South Ossetia, formally the Republic of South Ossetia—the State of Alania since 2017, and originally the Republic of South Ossetia, is a partially recognised state in the South Caucasus. It has an officially stated population of just over 56,500 people (2022), who live in an area of 3,900 square kilometres (1,500 sq mi), with 33,000 living in the capital city, Tskhinvali. It de facto borders only Russia and Georgia.
As of 2026, four members of the United Nations (UN) recognise South Ossetia as a sovereign state – Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Syria. The Georgian government and all other UN member states regard South Ossetia as sovereign territory of Georgia. Georgia and the European Court of Human Rights have ruled the region to be under the Russian occupation because of Russia's military, political and economic presence in South Ossetia.
The political status of South Ossetia is a central issue of the Georgian–Ossetian conflict and Georgia–Russia relations. The Georgian government informally refers to the area as the Tskhinvali region and considers it a part of Georgia's Imereti, Mtskheta-Mtianeti, Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti and Shida Kartli regions. Georgia maintained local councils elected in 2006 in Akhalgori, Kurta, Tighva and Eredvi municipalities before they were captured by the separatists and Russia in 2008.
The South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast, established by Soviet authorities in Moscow in 1922, declared independence from the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in September 1990. Towards the end of 1990, the situation for ethnic Georgians in the region worsened sharply. There were multiple lootings and beatings committed both by Georgian and Ossetian armed forces and paramilitary units. The Georgian government responded by abolishing South Ossetia's autonomy and dispatching its troops to the region. The escalating crisis led to the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War with Russian involvement on the Ossetian side. After the war, the conflict remained frozen throughout the 1990s and saw two major escalations in the 2000s: in 2004 and in 2008. The latter conflict led to the full-scale Russo-Georgian War of August 2008, during which Ossetian and Russian forces gained full de facto control of the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast. Georgia and most other states consider South Ossetia to be under Russian military occupation.
South Ossetia relies heavily on military, political, and financial aid from Russia. Since 2008, the South Ossetian government has expressed its desire to join the Russian Federation; if this occurs, it would end South Ossetia's proclaimed independence. A referendum on this matter has been raised multiple times in domestic politics, but none has taken place.
History
Medieval and early modern period
The Ossetians are believed to originate from the Alans, a nomadic Iranian tribe. In the 8th century a consolidated Alan kingdom, referred to in sources of the period as Alania, emerged in the northern Caucasus Mountains. Around 1239–1277 Alania fell to the Mongol and later to Timur's armies, who massacred much of the Alanian population. The surviving Alans retreated into the mountains of the central Caucasus and gradually migrated south, across the Caucasus Mountains into the Kingdom of Georgia. The first large-scale conflict between the Ossetians and Georgians occurred in the 13th century. After the Mongol invasion, the Alans left vast lands in the North Caucasus and invaded Georgia. Then the Alans took control of the territory from Gori to Mtskheta and territory of South Ossetia. But in 1306, after a 3-month siege of Gori, the Georgian ruler George V of Georgia managed to take Gori and the territory of South Ossetia under his control. At the same time, the Alans were expelled from Shida Kartli and Dvaleti. In the village of Zakagori, an inscription was found on a tombstone in the Ossetian language written in Syriac-Nestorian script, which dates back to 1326.
In the 17th century, by pressure of Kabardian princes, Ossetians started a second wave of migration from the North Caucasus to the Kingdom of Kartli. Ossetian peasants, who were migrating to the mountainous areas of the South Caucasus, often settled in the lands of Georgian feudal lords. The Georgian King of the Kingdom of Kartli permitted Ossetians to immigrate. According to Russian ambassador to Georgia Mikhail Tatishchev, at the beginning of the 17th century there was already a small group of Ossetians living near the headwaters of the Great Liakhvi. The Georgian-Ossetian population of the Ksani took an active part in the Kakhetian Uprising (1659). In 1711, Vakhtang VI launched an armed expedition against the Ossetians in South Ossetia and Dvaleti. He destroyed 80 towers and forced the Ossetians of Dvaleti, North part of South Ossetia to submit to Kingdom of Kartli.
This period has been documented in the travel diaries of Johann Anton Güldenstädt who visited Georgia in 1772. The Baltic German explorer called modern North Ossetia–Alania simply Ossetia, while he wrote that Kartli (the areas of modern-day South Ossetia) was populated by Georgians and the mountainous areas were populated by both Georgians and Ossetians. Güldenstädt also wrote that the northernmost border of Kartli is the Major Caucasus Ridge. By the end of the 18th century, the ultimate sites of Ossetian settlement on the territory of modern South Ossetia were in Kudaro (Jejora river estuary), Greater Liakhvi gorge, the gorge of Little Liakhvi, Ksani River gorge, Guda (Tetri Aragvi estuary) and Truso (Terek estuary).
The Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, including the territory of modern South Ossetia, was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1801. However, the Ossetians refused to submit to the new administration and considered themselves independent. In 1821-1830 the stage of annexation of South Ossetia began, which ended with the conquest of South Ossetia by Paul Rennenkampff in 1830. By 1830, Ossetia was completely under Russian control. Ossetian migration to Georgian areas continued in the 19th and 20th centuries, when Georgia was part of the Russian Empire and Ossetian settlements emerged in Trialeti, Borjomi, Bakuriani and Kakheti as well.
South Ossetia as a part of the Soviet Union
Following the Russian revolution, the area of modern South Ossetia became part of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. In 1918, conflict began between the landless Ossetian peasants living in Shida Kartli (Interior Georgia), who were influenced by Bolshevism and demanded ownership of the lands they worked, and the Menshevik government backed ethnic Georgian aristocrats, who were legal owners. Although the Ossetians were initially discontented with the economic policies of the central government, the tension soon transformed into ethnic conflict. The first Ossetian rebellion began in February 1918, when three Georgian princes were killed and their land was seized by the Ossetians. The central government of Tiflis retaliated by sending the National Guard to the area. However, the Georgian unit retreated after they had engaged the Ossetians. Ossetian rebels then proceeded to occupy the town of Tskhinvali and began attacking the ethnic Georgian civilian population. During uprisings in 1919 and 1920, the Ossetians were covertly supported by Soviet Russia, but even so, were defeated. According to allegations made by Ossetian sources, the crushing of the 1920 uprising caused the death of 5,000 Ossetians, while ensuing hunger and epidemics were the causes of death of more than 13,000 people.
The Soviet Georgian government, established after the Red Army invasion of Georgia in 1921, created an autonomous administrative unit for Transcaucasian Ossetians in April 1922 under pressure from Kavbiuro (the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), called the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast (AO). Some believe that the Bolsheviks granted this autonomy to the Ossetians in exchange for their (Bolshevik) loyalty in fighting the Democratic Republic of Georgia and favouring local separatists, since this area had never been a separate entity prior to the Russian invasion. The drawing of administrative boundaries of the South Ossetian AO was quite a complicated process. Many Georgian villages were included within the South Ossetian AO despite numerous protests by the Georgian population. While the city of Tskhinvali did not have a majority Ossetian population, it was made the capital of the South Ossetian AO. In addition to parts of Gori uezd and Dusheti uezd of Tiflis Governorate, parts of Racha uezd of Kutaisi Governorate (western Georgia) were also included within the South Ossetian AO. All these territories historically had been indigenous Georgian lands.
Historical Ossetia in the North Caucasus did not have its own political entity before 1924, when the North Ossetian Autonomous Oblast was created.
Although the Ossetians had their own language (Ossetian), Russian and Georgian were administrative/state languages. Under the rule of Georgia's government during Soviet times, Ossetians enjoyed minority cultural autonomy, including speaking the Ossetian language and teaching it in schools. In 1989, two-thirds of Ossetians in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic lived outside the South Ossetian AO.
Georgian-Ossetian conflict
1989–2008
Tensions in the region began to rise amid rising nationalism among both Georgians and Ossetians in 1989. Before this, the two communities of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast of the Georgian SSR had been living in peace with each other except for the 1918–1920 events. Both ethnicities had a normal degree of interaction and there were many Georgian-Ossetian intermarriages.
The dispute over the presence of the Ossetian people in the South Caucasus was one of the causes of the conflict. Although Georgian historiography believes that the mass migration of Ossetians to the South Caucasus (Georgia) began in the 17th century, Ossetian historians claim that Ossetians have lived in Georgia since ancient times. Some Ossetian historians accept that the migration of Ossetian ancestors to modern South Ossetia began after the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, while one South Ossetian de facto foreign minister in the 1990s said that the Ossetians first appeared in the area only in the early 17th century. Since it was created after the Russian invasion of 1921, South Ossetia was regarded as an artificial creation by Georgians during the Soviet era.
The South Ossetian Popular Front (Ademon Nykhas) was created in 1988. On 10 November 1989, the South Ossetian regional council asked the Georgian Supreme Council to upgrade the region to the status of an "autonomous republic". The decision to transform the South Ossetian AO into the South Ossetian ASSR by the South Ossetian authorities escalated the conflict. On 11 November, this decision was revoked by the Georgian parliament, the Supreme Soviet. The Georgian authorities removed the First Party Secretary of the oblast from his position.
The Georgian Supreme Council adopted a law barring regional parties in summer 1990. The South Ossetian regional council interpreted this as a move against Ademon Nykhas and subsequently passed a "declaration of national sovereignty", proclaiming the South Ossetian Soviet Democratic Republic within the Soviet Union on 20 September 1990. Ossetians boycotted subsequent Georgian parliamentary elections and held their own contest in December.
In October 1990, the parliamentary election in Georgia was won by Zviad Gamsakhurdia's "Round Table" block. On 11 December 1990, Zviad Gamsakhurdia's government declared the Ossetian election illegitimate and abolished South Ossetia's autonomous status altogether. Gamsakhurdia rationalised the abolition of Ossetian autonomy by saying, "They [Ossetians] have no right to a state here in Georgia. They are a national minority. Their homeland is North Ossetia .... Here they are newcomers."
When the Georgian parliament declared a state of emergency in the territory of South Ossetian AO on 12 December 1990, troops from both Georgian and Soviet interior ministries were sent to the region. After the Georgian National Guard was formed in early 1991, Georgian troops entered Tskhinvali on 5 January 1991. The 1991–1992 South Ossetia War was characterised by general disregard for international humanitarian law by uncontrollable militias, with both sides reporting atrocities. The Soviet military facilitated a ceasefire as ordered by Mikhail Gorbachev in January 1991. In March and April 1991, Soviet interior troops were reported actively disarming militias on both sides, and deterring the inter-ethnic violence. Zviad Gamsakhurdia asserted that the Soviet leadership was encouraging South Ossetian separatism in order to force Georgia not to leave the Soviet Union. Georgia declared its independence in April 1991.
As a result of the war, about 100,000 ethnic Ossetians fled the territory and Georgia proper, most across the border into North Ossetia. A further 23,000 ethnic Georgians fled South Ossetia to other parts of Georgia. Between 60 and 100 villages were burned down, destroyed by Georgian forces or otherwise abandoned. Several villages were ethnically cleansed by Georgian forces. On the other side, Georgians living in Ossetian controlled territory were "easy targets": Houses occupied by Georgians were singled out, looted and burned down.
On 29 April 1991 western part of South Ossetia was affected by an earthquake, which killed more than 200 and left tens of thousands homeless.
In late 1991, dissent was mounting against Gamsakhurdia in Georgia due to his intolerance of critics and attempts to concentrate political power. On 22 December 1991, after a coup d'état, Gamsakhurdia and his supporters were besieged by the opposition, which was backed by the national guard, in several government buildings in Tbilisi. The ensuing heavy fighting resulted in over 200 casualties and left the centre of the Georgian capital in ruins. On 6 January, Gamsakhurdia and several of his supporters fled the city for exile. Afterwards, the Georgian military council, an interim government, was formed by a triumvirate of Jaba Ioseliani, Tengiz Kitovani and Tengiz Sigua, and, in March 1992, they invited Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet minister, to come to Georgia to assume control of the Georgian State Council.