1. A state in southeastern United States; one of the Confederate states during the American Civil War; Also called: Empire State of the South, Peach State.
2. One of the British colonies that formed the United States.
3. A republic in Asia Minor on the Black Sea separated from Russia by the Caucasus mountains; a provisional military government; formerly an Asian Soviet; Also called: Sakartvelo.
Country in the Caucasus of SE Europe, bounded N by Russia, E by Azerbaijan, S by Armenia, and W by the Black Sea.
government
There is a 235-seat legislature, the supreme soviet, to which deputies are elected by a majority system, and a second-ballot run-off race in contests in which there is no clear first-round majority. The executive state president is directly elected.
history
Georgia was converted to Christianity in the 4th century AD. In the 7th century, with the weakening of the Persian and Byzantine empires, an independent Georgian kingdom was created. The kingdom became especially powerful between the late 11th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter the country fell under the sway of Persian, Mongol, and Turkish imperial powers, before being annexed by tsarist Russia 1801. Tbilisi (Tiflis) developed into an important commercial center under the tsars; however, the Georgian language and church were gradually suppressed.
under Soviet control
In May 1918, amid turmoil in the Russian Empire, Georgia reasserted its independence but, denied economic help from the West, its rebellion was crushed by the Red Army Feb 1921. In 1922 Georgia entered the USSR as part of the Transcaucasian Federation, along with Armenia and Azerbaijan, before becoming a full republic 1936. There was rapid industrialization between the 1920s and 1950s, but considerable resistance to rural collectivization, and political purges were instituted by police chief Lavrenti Beria during the 1930s. During World War II, the Soviet dictator Stalin ordered the deportation of 200,000 Meskhetians to Central Asia.
growth of nationalism
During the 1950s and 1960s, Georgia's administration became notorious for its laxity and corruption. A drive against crime and corruption was launched 1972–85 by Eduard Shevardnadze, leader of the Georgian Communist Party (GCP), and there was accelerated Russification. This provoked a nationalist backlash, witnessed in the form of mass demonstrations and the founding, 1974, of the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in Georgia by the university lecturer Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Glasnost produced an intensification of the nationalist campaign in the later 1980s, with a Georgian Popular Front and separatist group, the National Democratic Party of Georgia, established 1988. This fueled anti-Georgian feeling among the republic's Abkhazian and Ossetian minorities. The massacre in Tbilisi of at least 20 peaceful Georgian pro-independence demonstrators by Soviet troops on 9 April 1989 added momentum to the nationalist movement and during 1989–90, with its old-guard leadership purged, the GCP joined the seces
sionist camp.
After the seven-party Round Table–Free Georgia nationalist coalition triumphed in Georgia's 1990 supreme soviet elections, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was elected state president. The new parliament voted Jan 1991 to establish a republican National Guard and end conscription to the Soviet Army.
independence declared
In March 1991 Georgia boycotted the USSR constitutional referendum on preserving the Union. Instead, the republic held a plebiscite on independence, which secured 99% approval. Independence was declared April 1991 and a campaign of civil disobedience against Soviet interests was launched. Gamsakhurdia became the first republic president in the USSR to be directly elected May 1991, winning 87% of the vote and defeating five other candidates. Gamsakhurdia failed to strongly denounce the attempted anti-Gorbachev coup in Moscow Aug 1991, prompting the resignation in protest of prime minister Tengiz Sigua. However, the GCP was banned in the wake of the failed Moscow coup.
civil unrest
From Sept 1991 the increasingly dictatorial president, arresting political opponents and ordering the closure of pro-opposition newspapers, faced a growing popular protest movement, fueled further by government troops firing on the crowds. With disorder mounting, Gamsakhurdia declared a state of emergency Sept 1991. By late Oct 1991 most of the leadership of the nationalist National Democratic Party (NDP), headed by Giorgi Chanturia, had been arrested. The power struggle intensified and Gamsakhurdia was forced to flee to Armenia Jan 1992. Distracted by these events, Georgia failed to join the new Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), established Dec 1991.
international recognition
In July 1992 Georgia became a member of the United Nations.
multiparty elections
A military council with Tengiz Sigua as prime minister, having crushed a rebellion by Gamsakhurdia supporters, gave way to a new parliament elected Oct 1992, with Shevardnadze as its chair. In existence was an exceptionally fragmented multiparty system, riven by clan and regional rivalries, with more than 100 parties competing for power. The new government had to deal with violent unrest in South Ossetia and Akhazia in the NW, both of which were seeking autonomy.
mounting civil strife
From Aug 1992 fighting intensified between Georgian troops and Abkhazi separatists and in an Oct 1993 offensive, the separatists secured much of Abkhazia, including the capital, Sukhumi. In desperation, President Shevardnadze turned to Russia for military assistance, and, reneging on earlier promises to the contrary, agreed to Georgia becoming a member of the CIS. In Nov 1993 Russian troops were largely responsible for putting down a second rebellion by Gamsakhurdia supporters in the west of the country. The former president, who had returned from exile to lead the rebellion, was later found dead.
peace accord
In Feb 1994 Abkhazi separatists agreed to UN peacekeepers being drafted into the region and a military cooperation pact was signed with Russia, allowing it to retain military bases within Georgia in return for training and equipping the Georgian army. From June 1994 Russian troops were stationed along the Georgia–Abkhazia border. In Jan 1995 a Georgian official was shot dead and another wounded in a shooting attack in Moscow—both were former defense ministers.
economic difficulties
During 1991–92 gross domestic product fell by 60% and by early 1993 inflation stood at 1,500%.
State in SE US; nicknamed Empire State of the South/Peach State
area 58,904 sq mi/152,600 sq km
capital Atlanta
towns and cities Columbus, Savannah, Macon
features Okefenokee Swamp national wildlife refuge (1,700 sq km/656 sq mi); Golden Isles, including Cumberland Island national seashore, St Simon’s Island (with Fort Frederica national monument), Sea Island, and Jekyll Island, including Jekyll Island Club historic district, with the mansions built by wealthy families such as the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts; Chattahoochee national forest; Savannah (founded 1733), with a 4-sq km/2.5-sq mi historic district with town squares and over 1,000 restored houses, including Regency houses designed by William Jay (Owens Thomas House, 1817, and Telfair mansion and art museum, 1819), Juliette Gordon Low Girl Scout National Center (birthplace of Daisy Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of the US), Isaiah Davenport House (1815), Olde Pink House (1771), King-Tisdall Cottage (a museum of black history and culture), and the site of the Siege of Savannah (1779); Atlanta, chosen as the site of the 1996 Olympic Games, with Martin Luther King Jr national historic district (includ
ing Martin Luther King’s birthplace and Ebenezer Baptist Church), Stone Mountain Park (with the world’s largest sculpture memorial, to the Confederate war heroes), the CNN Center, and the World of Coca-Cola; Andersonville national historic site, site of the National Prisoners of War Museum; Fort Jackson on Salter’s Island, the oldest colonial fort in the state; Nennesaw Mountain national battlefield; Calloway Gardens, Pine Mountain, with the Cecil B Day Butterfly Center, the largest glass-enclosed tropical butterfly conservatory in North America
industries poultry, livestock, tobacco, corn, peanuts, cotton, soy beans, china clay, crushed granite, textiles, carpets, aircraft, paper products

famous people Jim Bowie; Erskine Caldwell; Jimmy Carter; Ray Charles; Ty Cobb; Bobby Jones; Martin Luther King, Jr; Margaret Mitchell; James Oglethorpe; Jackie Robinson
history explored 1540 by Hernando de Soto; claimed by the British and named for George II of England; founded 1733 as a colony for the industrious poor by James Oglethorpe, a philanthropist; one of the original 13 states of the US.
In 1864, during the Civil War, General W T Sherman's Union troops cut a wide swath of destruction as they marched from Atlanta to the sea. The state benefited after World War II from the growth of Atlanta as the financial and transportation center of the southeastern US. + prikaži više