During the Classical Era, there were several independent kingdoms in Georgia, such as Colchis and Iberia. The unified kingdom of Georgia had its Golden Age during the reign of King David the Builder and Queen Tamar the Great in the 12th and early 13th centuries.
From 25 February 1921, Georgia was fully occupied by Russia for 70 years.
During World War II, almost 700, 000 Georgians Fought in the Red Army against the Germans.
The Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, died in 1953 and the collapse of the Soviet Union began.
By the 1980s, an independence movement was established and started to grow against the Soviet Union, leading to Georgia’s secession from this Union in April 1991.
Post-Soviet Georgia suffered from civil conflicts, secessionist wars in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and of course the big economic crisis.
After the bloodless Rose Revolution in 2003, Georgia strongly pursued a pro-Western foreign policy. Georgia aimed at NATO and European integration; it introduced democratic and economic reforms. Actually, the result was that state institutions were strengthened.
All this made Russia angry. Consequently, tensions between Russia and Georgia peaked. Finally, it all ended with the Russia-Georgia war on August 8, 2008, and the loss of Georgian territories.
Georgia is a developing country, ranked 70th on the Human Development Index. Georgia is a member of the United Nations, The Council of Europe, and the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development. It contains two de facto independent regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Those parts have very limited international recognition after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War.
Georgia and most of the world’s countries consider the regions to be Georgian territory under Russian occupation.