Crusader

60-122

Authors: Merab Surguladze

This article addresses the military operations of the Georgian king David IV, as an ally to Western and Eastern Christians, against the Seljuk Turks. The author looks into the creation of crusade organizations across Georgia and the Caucasus. Among the materials utilized in writing the article are a number of medieval sources, some scholarly literature from the period between the 19th and 21st centuries, and several reference publications. In resolving the paper’s research objectives, the author employs both general scholarly methods (analysis and synthesis, concretization, and generalization) and traditional methods of historical analysis. The work utilizes the historical-situational method, which presupposes the study of historical facts within the context of the epoch under examination in conjunction with “neighboring” events and facts. This makes it possible to gain a thorough insight into the activity of the Georgian king David as an ally to Western and Eastern Christians. In the end, the author comes to the conclusion that during the First Crusade Georgia pursued an active domestic and foreign policy aimed at consolidation with Christians of the West and the East in their joint struggle against the Seljuk Turks. This war, which encompassed a vast territory and involved numerous nations, can be rightfully considered the first religious world war. Many historians believe it lasted up to the year 1700, at which point the struggle against the Ottoman Turks was taken over by Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire.