Svaneti

43.06944444444442.569444444444Koordinaten: 43 ° 4 ' 10 "N, 42 ° 34' 10" E

Svaneti (Georgian სვანეთი / Svaneti ) is a historic region in the Georgian Greater Caucasus, which is now divided among the regions of Samegrelo and Upper Svaneti and Racha - Letschchumi and Niederswanetien. The most important city in Svaneti is Mestia.

Geography

A distinction is made between Upper Svaneti (Georgian Semo Svaneti ) and Niederswanetien ( Kvemo Svaneti ). These two regions are separated by the Swanische Mountains. In Upper Svaneti today live about 45,000 people. It lies in the valley of the Enguri. Its mountain villages are World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Niederswanetien, however, lies in the valley of Zchenisckali.

The highest mountain in Svaneti is the Uschba.

History

The Svan be mentioned by both the Greeks and the Romans. In the 4th century BC, the Greek historian Xenophon describes the Svan. Presumably they went in the 3rd century BC by the levels distal to the mountain regions. From the Greek geographer Strabo ( 63 BC - 23 AD ), the Svan described as a warlike people.

The Principality of Svaneti was structured around the 12th century the Georgian Kingdom. In the 15th century, when the duchy Dadeschkeliani Svaneti originated in the western Upper Svaneti, the Principality Niederswanetien (after the prince's family that ruled in Guria simultaneously via Mingrelien and in the Middle Ages, also known as Dadiani Svaneti ) and the Free Svaneti in the Eastern Upper Svaneti which did not have a monarch.

Between 1857 and 1859 Niederswanetien was annexed by the Russian Empire. 1846 was followed by Upper Svaneti. 1864 traveled to the German naturalist Gustav Radde the region.

Culture and folk religion

For the Svans death is separate from life only by a "thin wall ". They believe that your deceased loved ones to care for the spiritual welfare of those still alive. Therefore, the survivors also take care of the souls of the deceased. This wall metaphor can be particularly well seen in the Svan religious buildings. Are on the inner walls of many churches swanischer - as usual in the Orthodox Church - Holy seen, whereas worldly personalities are depicted such as kings on the outside. Services are usually held in Svaneti outside the church and not in it. The space within the church is the souls of the deceased reserved. The highlight of the memory of the deceased and the honor of their souls is the annual Lipanali hard. If a man died outside his house, so his soul wanders freely and must be caught and brought back. Among the funeral rituals belongs in this case that at the site of his death until dawn the three-stringed fiddle is played tschuniri, whereby the soul then returns to the house with the procession.

Characteristic of the swanetische culture are circle dances with mythological background that often act of hunting and fertility. In Svaneti, more than anywhere else in Georgia pre-Christian ideas have received. Only here the tschangi is still played, a native of the Iranian plateau angle harp, which was widespread in the Middle Ages.