Georgia’s troubled history

Why is Georgia conflict-prone?

Because it's a living fault-line of history, geography and ethnicity. Stretching most of the way across the vital strip of land between the Black and Caspian seas, stuck between Europe and Asia, Islam and Christianity, its mountains and pastures have been fought over for 4,000 years. Buffeted by the great empires of Persia, Turkey and Russia, the country has clung to a cherished identity: a language, warrior culture and distinct Christian tradition hundreds of years older than its enormous neighbour to the north. And since the accession of a pro-Western government in 2004, this nationalist tradition has seen Georgia angle for a minor but pivotal role in international affairs.

And how has it gained such leverage?

Defying Moscow, the country has reinvented itself as a pro-Nato outpost on Russia's southern borders, a democratic pipeline route to the oil fields of Central Asia and the third-largest contributor of troops in Iraq. Such willingness does not go unnoticed - Georgia is the second-largest recipient of US aid per capita after Israel - or, as the world saw last week, unpunished.

Has Georgia always been a country?

It declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 but it dates its history to the kingdoms of Kartli and Colchis, immortalised by Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece. (Archaeologists claim that ancient tribes used to pan for gold using sheep's fleeces.) Conquered by the Romans, the kingdom of Kartli converted to Christianity and in the fifth century Byzantium let it appoint its own bishops, 300 years before the Russian Slavs joined the Orthodox Church. But it has rarely had its own way. With the exception of its "Golden Age" – from the 11th to 13th century – it has been more or less constantly invaded. Religious and ethnic minorities have swept in and out again, leaving a rich junk of tribal identities behind. Hundreds of medieval towers, built for war, line the ridges and mountain passes. Fearful of conquest from the south, King Erekle II sought protection from Russia in 1783 and Georgia was swallowed up shortly afterward. Russia held it together, and when it next enjoyed a brief independence after the Russian Revolution more than a century