Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - *PREVIEW* History of Georgia, Part 1 (feat. Omar Tsotsoria)

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

GET LIVESTREAM TICKETS FOR OUR SHOW ON OCT 4TH https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/livestream-lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-live-in-glasgow-4th-october-2025-tickets-1532091008449?aff=ebdssbdestsearchgl=1s0822wupMQ..gaNDgyMTk4OTc3LjE3NTc4NjgzNzM.ga_TQVES5V6SHczE3NTc4NjgzNzMkbzEkZzAkdDE3NTc4NjgzNzMkajYwJGwwJGgw It's a special version of History of Armenia in which Georgian journalist Omar Tsotsoria joins the show to discuss the history of another Caucasian country, and the specific history of an early-Soviet-era anarchist breakaway state in the Georgian SSR. Get the whole episode on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/139624712

History of Armenia is officially the history of Georgia. I thought this would be a really cool story because you told me about it. Omar is our good friend. For many years, you and Anni went to university together. And you told me this story and I'm like, this is so incredibly interesting. Because like many Armenians, I don't know a lot about Georgian history. And especially like pretty much every American, I certainly don't. So I thought it would be really interesting to bring you on the show.

But before we get on to the history of the radical left in Georgia, specifically like early Georgia, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, Omar, so everybody knows you and loves you as much as we do. Oh, thank you. Okay. First of all, I want to thank you for having me here. Then, okay, a bit about myself. As I said, my name is Omar. I studied history in the university.

and then I was like, I became like a history buff. I never, I did my first major actually in history. Then I studied journalism with Annie. And now it's in like more than 10 years that I'm working as a journalist. But my first degree was a history degree. And I just became an history buff, which means like I never worked as historian one day in my life. I just worked as a tourist guide and that's where I actually used history degree in only two cases. as a when I was working as a touristic guide

and when I'm watching the movies about the history I am the one guy who complains a lot just live commentary there like no they cannot hate that paints like this in 12th century that's impossible like things like that I'm not the right person to watch a movie

about history that's for sure yeah same I'm guilty of this crime as well I am an annoying motherfucker to watch any war or history film with, I have been told. I've been warned, in fact. He has been muted. Same here. Same here. What do you think is the worst offenser when we are speaking about history movies? Movies about the history. I think it tends to be anything from a history where anybody really really likes to talk about, like any history from

any country we happen to be from where it's like lionized and glamorized, like specifically like American World War II films are really bad about this where it's like weapons they didn't have at the time tactics they wouldn't use well yeah it's the little minutia that drives me insane and like okay that wouldn't happen

I'm not like army history expert but like there are certain movies which like drives me crazy and there are like actually quite a few historical movies which are a little bit accurate I don't think any of them are accurate like 100% and it's okay

but there are only quite exceptions where I think, yeah, okay, this is quite accurate. Yeah. That's why we thought it's good to have you here because the only accurate history is history of Georgia rather than history of Armenia, you know? Like enough with the myths and legends, you know, of great Armenians.

And I assume, I will say we did do a series on Georgian history in the 2008 war. And I didn't make a lot of Georgians mad, which I thought I would. because the last thing anybody wants to hear is their history, especially such recent and horrible history told by someone who is not them. But when it came to this, what you're going to talk about, it requires such an in-depth knowledge of Georgian history.

I'm like, I can't do this. No way. Yeah, it's quite difficult. Even this topic was quite difficult because there are many sources which creates this idea that you must know. I mean, it's pretty easy to find the truth of what happened there. But, like, everything was changed and reshaped so many times that even when I was sure in a couple of cases that, okay, this happened.

Then I found out, no, it's absolutely not true. And, yeah, I mean, Stalin propaganda changed a lot. I will say this during our story, we're doing our podcast, our podcast. But, like, when I was reading this story about Guria, and then I read a book was written about those events during the Stalin times, it seems like Stalin was in every corner of Kurya and every corner of uprising, which is totally not true. So it was quite difficult.

I mean, history is like this. I mean, you have to read a lot. But yeah, yeah, that's studying the history. The historical research is this, like reading a lot of ones. Like, yeah. Mr. Zhugosvili, Gorey's favorite boy. Yeah. Not only Goris, I'm quite scared of that, but like it's quite popular.

even today they help God me and Omar have a little bit of experience with that I just didn't

want to interrupt you about like 2008 war I was doing a documentary and Omar helped me

a lot and both of us were stuck in gory it was freezing cold roads where I see

are just going road to road asking like information showing this horrific photos is like

is this person alive because there was like no other way to find anything out but I mean

we had also a lot of good time, no matter how horrible, you know, the rest of it was. But yeah. So before I start our story, let's speak a bit about Georgia, because this is the country where all the story happened. And Georgia is a small country located in the south of Caucasus mountains and next to the Black Sea. Because of its location, it's been conquered many times by many different empires. There are a lot of stories to tell from this region.

But today, I want to focus on just one. In the early 20th century, Georgia had recently broken free from Ottoman and Persian empires, but was now under the control of a Russian empire. And during that time, one small part of this small country decided to rebel. They rose up with fierce determination. This is the story of Republic of Guria, sometimes called the Anarchist Republic of Curia. Before we dive in, let me first explain a bit about Georgia again. The country is ancient.

Its first cultures date back to 5,000 BC, over the centuries it developed into the medieval European Kingdom, complete with kings, queens, castles, and knights, not to mention plenty of invasions along the way. Georgia was destination of the Argonauts, the built place of Joseph Stalin. Sorry for that again. But we have got great food, incredible polyphonic

music, and yes, apparently we invented wine, and we are proud of that. Yeah, we are proud of that, honey. This is going to make the podcast officially break down as a Civil War over who invented. I mean, I've made this joke so many times, like whatever there's like a polite conversation going on between

Georgians and Armenians. I'll sit down like, so Armenians invented wine, right? And then I'll just get up and walk away. No country, with all my love towards Armenia and Annie knows that I love Armenia, no country who puts pomegranates in the wine can attribute to himself the invention of wine.

You guys, I mean, you put... Excuse me. I don't. I will not excuse the promigranes in the wine, Annie. All of that comes from Azerbaijan. You should know this. Really? It's pretty popular there, and it's kind of not as popular, but it can be found in Armenia.

But we make wine from grapes, thank you very much. No, Armenian wine is great. I have tasted it, and it's amazing. Yeah. I'm going to do it again. I'm just going to say Armenian's invented wine. I'm going to leave the recording. Man, you got Stalin, you know, famous or infamous.

Yeah. We have Jack Kovorkian. Jack Kovorkian would have been Michigan's Joseph Stalin if he was given the chance. We're just never getting. Yep. Yeah, I mean, okay, I mean, let's not dispute that. We both invented wine.

I mean, I'm sure the Chinese did, so yeah, keep going. In the end, yeah, maybe. Okay, here's the fact about Georgia. No one really knows why the whole world calls us Georgia. We call ourselves Kartveli, which comes from the central region of the country, which is called Kartli. And there are like two theories about this name's origin. One is probably true, but the other is just cool as hell.

The first theory is that Georgia comes from the Greek word Gorgos, meaning farmer, earth worker, which makes kind of sense. Like, we invented wine again. Second and the much cooler theory is that it comes from Persian word gorg, meaning the wolf. Apparently, our ancient warriors used to wear wolf pets. on their heads, so we were known as a blend of the wolves, and this is like metal as hell. That's really cool.

I'll pose a third theory on Georgians. That's because much like Atlanta, Tbilisi has a really cool hip-hop scene. So there you go. It's kind of true, yeah. That's the only Georgian music I listen to.

Seriously? Yeah, it's cool as shit. And I don't speak a word Georgia not to say hello but like beats are sick man I'm not gonna lie I mean you know the fam fact is that like the first hip hop bands and first hip hop artists come from Georgia which which like

were Georgians were created near Gouria near in the Qutaisi is the like city of not only hip hop but even the punk and rock scene was like introduced in Georgia Georgia from Kutaisi which is like really near from Goetia yeah Kutaisi was yeah yeah Kutais is great

like it was always the city of innovation in Georgia, like artistic innovation. Okay, back to our story. It begins, our story begins in the end of the 19th century, in a small region of Curia, near the Black Sea, at the time when Georgia was controlled by Russian Empire. The serf system was abolished in 1861, granting the common people their freedom,

at least on paper. They were now legally free to move, go to court and trade. But there was one problem. The land still belonged to the nobles.