The Construction of History in the Medieval Georgian Chronicles of 11th Century

At the end of the 10th century on the territory of disunity Georgia was created a favorable dynastic situation, and the young King Bagrat III of the BagratidsDynasty was proclaimed as ruler of united Georgia, namely the Abkhazian kingdom, Tao Klarjeti and Kartli. With the strengthening of Bagratids at the beginning of the 11th century Georgia joined to the period of flourishing culture and the arts, especially literature and architecture. Scholars raised the question of autocephaly of the Georgian Church and created the legend of the preaching of the Apostle Andrew in Georgia. History also began risen – the majority of historical texts, later included in the chronicle "Kartlis Tskhovreba" (History of Georgia) dated to the 11th century. It is known that Bagratids were interested in inclusion in a set of works, which clearly expressed the idea of centralization of power and unity of the country and loathing for the internal centrifugal forces and external enemies. It is worth noting that most of the works "Kartlis Tskhovreba" begin with a description of the ancient history, so "pro-government" amendment affected not only the 11th century, but also an earlier periods too. In our work as examples of constructed history were chosen four stories of ancient and 11th century history. There are Georgian-Byzantine war of the first quarter of the XI century; the hypothesis of identification of Georgian King Vakhtang Gorgasali with the king Gurgen by Procopius of Caesarea; expansion of the Arab commander Murvan Qry to Georgia in the middle of the VIII century; legend about the origin of the Georgian Bagratids. When we referring to the Byzantine and Armenian texts, which mention the above stories, we can see that the Georgian chronicles most are compilations of foreign works, with the changes of described scenes to their favor. We conclude that it was done to improve Georgia's position in the political arena in the Caucasus and for the Georgian Church autocephalous status.