With the disintegration of the USSR, the Georgian-Abkhazian stand-off took on a transparent character, transforming into war. The war between Georgia and Abkhazia (1992-1993), unleashed by the government of Georgia, became a new stage of humanitarian catastrophe for the Abkhazians as well as for the other peoples of multi-ethnic Abkhazia. The Georgian military-political authorities, acting in accordance with their guiding principle of ‘Abkhazia without Abkhazians’, implemented a policy aimed at the complete extermination of the Abkhazian ethnos. The policy of genocide and of the ethnic cleansing of the Abkhazians on the territory of Abkhazia under the control of the occupying forces was sanctioned by the official authorities of Georgia.

The Georgian occupying forces committed vandalism even against Abkhazian national culture in order to deprive the people of their historical memory. On the occupied territory of Abkhazia were deliberately destroyed tens of educational, scholarly and cultural institutions, including the Central State Archive of Abkhazia and the Abkhazian Institute of Language, Literature and History Named after D. I. Gulia.

In this extreme situation the Abkhazian nation, despite pressure over many years from different powers, demonstrated the moral-psychological and ideological-political readiness to take upon itself the historical responsibility for the fate of its Homeland with the collaborative assistance of volunteers from the fraternal republics of the North Caucasus, South Russia, the Abkhazo-Adyghean diaspora, and to defend itself and the representatives of the other peoples residing in Abkhazia from future catastrophe. The real threat of the annihilation of the Abkhazian ethnos was prevented. The decolonisation of Abkhazia has provided the conditions for the leading to its logical conclusion of the self-determination of the Abkhazian race.

The victory of the people of Abkhazia in the Patriotic War of 1992-1993 and the liberation of the country from colonial dependence on Georgia, despite the postwar severe, at times critical, military-political, economic, demographic, moral-psychological, and informational problems, have created the basis for the construction of an independent state based on the rule of law.

Thus, in the many centuries-long history of the Abkhazian people the last two hundred years have been the most tragic. The Abkhazians became the innocent victims of the ethno-political and migrational processes conducted by foreign states; three-quarters of the Abkhazian population were deported in the second half of the XIXth century, and only barely half of the Abkhazian people remaining in their historical homeland after the deportations succeeded in preserving their Abkhazian national self-awareness.

Analysis of the trodden path proves that the state independence of Abkhazia and its international recognition alone can guarantee the rebirth and flourishing of the Abkhazian race and of the multi-ethnic population of the Republic of Abkhazia. The recognition of the independence of the Republic of Abkhazia by the Russian Federation on 26 August 2008 is the first step along this road. A qualitatively new epoch in Abkhaz-Russian relations has begun

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