attracted to Georgia because it provided so good a route, from the West to the East, to the then rich territories of Persia and Central Asia. Eastern and Western civilisation met in Georgia, and stimulated its intellectual development.
But highways to rich countries attract not only the merchant, but also the warrior, whether he be plunderer or conqueror. In the degree; in which the. connection between West and East, Greece and Central Asia, developed in Georgia, the clashes of Western and Eastern; armies became more frequent, and Georgia suffered devastation from being made a theatre of war. But it always recovered speedily, so long as it remained a highway of world commerce.
When, however, the Turks put an end to the Byzantine Empire, conquered not only Asia Minor and Constantinople, but also the Balkan; Peninsula, and dominated the Black Sea, Georgia was cut off from Europe.
Henceforth the trade route from West to East was across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. At the same time, Persia and Central Asia fell to pieces. Georgia lost more and more the capacity to make; good the consequences of the. everlasting state of war. Its civilisation, its prosperity, and even its population rapidly diminished. The only thing that persisted throughout the perpetual feuds on its soil was the feudal exploitation of the masses of peasants by numerous petty princes; an exploitation which became more oppressive in the degree that the peasant became poorer.
The consolidation of Russia brought about a change. The struggle of the West against the: robber nomads and conquerors who had penetrated into Europe during the middle ages was first successfully undertaken by Russia.
First the Tartars, and then the Turks, were pressed back by the Moscow Czars who established their own authority over the territory thus vacated. At the end
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