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an over-arching organization encompassing all the peoples of the North Caucasus 
started to sound overtly and loudly. 
Within this context, some leading figures of the national movements, in 
order to defend the rights and interests of the peoples of the North Caucasus in a 
more efficient way, started to discuss the viability of forming an umbrella 
organization, to be called the ‘pan-Caucasian movement,’ ‘Caucasian Home,’ 
‘union’ or ‘confederation’. As a stimulus behind this idea there was a belief that, 
despite the existence of religious and linguistic divergence, the peoples of the 
North Caucasus were one and the same, with shared customs, a way of life and 
common interests. Therefore, this movement to establish a comprehensive 
organization for the peoples of the Caucasus developed hand in hand with the 
spread of ethnically based homogenous organizations in the region. 
 
2- The Rising Georgian Nationalism, Abkhazia and the Formation of the 
Assembly of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus: 
The first concrete step in establishing a unified organization of the peoples 
of the North Caucasus was taken by the Abkhaz. The events of 9 April 1989 
created a negative atmosphere all around Georgia and Georgian nationalism paved 
way.
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 Following the founding of the Congress of the Popular Front of Georgia in 
                                                 
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 On 18 March 1989, the People’s Forum of Abkhazia (PFA)- Aydgylara called a general 
assembly of the Abkhaz peoples in the historical village of Lykhny, in Gudauta district. This 
assembly with the participation of 30-thousand people, and also the local party and soviet 
authorities signed an appeal which proposed that Abkhazia should secede from Georgia and 
requesting the restoration of the status of Abkhazian ASSR of 1921-31. These demands were 
addressed to the Moscow and asked for the introduction of a temporary regime of ‘special rule’ 
from the center, that is direct subordination to the Moscow. As a response, mass rallies of protest 
against the Abkhazian demands from the villages of Abkhazia spread to the all other regions of 
Georgia. These demonstrations which were started out under anti-Abkhazian slogans quickly 
acquired a broader, pro-independence character, and the masses with the anti-Communist and anti-

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Tiflis (Tbilisi), on 25 June 1989, violence erupted in Sukhum over the 
establishment of a department of Tiflis State University in the city.
465
 The Georgian 
lecturers of Sukhum University refused to stay, as long as Abkhaz and Russian 
lecturers remained there. The Abkhaz then attacked a school, which was intended 
to house the Georgian University. At this time, neither side was strong enough to 
force the issue militarily. The battles between the Georgians and the Abkhaz over 
the Abkhazian question were relegated to the legislatures of the two republics.
466
 
This ‘power show-down’, incidentally, forced each side to revise its 
position vis-a-vis the other. The Abkhazians, with the proposal of the People’s 
Forum of Abkhazia (PFA)-(Aydgylara) took the initiative of uniting the peoples of 
the North Caucasus.
467
 As a result, in order to defend the rights and interests of the 
peoples of the North Caucasus, in late July they proposed the setting up an over-
arching socio-political organization to the representatives of the Chechen and the 
                                                                                                                                        
Soviet statements demanded the secession of Georgia from the USSR. But on 9 April, they were 
brutally dispersed by Soviet (Russian) troops under the command of General Rodionov, the 
Commander-in-chief of the Transcaucasian military district. A curfew was introduced in Tiflis and 
the former first-secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, J. I. 
Patiashvili, resigned. See Alexei Zverev, 1996. “Ethnic Conflicts in the Caucasus 1988-1994,” in 
Bruno Coppieters, ed., Contested Borders in the Caucasus, Brussels: Vubpress, 40-41 and Svetlana 
Chervonnaya, 1994. Conflict in the Caucasus: Georgia, Abkhazia and the Russian Shadow, London, 
60. Hereafter The Russian Shadow. Then the leaders of the Aydgylara made public its appeal on 8 
July. In addition, see “Abkhazia –Problems and the Paths to their Resolution,” by Konstantin 
Ozgan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Abkhazia, 1998, www.abkhazia-
georgia.parliament.ge/Publications/Abkhaz /Ozgan.htm. 
465
 In fact, the Georgian SSR’s Council of Ministers issued an order for the establishment of this 
department already in May. 
466
 Zverev, “Ethnic Conflicts,” 42. During this three-day clashes 17 persons died (11 Georgians, 3 
Abkhazians and 1 Greek) and 448 were wounded. On 18 July a special regime of the conduct of 
citizens was introduced in Sukhum. See Chervonnaya, The Russian Shadow, 151. 
467
  Aydgylara means unity in Abkhaz and it was established in 1988. An Abkhaz doctor of law, 
Taras Mironovich Shamba drew up the program of the Aydgylara, and his brother Sergei 
Mironovich Shamba, a historian, was elected as the chairman at the founding congress in Sukhum. 
Chervonnaya defined the Aydgylara as an interfront  (internationalny front or fifth column) 
organization, which was set up by the initiative of Moscow. She claimed that the first draft of its 
program drawn up in Moscow and replate with arguments in favor of a socialist order and the 
indivisible and unbreakable Soviet union, stated that socialist Abkhazia must be a constituent part of 

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