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The Megrelians〔Alternately, ''Mingrelians'', ''Mingrels'', or ''Megrels''〕 (Megrelian: მარგალი, ''margali''; (グルジア語:მეგრელები): ''megrelebi'') are a subethnic group of Georgians〔David Levinson. (Ethnic Groups Worldwide: A Ready Reference Handbook ), p 34: ''«Included in the Georgian ethnic and national group are a number of subgroups such as Ajars, Khevsur, and Mingrelians.»''〕〔Stuart J. Kaufman (Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War ), p 86: ''«Additionally, the Georgian category includes an array of politically important subgroups especially Mingrelians, Svans and Ajarians» ''〕〔Stephen F. Jones. (Mingrelians ). ''World Culture Encyclopedia''. Retrieved on March 29, 2008.〕〔Kevin Tuite (The Meaning of Dæl. Symbolic and Spatial Associations of the South Caucasian Goddess of Game Animals. ) Université de Montréal.〕〔Tunç Aybak (Politics of the Black Sea: Dynamics of Cooperation and Conflict ), p 185: ''«...Georgians (Megrels)...»''〕〔(Andropov, New Challenge to the West, by Arnold Beichman, Mikhail S. Bernstam ), p 116: ''«Georgia consists of three ethnics tribes: Imeretians, Kartvels, and Mingrelians .»''〕〔Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, by Svante E. Cornell, p 142〕〔Political Construction Sites: Nation-building in Russia and the Post-Soviet World, by Pål Kolstø, p 8〕 that mostly live in Samegrelo region of Georgia. They also live in considerable numbers in Abkhazia and Tbilisi. In the pre-1930 Soviet census, the Megrelians were afforded their own ethnic group (''natsional'nost'') category.〔R. Wixman. (The Peoples of the USSR: An Ethnographic Handbook (s.134) )〕〔(National population census ZSFSR 1926 )〕 The Mingrelians speak the Mingrelian language, and are mostly bilingual also in Georgian. Both these languages belong to the Kartvelian (South Caucasian) language family.〔(Sorosoro.org )〕〔()〕〔()〕 == History == The endonym ''Margali'' (მარგალი) is presumably reflected in the Greek ''Manraloi'' (Μάνραλοι), recorded as a people of Colchis by Ptolemy in the 2nd century BC. Early in the Middle Ages, Megrelian aristocracy and clergy, later followed by laymen, adopted the Georgian tongue as a language of literacy and culture. After the fragmentation of the Kingdom of Georgia in the 15th century, Mingrelia was an autonomous principality until being annexed by the Russian Empire in the 19th century. In several censuses under the Russian Empire and the early Soviet Union, Megrelians were considered a separate group, largely because at the time of the annexation Samegrelo was politically separate from eastern Georgia, the historical political and cultural centers of the Medieval Georgian Kingdoms. They were, reclassified under the broader category of Georgian in the 1930s. Currently, most Megrelians identify themselves as a subgroup of the Georgian nation and have preserved many characteristic cultural features - including the Megrelian language - that date back to the pre-Christian Colchian era. The first President of an independent Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia (1939–1993), was a Megrelian.〔McCauley, Martin. Who's who in Russia since 1900. Psychology Press, 1997: pg. 1〕 Therefore, after the violent coup d'état of December 21, 1991 - January 6, 1992, Samegrelo became the centre of a civil war, which ended with the defeat of Gamsakhurdia's supporters. Approximately 180,000-200,000 people of Georgian and Megrelian provenance have been expelled from Abkhazia as a result of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict in the early 1990s and the ensuing ethnic cleansing of Georgians in this separatist region. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mingrelians」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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