page_title: Free Svaneti
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Free Svaneti / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Mulakhi and Mujali communities in Svaneti (Bernoville, 1875)
context_page_description: Free Svaneti was a name applied to the self-governing communities of Svan highlanders, originally coined by the Imperial Russian officials and explorers of the Caucasus. These communities formed a loose confederation with a clan-based traditional system of law. As a quasi-autonomous region, Free Svaneti probably emerged with the decline of Georgian feudalism in the 15th century and was devoid of any centralized government until being subjected to the Russian Empire in 1853. The last vestiges of the Svan self-rule was brought to an end by the Russian military in 1876.
context_section_description: From the early 1830s the Free Svan clans sought Russian protection against the Dadishkeliani, but refused to admit officials and priests sent to them. In the early 1840s, the Russian government of the Caucasus dispatched Nikoloz Kutateladze, a Georgian priest from Kutaisi, on a mission to revive Christian church among the Free Svans, who then practiced a mixture of Georgian Orthodox Christianity and pagan beliefs, with no organized church structure. The priest quickly garnered much respect and was able to convince the highlanders to apply for Russian protection. In 1847, most of the Free Svan communities, with the exception of those of Latali and Lenjeri, accepted the Russian authority and were organized into the Malakho-Iparsky circuit administered by a bailiff (pristav). The Svans proved to be unruly, however, and two years later, in February 1849, the bailiff Prince Aleksandr Mikeladze was forced into flight to Mingrelia. The Free Svans were, consequently, delisted as Russian subjects until they renewed their quest for imperial protection and allowed Mikeladze to come back in 1853.
  On his return to Svaneti, Mikeladze was accompanied by Colonel Ivan Bartolomei, a history enthusiast, who left one of the first accounts of medieval Georgian and Byzantine antiquities safeguarded in the old churches of Free Svaneti. There was no Russian military presence in Free Svaneti until the 1870s. In 1875 the Svans resisted the government's survey of peasant-owned land and livestock for taxation purposes. As a result, General Tsytovich's force was deployed. A Russian detachment attacked the rebel stronghold of Khalde and was routed. A larger force, supported by artillery, took the village by storm on 27 August 1876. Khalde's 19 defense towers were destroyed, while the captives were exiled to Siberia. Thereafter, the Russians rule was tightened, with appointed headmen. Free Svaneti was no more a distinct entity, but the term survived in ethnographic literature.
caption: The villages of Mulakhi and Muzhali dotted with traditional towers c. 1875.
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