EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS IN THE SOUTHERN AND SOUTH-WESTERN GEORGIA (CHILDIR VILAYET)

Abstract

In the glorious days of Byzantium, Emperor Heraclius divided Western part of Anatolia into four themes, each under a strategos. Large numbers of soldiers were settled there, receiving inalienable grants of land on condition of hereditary military service. This new arrangement laid the foundation for well-trained native army, consisting of farmer-soldiers’ light infantry.Not exactly the same, but still, there was regular militia in the Ottoman Empire composed of men who were alloted land by the Sultan in exchange for obligation to do military service whenever required. Actually, personally not these warriors, the sipahis, but free peasants, the rayats, were cultivating state land under formers’ supervision. Such a land, which could be hereditary, was known as timar. Larger land, known as ziamet, meant higher position for sipahi in the army, with greater obligations to provide his equipment.That is how, partly, the Ottoman army was organized.Towards the end of the 16th c. Southern and South-Western Georgia became part of the Ottoman Empire. Was the Ottoman military pattern used in Georgia with the Georgian feudals converting themselves into timariots and zaims, and the Georgian serfs – gaining freedom and becoming the rayats?!Yes, it was. “Book of the Incomes of Childir Vilayet (Southern and South-Western Georgia)” (the 16th c.) contributes as main source for history of Georgia under the Ottomans. And it shows rayats moving freely from one timar to another, and even threatened to be left without job if not cultivating prescribed land.In the 19th c. Southern and South-Western sites gradually joined the rest of Georgia now being subject of the Russian Empire. And the Russians did not bother themselves by abolishment of serfdom in this newly acquired regions because it had been already abolished there long times ago.Poland had Napoleon to set the serfs free; Prussians did it in 1806, Russians – in 1861. For the third part of Georgia the picture seems to be more progressive with serfdom being abolished in the 16th c.