The purpose of the this Master’s Essay is to study the factors which appeased ethnic
conflicts in Javakhk and Kvemo Kartli after Georgia’s independence in 1991, thus those
conflicts never turned into a war. The research also incorporates the conflict of Ajaria in the
same time frame, discussing it from the point of view of religious base as one of the
components of ethnicity.
The essay provides theoretical background for the study of the ethnicity from the
primordialist and constructivist perspectives and ethnicity-as-conflictual theories which give
a comprehensive notion about the nature of ethnic conflicts and ethnicity in general. The
study also refers to the current development in Georgia regarding ethnic minorities in
Javakhk, Kvemo Kartli and Ajaria and investigate whether there have been any incentives for
the conflicts to escalate since the Rose Revolution 2003.