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GIORGI SOSIASHVILI From the history of the Plague spread in Georgia
The humankind remembers many pandemics, which had spread from country to country, from the continent to the continent and which terrified people from different classes or religious beliefs. During the middle ages the clergy thought the existed pandemics had been the punishment from the God. Among the pandemics, the most terrifying was the “Black Death” (Plague), which had also been called as the second pandemic, and which had spread from the Chinese-Mongolian border near the Gobi desert. Fast spreading of the disease had been caused by the movement of the Mongolian forces and their participation in many military operations, the cargo exchange on the Silk Road. The disease which had been brought by Genoese traders had been called as a “Black Plague”, and later “Black Death”. It is known that the name of the disease derives from the black or livid marks on the bodies of the diseased. During the 40s of the 14th century the disease had rapidly spread in Asia and Europe. The disease had been from Asia, from the upper bank of River Volga, later to Crimea, to Constantinople and to the east in Greece, West Romania and Bulgaria. The hearths of the pandemic had also been present in Cyprus, however the greatest scope the pandemic had gained in western European countries, in particular: Italy, France, South and West of England, Ireland, Scandinavian countries, and also in Russia. The “Black Death” had taken the lives of the tens of millions. In the given paper, we analyze how the deadly epidemic had affected Georgia in socio-economic and political terms. Key words: Epidemic outbreaks, The Black Plague, Georgia, Holy Spear, Church.
