WHO IS THE VICTOR? FROM THE HISTORY OF INTERRELATIONS OF THE LATE ANTIQUITY GEORGIAN POLITY KARTLI WITH SASANIAN IRAN.

Human history is actually nothing but a prolonged chain of narratives about conflicts. Historians always paid much attention to their representations; however, the interrelations between vanquisher and vanquished were addressed relatively rarely. In the article, this topic is approached through the Georgian experience. The sources for all periods of Georgian history contain huge number of facts relevant for studying the issue in question. However, this time just one particular case has been selected. In particular, the article familiarizes the readers with the fascinating story of an Iranian prince, who in the first half of the 4th century, at the age of seven, took the royal throne of the pre-modern Georgian polity of Kartl. In the early 330s, while he was active, Christianity became the official religion of Kartli. This was a crucial turn in Georgian history. The name of this prince was Mirian (Mirean). He was the son of the third Sasanian Shahanshah, Hormizd I. The promotion of the Sasanian prince to the royal throne of Kartli should have been very beneficial to Iran. Sasanian authorities evidently planned to use it for further strengthening their positions in Kartli, and the South Caucasus as a whole. However, the result appeared to be the contrary: Kartli, under the leadership of the King Mirian, managed to leave the Sasanian political orbit and join to the Byzantine Commonwealth. Kartli became part of the Christian oikumene with a corresponding ideology; right away Georgians begun considering themselves as inhabitants of the sacral center of the globe and later on as guardians of the Christianized world from its easternmost side. The messianic idea of electivity filled Georgian culture with a new content and added to the Georgian ethnic identity's profile (shaped long before the Christian era). The new habitus of the Georgians constructed in the epoch of religious conversion appeared to be so powerful and potent that some elements of it continue to be active in modern Georgian national identity narratives. Thus, the victorious side played a positive role in the history of the vanquished. The analyzed case clearly shows that a political defeat does not always mean a final defeat, nor is a political victory a final victory. For the proper conclusions it is necessary to take a panoramic view and a longue durée perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]