Treaty of Georgievsk
Despite Kipiani's professed loyalty, the Russian authorities were suspicious of him. Kipiani saw the 1783 Treaty of Georgievsk the only fair model for the Russian-Georgian relations and remained a stubborn defender of a native language and culture. Convinced that "real progress can only be achieved by a nation that thinks and speaks in its native language", he opposed a policy of limiting the status of Georgian language in state-sponsored schools in the 1870s.