The Abkhaz or Abkhazians (Abkhaz: Аҧсуа, Apswa) are a Caucasian ethnic group, mainly living in Abkhazia, a disputed region on the Black Sea coast. A large Abkhaz diaspora population resides in Turkey, the origins of which lie in the emigration from the Caucasus in the late 19th century known as muhajirism. Many Abkhaz also live in other parts of the former Soviet Union, particularly in Russia and Ukraine.

The Abkhaz language belongs to the Northwest Caucasian languages group. Classical sources speak of several tribes dwelling in the region, but their exact identity and location remains controversial. The Abasgoi and Apsilai of the Graeco-Roman authors are considered as the predecessors of modern-day Abkhaz.

The integration of various smaller ethnic subgroups into the modern-day Abkhaz people was basically completed by the late 10th century, but some of these groups were deprived of their homeland when the Russian conquest of northwestern Caucasus forced them to become muhajirun and emigrate to the Ottoman possessions.

The Georgians (Georgian: ქართველები, kartvelebi) are Caucasian ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America.

The majority of Georgians are Eastern Orthodox Christian and largely adhere to the national autocephalous Georgian Orthodox Church, which originated in the 4th century. There are also Georgian Catholic and Muslim communities in Tbilisi and Adjara.

The Georgian people went through a complex process of nation-formation and currently comprise a diverse set of geographic subgroups, each with its characteristic traditions, manners, dialect and, in the case of Mingrelians and Svans, language. The Georgian language, with its own alphabet and long written tradition going back to the 5th century, is the language of literacy and education of all Georgians living in Georgia as well as the official language of the country. Georgian, Mingrelian and Svan, together with Laz spoken by the related Laz people form the Kartvelian language family.

Vladislav Ardzinba (Abkhaz: Владислав Арӡынба, May 14, 1945 – March 4, 2010) was the first President of Abkhazia. A historian by education, Ardzinba led Abkhazia to de facto independence in the 1992-1993 War with Georgia, but its de jure independence from Georgia remained internationally unrecognised during Ardzinba's two terms as President from 1994 to 2005.

He was a member of the first parliament to be elected democratically in the Soviet Union in 1989.

Vladislav Ardzinba was born in the village of Lower Eshera, Sukhumi District, Abkhaz ASSR, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union^{[citation needed]}. After graduating from the Historical Department of the Sukhumi Pedagogical Institute, Ardzinba studied at the Tbilisi State University where he received a doctoral degree^{[citation needed]}. He then worked for eighteen years in Moscow specialising in ancient Middle Eastern civilizations under Yevgeniy Primakov, then head of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow, and later Russian foreign and Prime Minister^{[citation needed]}. He then returned to Sukhumi and he served there as the director of the Abkhazian Institute of Language, Literature and History from 1987 until 1989, when he was elected a Deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union from Gudauta^{[citation needed]}. From there, he was involved closely with national issues, including Abkhazia, and quickly emerged as one of the most active proponents of the Abkhaz secessionist cause. While a deputy to the USSR Supreme Soviet, Ardzinba, himself an orthodox Communist, forged close ties with the hardliners in Moscow, particularly with the parliamentary chairman Anatoly Lukyanov and other members of the hardline communist groups in Moscow that were responsible for the August 1991 coup attempt.