianity: Different Narratives and Perceptions. Europe-Asia Studies, 71:2, 290-314, DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2018.1543651
  2. Blauvelt, T., & Khatiashvili, G. (2016). The Muslim uprising in Ajara and the Stalinist revolution in the periphery. Nationalities Papers, 44(3), 359-379. doi:10.1080/00905992.2016.1142521
  3. Minority Rights Group. (2018, September) Ajarians. https://minorityrights.org/minorities/ajarians/
  4. Pelkmans, M. (2002). Religion, Nation and State in Georgia: Christian Expansion in Muslim Ajaria. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 22:2, 249-273, DOI: 10.1080/1360200022000027276
  5. Sanikidze, G. (2018). Muslim Communities of Georgia: Old Problems and New Challenges. Islamophobia Studies Journal, 4(2), 247-265. doi:10.13169/islastudj.4.2.0247