Middle Ages Starting in the sixteenth century, as the
Turkoman invasions devastated the southern Georgia,
Qizilbash tribes started migrating and settling on both banks of the
Kura River in Lower
Kartli, in the valleys of
Algeti and
Ktsia, in the Dabnisi Gorge, and in
Somkhiti. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, they spread eastward into fertile lands of Karaiazi (modern-day
Gardabani Municipality) and in the west, they reached
Shulaveri and the Dmanisi Gorge. Their consolidation led to the formation of the Azerbaijani community. The area populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis today is known as historical Borchali (which in the form
Burjoglu was originally the name of a Turkic tribe that settled there in the seventeenth century). In 1604, during the reign of Safavid shah
Abbas I, the Borchaly khanate (sultanate) was established here. The Sultanate of Borchali existed from 1604 to 1755 with its capital in
Aghjagala (a mediaeval fortress whose ruins nowadays lie near Kushchi,
Marneuli Municipality), later turned into a
mouravate (district) under the suzerainty of the Georgian kingdom of
Kartli-Kakheti. Furthermore, up to 15,000 Turkic-speaking families had been resettled in
Kakheti at the beginning of the seventeenth century by
Abbas I of Persia following a series of punitive campaigns he had launched against his Georgian subject,
Teimuraz I of Kakheti. the government reorganised the Georgian kingdom into a
governorate, with subdivisions of its own, five of which were referred to as the Tatar ranges (the Czarist nomenclature used the word "Tatar" for Azerbaijani), namely Borchali, Pambak, Shuragel, Kazakh, and Shamshadin. In 1868, the latter two became part of the
Elizavetpol Governorate, while the former three were incorporated into the
Tiflis Governorate as the Borchali uyezd. The plains of the uyezd were mainly Azerbaijani-populated: out of 63 villages in the Borchali Plain covering 390 square versts (equal to 444 square kilometres) of land, 61 were populated with Azerbaijanis. In Tiflis, Azerbaijanis have historically populated the neighbourhood of Ortachala (from
Azerbaijani orta, meaning "central, middle", and
Georgian ჭალა (''ch'ala''), meaning "green coastal area"), also known as Maidan (, meaning "square") or Sheitanbazar (, meaning "Devil's market"), as well as Seidabad (; "city of
sayyids"), the old baths district. In November 1905, Tiflis almost became an arena of
Armenian–Azerbaijani ethnic clashes, which had already affected and caused violent conflicts and massacres in the rest of the South Caucasus. Militia units of the Armenian nationalist
Dashnaktsutiun party seized control of key positions. The Azerbaijanis were assisted by 2,000 mounted volunteers from Borchali. By three o'clock in the afternoon on 27 November 1905 there were already 22 killed and wounded. In response, social democrat labourer activists organised a peaceful rally, calling on both parties not to engage in a conflict, and managed to acquire arms from the
Viceroyalty of the Caucasus in order to patrol the streets. Following mediation, both sides came to a peaceful agreement on 1 December 1905, and the Borchalians left the city. In 1919, during Georgia's
brief independence, 34-year-old
Parikhanim Sofiyeva, an Azerbaijani woman from the village of Karajalari near
Karaiazi, won the parliament election in her constituency, becoming the first democratically elected Muslim woman in the history of the Caucasus and one of only five Georgian female MPs at the time.
Soviet Georgia Under
Soviet rule, Azerbaijanis constituted the third largest ethnic minority in the country (after Armenians and Russians), but their numbers grew constantly due to a high
birth rate, almost twice as high as for ethnic Georgians as of 1989, as well as a low rate of immigration. Due to this, the numbers of Azerbaijanis rose to make them Georgia's largest minority ethnic group by 2002. After
Soviet occupation, many Azerbaijanis left Georgia for Azerbaijan proper due to Soviet policies discouraging them from working in fields like adminstration. In March 1944, 3,240 ethnic Azerbaijanis and
Kurds living in the capital city of Tbilisi were forcibly relocated to rural parts of Kvemo Kartli, as persons "deliberately avoiding working in the agricultural sector". Only 31 Azerbaijani families were permitted to stay in Tbilisi, mostly military personnel, handicapped war veterans, and university students. In 1944, in the midst of the
population transfer in the Soviet Union, a decree was issued by the
Moscow-seated government, according to which tens of thousands of residents of the southern border regions of Georgia were to be forcibly relocated to
Central Asia for national security reasons. The decree made provision for the relocation of
Meskhetian Turks, Kurds,
Hamsheni Armenians and "others", though the latter category underlyingly referred to Azerbaijanis living in
Samtskhe-Javakheti and
Ajara. Georgian
NKVD officers made no distinction between the Azerbaijanis and the key deportation target groups, as together with Kurds and Hamsheni Armenians, they were seen as "Turkish-oriented". In 1949, it was revealed that out of almost 100,000 deportees, 24,304 were Azerbaijanis. Factors such as fertile land, the proximity of the capital city, and easy access to major Soviet markets allowed Azerbaijani farmers to enjoy relatively prosperous lives, according to Soviet standards. Azerbaijanis also occupied many top posts in local governments across Kvemo-Kartli. In 1989, there were changes in the ethnic composition of the local authorities and the resettlement of thousands of eco-migrants who had suffered from landslides in the mountainous region of
Svaneti. The local Azerbaijani population, accepting of the migrants at first, demanded only to resolve the problem of Azerbaijani representation on the municipal level. The demands were ignored; later the eco-migrants, culturally different from the local population and facing social hardships, were accused of attacks and robbery against the Azerbaijanis,
Republic of Georgia Previously not prone to migrating, Azerbaijanis became the second largest emigrating ethnic community in Georgia in the early 1990s, with three-quarters of these mainly rural emigrants leaving for Azerbaijan and the rest for Russia. Unlike other minority groups, many remaining Azerbaijanis cited attachment to their home communities and unwillingness to leave behind well-developed farms as their reason to stay. The good relations between the second Georgian President
Eduard Shevardnadze and his former fellow
Politburo member
Heydar Aliyev, then president of Azerbaijan, ensured safety for Georgia's Azerbaijani community. According to Jonathan Wheatley, it was on Mamalalze's recommendation that six Azerbaijanis became Members of Parliament in the
1999 election and later joined the Alliance for a New Georgia that he had helped form. At the same time, members of the local government were dominated by ethnic Georgians appointed by him, including heads of all majority-Azerbaijani municipalities. In a 2003 interview, then Prime Minister and future President
Mikheil Saakashvili criticised Mamaladze for carrying out a smearing campaign against opposition parties and soliciting Azerbaijani votes by spreading rumours that the new government would organise mass deportations of Georgia's Azerbaijani population. Mamaladze left the country soon after Shevardnadze's resignation in November 2003. The new government's efforts to build a professional army changed the military conscription practices and instead allowed many young Azerbaijanis and Armenians from impoverished regions (at least before the
Russo-Georgian War of 2008) to be offered real employment opportunities by the Georgian army instead of being dragooned into mandatory military service. As part of his anti-corruption reforms, in 2004, Saakashvili cracked down on
contraband markets. This targeted the economic situation of many Azerbaijanis from the border regions who made a living through unencumbered trade with Azerbaijan and even led to protests against what was seen as "unfair punishment". In general, the majority-Azerbaijani regions, for the most part, demonstrated satisfaction with the United National Movement (UNM), showing varying support for this party in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 elections. Stephen Jones explains this by the fact that minority-populated electoral districts, in general, showed more irregularities which may indicate that the support for the UNM may have actually been lower than reported. Another explanation may be that, owing to the highly Soviet-like voting culture in this region, the voters did not want to be seen as disloyal or that they had come under the influence of local ethnic elites who have enough power to sway voting practices. == Social integration ==