Rebellion in Pkhovi and Didoya

Rebellion in Pkhovi and Didoya was an uprising of the mountainous communities in Kingdom of Georgia, against the attempts of transplanting feudal practices and forceful Christianization of the locals. In the last years of Queen Tamar's reign an uprising began in the mountain areas of Pkhovi, Mtiuleti, and Didoeti.

History

Although mountainous communities were nominally under the direct rule of the Georgian crown, they had never been completely integrated into the feudal system of medieval Georgia, and remained relatively little affected by implantation of aristocratic landowners. local patriarchal highlander communities were rather electing their own council of elders and leaders, known as Khevisberi who functioned as a judge, priest and military leader. The mountaineers engaged in hunting and cattle breeding, supported themselves somehow, and tightened their belts, to pay tribute regularly. They became the object of the Kakhetian Eristavi's avarice. Attempts at transplanting feudal practices in the areas where they had previously been almost unknown did not pass without resistance. Thus, there was a revolt among the mountaineers of Pkhovi and Didoya on Georgia's northeastern frontier in 1212. The refractory independence of Mountainous clans led to the sporadic incursions of royal troops bent on forcing them into submission. One of the most devastating expeditions against the Mountaineers was organized, c. 1212, at the behest of the queen Tamar of Georgia who presided over the Golden Age of the Kingdom of Georgia. The contemporary chronicle recounts a bloody three month campaign of pacification by Tamar's general Ivane Zakarid-Mkhargrzeli, that left several villages and shrines destroyed.

Sources

• R. Metreveli, Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia, X, p. 439, Tbilisi, 1986