Born in Dublin in February 1882, Joseph Maunsel Hone was an Irish writer and journalist. He was educated at Wellington and Jesus College, Cambridge and soon embarked on a writing career that made him a leading figure of the Irish literary revival. He published biographies and literary criticisms as well political writings included books on modern history of Ireland. In 1909, Hone decided to travel to Persia to witness political changes there. Accompanied by Page Lawrence Dickinson, he travelled from Warsaw to Persia, where he spent several weeks visiting Resht, Tehran, Kazvin and other cities. In late 1909 Hone travelled back, passing through Georgia where he stayed for some time in Tiflis (Tbilisi) and Kutaisi before sailing across the Black Sea back to Europe. In 1910 Hone and Dickinson published a book based on their voyage, Persia In revolution, which contains an interesting discussion of the situation in Georgia.
Tiflis loses its Asiatic character, but the Georgians — although their sympathies are mostly Western — seem to take little pride in the new European dignity of their city. It stands to the credit of a hated [Russian] garrison with which the patriot must have as little as possible to do. Dumas pere, travelling
in the Caucasus, compared Georgia to a light-hearted slave, gay even in her servitude; Russia to a heavy-hearted queen, sombre in her grandeur, bowed beneath the weight of her cares. Times have changed. To-day what strikes the visitor among the Georgians is, above all else, the serious attitude of the upper and middle classes towards public affairs — their concern for the people's education, their reforming energy, their delight in abstract thought, their hopes for the destiny of their country.
Russia is now the enemy, no longer the Shah or the Sultan, although the Georgians hate the Turk and the Persian still. Yet their Russian governors were well disposed towards them at the beginning, when, about the middle of last century, as the conquerors of Schamyl, and certain at last of Naboth's Vineyard, they breathed freely. The great Lesghian chief who had made so mighty a war could not but have stirred their imaginations; and the traditions of this land of barbaric splendour and chivalry
seemed worthy of incorporation in Russia's own heritage. They were in a mood to be generous, and looking round them they saw the Georgian people, who had suffered so much — like themselves at the hands of Schamyl, but back, too, beyond Schamyl's days, down the centuries, at the hands of every heathendom — a people of their own religion, a people of high and mysterious lineage, of a race, scholars said, older than the Egyptian.
Georgia, enjoying at that moment an unaccustomed security, rejoiced. She allowed herself to be made much of by the stranger. But she has realised again that she is a disappointed nation. Now when Georgians curse their fate they curse Russia too.
There are land questions and language questions, and other discontents exist of whose reasonableness the passer-by cannot be certain. It is said, for instance, that no Georgian need apply for work to any Russian corporation, and that this explains why the able-bodied vagrant in town and country is usually a Georgian. The Russians argue that he is lazy and idle, and less efficient than the Armenian
and Tartar. Who knows ? Rivalries and hatreds between the Georgians, the Armenians, and the Tartars, took from the recent revolt any small chance of success it might have had. And now the Tartars have given up the struggle, while the Armenians consider that the continued unrest is bad for trade. The Armenians are the Jews of the Caucasus. The Tartars are the spoilt children — fancy a Tartar being a spoilt child ! But the Georgians say that it is so.
They are great political theorisers, the Georgians, especially those that belong to the professional classes. We spent many an evening among men of this type. All would agree in their hatreds, but some would have their special cure for the evils of the world. Social democrats raised issues with disciples of [American political economist] Henry George, with obvious Tolstoyans in blue smocks, and with landlords who (luckily) did not want their rents. There were patriots, pure and simple, in these parties, who distrusted the theorisers. They, when Government in the abstract was denounced, would say heartily enough, Bien entendu! And yet on a point of policy they disapproved of the wild dreamings of their comrades. How could a great national movement be conducted if every man had his private ideal ?
In method the Russian administration has been violent and probably unscrupulous, so that no one race in the Caucasus has really much advantage over another in the matter of practical grievances, although the grievances of the Georgians, the Tartars, the Armenians, are not necessarily identical. However, if one people has been at all favoured, this is the Georgian, and yet the Georgians are, least of any, likely to be reconciled to the occupation. It is because they have a stronger sense of patriotism than their fellows; the intellectual headship of the Caucasian peoples being theirs, they alone possessing a sense of nationhood. Meanwhile the intelligent Russian official occupies himself with the customs, the history, the language, the antiquities of the Caucasus, and vies in this respect with the patriotic native student.
