Celebrities with Georgian Roots

A country between the Caucasus and the Black Sea

Georgia is a country in the South Caucasus at the eastern end of the Black Sea, bordered by Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey.^[5] Georgians call themselves Kartveli and their country Sakartvelo. The English name comes from Gorj, the Persian name for them.^[6]

Fossils from Dmanisi show that early humans of the genus Homo lived outside Africa around 1.8 million years ago.^[7] DNA from two men who lived in western Georgia about 13,300 and 9,700 years ago, found in the Satsurblia cave and the Kotias Klde rock shelter, belongs to a distinct ancient lineage of Caucasus hunter-gatherers. It split from the lineage of western European hunter-gatherers about 45,000 years ago and from the ancestors of the first farmers about 25,000 years ago. The Yamnaya herders of the steppe, who moved into Europe around 3000 BC, owed a significant share of their ancestry to this lineage. Its traces remain in people of the Caucasus today and reach as far as Central and South Asia.^[8]

At Gadachrili Gora and Shulaveris Gora, two Neolithic villages about 50 kilometers south of Tbilisi, residues in clay jars point to wine. The authors of a 2017 study date the finds to about 6000–5800 BC and call them “the earliest biomolecular archaeological evidence for grape wine and viniculture from the Near East”.^[9] Georgian wine is still fermented in the qvevri, an egg-shaped clay vessel that is sealed and buried in the ground for five to six months. According to UNESCO, which recognized the method as intangible cultural heritage in 2013, most farmers and city dwellers make their wine this way.^[10]

Kartvelian languages and three scripts

Georgian, Mingrelian, Laz and Svan make up the Kartvelian, or South Caucasian, language family. Only Georgian has an old written tradition, and speakers of the other three languages use it for writing.^[11] Svan, at home in the high valleys south of Mount Elbrus, split off from the others at an early stage.^[12][11] Mingrelian is spoken along the Black Sea coast of Georgia, Laz on the same coast in Georgia and in neighboring Turkey.^[13][14] In the 2024 census, 85.1% of the population named Georgian as their mother tongue.^[2]

The oldest dated Georgian inscription found in Georgia records that the church of Bolnisi Sioni in Kvemo Kartli was completed in 493 or 494. Older dated Georgian inscriptions survive in the Holy Land.^[15][16] Bolnisi’s letters belong to Mrgvlovani, also called Asomtavruli.^[16] The order of its letters follows the Greek alphabet, which points to a Greek model.^[17] Nuskhuri and then Mkhedruli developed from Mrgvlovani, the oldest of the three Georgian scripts, and all three are in use today.^[18]

Mkhedruli is the script of schools and of everyday writing. It originally had 40 letters, and seven of them have since fallen out of use.^[17][18] The two older scripts live on mainly in the Georgian Orthodox Church, in psalms, hymns and on icons. When UNESCO inscribed the three writing systems in 2016, its committee described this living culture as “practised by the great majority of the Georgian population as an important part of their cultural identity and self-expression”.^[18]

Kingdoms, empires and independence

Georgians adopted Christianity early in the 4th century through the mission of Saint Nino.^[19] The census of 2024 counted 82.0% of the population as Orthodox Christians and 11.1% as Muslims.^[2] A Georgian kingdom was at its strongest from the 10th to the 13th century.^[5] The Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran partitioned the country in the 16th century. Shah Abbas I of Iran, who ruled from 1587 to 1629, deported many thousands of Christians from the region to distant parts of his empire.^[20]

King Erekle II of Kartli and Kakheti accepted Russian suzerainty in the Treaty of Georgievsk of 1783, in return for a guarantee of his kingdom’s independence. In 1801 Emperor Alexander I incorporated Kartli and Kakheti into the Russian Empire. Imereti followed in 1810 and Abkhazia in 1864. In a series of wars up to 1877–78, Russia also took Batumi and the Ottoman-held lands in the southwest.^[20]

On May 26, 1918, the Georgian National Council declared independence.^[21] The act promised all citizens civil and political rights “without distinction of nationality, religion, social position, or sex”.^[22]

The Allies recognized Georgia in January 1921. Within a month the Red Army entered the country on the orders of two Georgian Bolsheviks, Joseph Stalin and Grigory Ordzhonikidze, and installed a Soviet government.^[20] Georgia became a union republic of the Soviet Union in 1936. It declared sovereignty on November 19, 1989, and independence on April 9, 1991.^[5]

Abkhazia and South Ossetia

Abkhazia lies in the northwest of Georgia and South Ossetia in the north.^[5] Georgia’s 2024 census did not cover either region.^[2] Soon after Georgia became independent in 1991, heavy fighting between Ossetian and Georgian forces drove thousands of people from South Ossetia. Russia helped broker a ceasefire in 1992.^[23] According to the UN observer mission, the conflict in Abkhazia began with social unrest and attempts by the local authorities to separate from Georgia. It escalated into armed clashes in the summer of 1992, when the Georgian government sent 2,000 troops there. Abkhaz forces took Sukhumi on September 27, 1993. The fighting displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians, most of them Georgians.^[24]

In August 2008, fighting in South Ossetia grew into hostilities between Georgia and Russia that spread to Abkhazia. Georgia and Russia then signed a ceasefire brokered by France.^[23] On August 26, 2008, Russia recognized both regions as independent.^[25] Under a Georgian law passed that October, Georgia regards them as territories occupied by Russia.^[26] The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in June 2025 by 107 votes to 9, with 49 abstentions. It recognizes the right of all displaced people and refugees to return to their homes “throughout Georgia, including in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia”.^[27][28] Georgia’s agency for displaced persons had 300,439 people registered as internally displaced in January 2026.^[29]

Georgian communities abroad

Shah Abbas I settled a large group of Georgians and Armenians in Fereydan, west of Isfahan, probably in 1603–1605. By 1810 these Georgians had become Muslims. An account from 1896 put them at 2,500 households, about 15,000 people, and in the early 20th century most of them still spoke Georgian.^[30] Georgian is spoken today in many villages of the Isfahan region, in parts of Azerbaijan and in northeastern Turkey.^[17]

About 496,000 people born in Georgia lived in other countries in mid-2024, according to UN estimates. In 1990, when Georgia was still a Soviet republic, Russia had about 657,000 residents born there. Greece already had about 36,000, while Italy had 145 and Spain eight.^[31]

Surnames and church registers

Most Georgian Christians have surnames ending in -dze, “son of”, or -shvili, “child of”. Names ending in -dze first appear in the 13th century and those in -shvili in the 14th, and the early ones were not necessarily passed on. Until the 19th century, no law in Georgia required a hereditary surname. The medieval poet Shota Rustaveli had none, and one man of the late 17th century appears in documents under three last names, two formed from the names of his father and grandfather and one from his family.^[32]

The ending -eli forms surnames from place names. Among Georgian Jews, -shvili is even more common. It ends 92% of the 379 surnames documented for them in the 1800s and 1900s.^[32]

The Central Historical Archive of the National Archives of Georgia holds church registers from 1819 to 1921 that record who was born, married or died in each parish. Some years are missing because certain volumes never reached the archive. An online finder shows which villages are covered for which years.^[33] Regional and local archives keep household books, filled in by village councils every three and later every five years. They list each member of a household with a date of birth.^[34]