Sadrosho

Last updated February 20, 2019

sadrosho (Georgian :სადროშო; literally, "of a banner") was an administrative division in medieval and early modern Georgia which supplied men for a subdivision of the army marked by its own banner. A tactical unit furnished by this territorial unit was also known as sadrosho, each under the command of a military official, sardali .^[1]^[2]^[3]

Georgian is a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians. It is the official language of Georgia.

Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital and largest city is Tbilisi. Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres (26,911 sq mi), and its 2017 population is about 3.718 million. Georgia is a unitary semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy.

A banner can be a flag or other piece of cloth bearing a symbol, logo, slogan or other message. A flag whose design is the same as the shield in a coat of arms is called a banner of arms. Also, a bar shape piece of non-cloth advertising material sporting a name, slogan, or other marketing message.

United Kingdom of Georgia

The origin of the sadrosho system traces its origin to the period of a united Georgian monarchy, the Bagratid kingdom of Georgia (1008–1491), which, according to the 18th-century historian Prince Vakhushti, was subdivided into four principal sadrosho:

The Bagrationi dynasty is a royal dynasty that reigned in Georgia from the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, being among the oldest extant Christian ruling dynasties in the world. In modern usage, name of the dynasty is sometimes Hellenized and referred to as the Georgian Bagratids, also known in English as the Bagrations.

The Kingdom of Georgia, also known as the Georgian Empire, was a medieval Eurasian monarchy which emerged circa 1008 AD. It reached its Golden Age of political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar the Great from 11th to 13th centuries. Georgia became one of the pre-eminent nations of the Christian East, her pan-Caucasian empire stretching, at its largest extent, from Eastern Europe and the North Caucasus to the northern portion of Iran and Anatolia, while also maintaining religious possessions abroad, such as the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem and the Monastery of Iviron in Greece. It was the principal historical precursor of present-day Georgia.

metsinave (მეწინავე), "avant-garde", was furnished by the southern provinces of Upper and of Lower Kartli.
memarjvene (მემარჯვენე), "right flank", was provided by the western provinces of Imereti and Abkhazia.
memartskhene (მემარცხენე), "left flank", was supplied by the easternmost provinces of Kakheti and Hereti.
mepis (მეფის), "royal", by Inner Kartli.^[3]

Imereti is a region in Georgia situated along the middle and upper reaches of the Rioni River.

Abkhazia, officially the Republic of Abkhazia, is a de facto and partially recognized republic on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, south of the Greater Caucasus mountains, in northwestern Georgia. It covers 8,660 square kilometres (3,340 sq mi) and has a population of around 240,000. Its capital is Sukhumi and it is recognised as a state by Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru and Syria. While Georgia lacks control over Abkhazia, the Georgian government and most United Nations member states consider Abkhazia legally part of Georgia, whose constitution designates the area as the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia.

Kakheti is a region (mkhare) formed in the 1990s in eastern Georgia from the historical province of Kakheti and the small, mountainous province of Tusheti. Telavi is its capital. The region comprises eight administrative districts: Telavi, Gurjaani, Qvareli, Sagarejo, Dedoplistsqaro, Signagi, Lagodekhi and Akhmeta. Kakheti is bordered by the Russian Federation to the Northeast, Azerbaijan to the Southeast, and Mtskheta-Mtianeti and Kvemo Kartli to the west. Kakheti has a strong linguistic and cultural identity, since its ethnographic subgroup of Kakhetians speak Kakhetian dialect.

After the united monarchy

With the fragmentation of the Kingdom of Georgia in the latter half of the 15th century, the unified military organization collapsed and the three successor kingdoms—Kakheti, Kartli, and Imereti—reestablished their own systems of sadrosho. In Kakheti, newly created sadrosho were put under the command of bishops, generally more loyal to the king than princes ( tavadi ), who filled the similar positions in Kartli, usually as hereditary offices, and were prone to defiance to the central royal authority. Over time, the number and administration of sadrosho underwent several changes, but the system survived until the Russian annexation of the Georgian monarchies in the early 19th century.^[3]

The Second Kingdom of Kakheti was a late medieval/early modern monarchy in eastern Georgia, centered at the province of Kakheti, with its capital first at Gremi and then at Telavi. It emerged in the process of a tripartite division of the Kingdom of Georgia in 1465 and existed, with several brief intermissions, until 1762 when Kakheti and the neighboring Georgian kingdom of Kartli were merged through a dynastic succession under the Kakhetian branch of the Bagrationi dynasty. Through most of its turbulent history, Kakheti was tributary to the Persians, whose efforts to keep the reluctant Georgian kingdom within its sphere of influence resulted in a series of military conflicts and deportations.

The Kingdom of Imereti was a Georgian monarchy established in 1455 by a member of the house of Bagrationi when the Kingdom of Georgia was dissolved into rival kingdoms. Before that time, Imereti was considered a separate kingdom within the Kingdom of Georgia, to which a cadet branch of the Bagrationi royal family held the crown. This started in 1260 after David VI revolted against Mongolian rule and fled to Abkhazia. This was the result of the Mongolian conquest of Georgia during the 13th century which decentralized and fragmented Georgia, forcing the relocation of governmental centres to the provinces.

Tavadi was a feudal title in Georgia first applied in the Late Middle Ages usually translated in English as prince or less commonly as duke. The title was designated for dynastic princes who were heads of families, akin to mtavari who had a higher standing.

List of sadrosho in Kakheti

metsinave, "avant-garde", was under the bishop of Bodbe (bodbeli) and consisted of the district of Kiziki up to the village of Kisiskhevi.
memarjvene, "right flank", was commanded by the bishop of Nekresi (nekreseli) and comprised much of Thither Kakheti up to the town of Gremi.
memartskhene, "left flank", was subjected to the bishop of Rustavi (rustveli) and commanded much of Outer Kakheti from Kisiskhevi to the Aragvi river, including Martkopi and Saguramo.
mepis, "royal", was commanded by a royally-appointed person, not infrequently by a crown prince, and covered much of Inner Kakheti and the territory of the Bishopric of Alaverdi west from Gremi, including the Pankisi gorge.^[3]

The Monastery of St. Nino at Bodbe is a Georgian Orthodox monastic complex and the seat of the Bishops of Bodbe located 2 km from the town of Sighnaghi, Kakheti, Georgia. Originally built in the 9th century, it has been significantly remodeled, especially in the 17th century. The monastery now functions as a nunnery and is one of the major pilgrimage sites in Georgia, due to its association with St. Nino, the 4th-century female evangelist of Georgians, whose relics are shrined there.

Nekresi is a historic town in Kakheti, Georgia, in modern-day Kvareli Municipality, near the village of Shilda. The town was established by king Pharnajom. In the 4th century AD, king Thrdat built a church in this place. This church became a refuge to one of the Assyrian fathers, Abibus, in the late 6th century. Around this time Diocese of Nekresi was established, which existed until the 19th century.

Gremi is a 16th-century architectural monument – the royal citadel and the Church of the Archangels – in Kakheti, Georgia. The complex is what has survived from the once flourishing town of Gremi and is located southwest of the present-day village of the same name in the Kvareli district, 175 kilometers east of Tbilisi, capital of Georgia.

List of sadrosho in Kartli

metsinave, "avant-garde", included Lower Kartli—the districts of Somkhiti and Sabaratiano—and was under the hereditary command of the Princes Baratashvili and their offshoot, the Princes Orbeliani.
memarjvene, "right flank", included Inner Kartli and was hereditarily commanded by the Princes Amilakhvari.
memartskhene, "left flank", comprised Samukhranbatono and the duchies of Aragvi and Ksani, and was under the hereditary command of the Princes Mukhranbatoni.
mepis, "royal", included parts of Kartli along the right bank of the Mtkvari river from Tbilisi to Tashiskari and the estates of the Catholicos. The banner was under the command of a royally-appointed officer, frequently from the princely family of Tsitsishvili.^[3]

Somkhiti was an ambiguous geographic term used in medieval and early modern Georgian historical sources to refer to Armenia on one hand and to the Armeno-Georgian marchlands along the river valleys of Debed and Khrami on the other hand. In the 18th century, "Somkhiti" was largely replaced with "Somkheti" as a Georgian exonym for Armenia, but it continued, for some time, to denote the frontier region which is currently divided between Lori, Armenia, and Kvemo Kartli, Georgia. This patch of land was sometimes referred to as "Georgian Armenia" in the 19th-century European sources. The ethnically mixed populace of Somkhiti – in its regional sense – were known in Georgian as Somkhitari, while Armenians in general were referred to in Georgian as Somekhi.

Baratashvili is a Georgian noble family, appearing at the end of the 15th century as a continuation of the Kachibadze (ქაჩიბაძე), which were possibly related to the Liparitids-Orbeli.

The Amilkhvari was a noble house of Georgia which rose to prominence in the fifteenth century and held a large fiefdom in central Georgia until the Imperial Russian annexation of the country in 1801. They were hereditary marshals (amilakhvar/amilakhor) of Georgia from c. 1433, from which the family takes its name. Subsequently, the family was received among the princes (knyaz) of the Empire under the name of Amilakhvarov and Amilakhvari.

List of sadrosho in Imereti

metsinave, "avant-garde", included the districts of Vake and Salominao and the fiefs of the Princes Chkheidze and Chijavadze.
memarjvene, "right flank", included the district of Argveti.
memartskhene, "left flank", was the Duchy of Racha.
mepis, "royal", comprised the districts of Lechkhumi and Okriba.^[3]

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References

↑ Suny, Ronald Grigor (1994). The Making of the Georgian Nation. Indiana University Press. p. 353. ISBN 0253209153.
↑ Salia, Kalistrat (1983). History of the Georgian nation. Paris: Académie française. pp. 254, 265.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Asatiani, N. (1984). "სადროშო" [sadrosho]. ქართული საბჭოთა ენცილოპედია [Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia] (in Georgian). 8. Tbilisi: Georgian Academy of Sciences Press. pp. 623–624.

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[1] Suny, Ronald Grigor (1994). The Making of the Georgian Nation. Indiana University Press. p. 353. ISBN 0253209153.

[2] Salia, Kalistrat (1983). History of the Georgian nation. Paris: Académie française. pp. 254, 265.

[gse-3] 1 2 3 4 5 6 Asatiani, N. (1984). "სადროშო" [sadrosho]. ქართული საბჭოთა ენცილოპედია [Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia] (in Georgian). 8. Tbilisi: Georgian Academy of Sciences Press. pp. 623–624.