Ancient Mingrelia under Russian Rule
Title: Auszug aus dem Tagebuche einer reise nach Mingrelien, von Felix Lagorio.
[Excerpt from the Diary of a Journey to Mingrelia, by Felix Lagorio.]
Weimar: Industrie-Comptoirs, 1810.
8vo. 12 pages. Text is in German. A scarce primary resource.
This is a complete monthly issue, containing the above mentioned account.
Unobtrusive stamp to first page, otherwise in Very Good Condition. Attractively bound booklet style in recent blue paper covers with label.
This issue contains an early translation from the travel journal
of Felix Lagorio, revealing his firsthand observations in ancient Mingrelia,
a historic region in Georgia also known as Odishi. The author's agenda was to
investigate the possibility of opening a trade link between Georgia and Persia,
for the purpose of selling products from France. Includes mention of Tiflis (now Tbilisi), Phasis, and an Armenian city named Kotatis.
This account pre-dates the author's book by twenty years
In 1830, Felix (Felice) Lagorio would author a valuable work on the
political revolutions of the Crimea, titled "Abregé historique des révolutions
et du commerce de la Tauride". Published in Odessa by 'Imprimerie de la ville'
the book covered the history of Southern Ukraine and Crimea.
Felix Lagorio was Neapolitan Consul in Feodosiya (the Ottoman Kefe),
where his son, the Russian artist Lev Keliksovich Lagorio, was born in 1828.
Chastised for his opinions, upon the return of the Bourbons, he was relegated
to the humble functions of Neapolitan consular agent.
Familiar with the region and significant sites of antiquity, Lagorio would
guideauthor/explorer Xavier Hommaire de Hell on his quest to discover traces
of the ancient Greek dominion, who would write his account in 'Travels in the
Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c.'. Together they examined
the ruins of the Genoese colony, then set out to the easternmost region of
the Crimea, exploring throughout the expanse of the Cimmerian Bosphorus
(Kerch Strait), between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. They visited a chief necropolis of the ancient Milesian city of Panticapaeum (present-day Kerch).
.
These are the original pages printed in 1810, and NOT a reprint.
This narrative is from a rare multi-volume geographical and scientific journal titled "Allgemeine Geographische Ephemeriden", which issued fifty volumes from 1798-1816
and which encompassed critical contemporary topics of geography and astronomy.
Adam Christian Gaspari and Franz Xaver von Zach were editors of this important
scientific journal.
Megrelia, Mingrelia or Samegrelo/Samargalo is a historic province in the western part of Georgia, formerly also known as Odishi. It is inhabited by the Mingrelians, an ethnic subgroup of the Georgians. Mingrelia is bordered by the secessionist region of Abkhazia to the north-west, Svaneti to the north, Imereti to the east, Guria to the south and the Black Sea to the west.
In ancient times Mingrelia was a major part of the kingdom of Colchis (9th-6th centuries BC) and its successor Egrisi (4th century BC-6th century AD). In the 11th-15th centuries, Mingrelia was a part of the united Kingdom of Georgia. From the 16th century to 1857, the independent Principality of Mingrelia was under the rule of the House of Dadiani and was a tributary to the Ottoman Empire and then an autonomous entity under the Russian Empire. Between 1857 and 1867 it was absorbed by the Russian empire.
Theodosia (Feodosia, Feodosiya, Kefe) is a port and resort city in Crimea,
Ukraine, located on the Black Sea coast. It was founded by Greek colonists
from Miletos in the 6th century BC. Noted for its rich agricultural lands,
on which its trade depended, it was destroyed by the Huns in the 4th century AD.
Theodosia remained a minor village for much of the next nine hundred years.
It was at various times part of the sphere of influence of the Khazars
(excavations have revealed Khazar artifacts dating back to the ninth century)
and of the Byzantine Empire. Ottoman control ceased when the expanding
As with the rest of Crimea, it fell under the domination of the Kipchaks and
was conquered by the Mongols in the 1230s. Because the Genoese started intervening
in the internal affairs of the Crimean Khanate, a Turkish vassal, the Ottoman
commander Gedik Ahmet Pasha seized the city in 1475. Ottoman control ceased when
the expanding Russian Empire conquered the whole Crimea in 1783.
Panticapaeum (Pantikápaion), present-day Kerch, is an important Greek city
and port in Taurica (Tauric Chersonese), situated on top of Mount Mithridates
on the western side of the Cimmerian Bosporus. It was founded by Milesians in the
late 7th to early 6th century BC.
Phasis was an ancient and early medieval city on the eastern Black Sea coast, founded in the 7th/6th century BC as a colony of the Milesian Greeks at the mouth
of the eponymous river in Colchis, near the modern-day port city of Poti, Georgia.
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