Khikhani Fortress as an Institutional Center of Regional Defense and the Preservation of Customary Law

Abstract

The present study examines the functional and historical role of Khikhani Fortress, with parti­cular emphasis on its significance in the organization of regional defense and the preservation of customary law in southwestern Georgia. The research is based on both Georgian ethnographic and historical sources, as well as modern international historiography and legal theory, which makes it possible to analyze Khikhani Fortress not only as a military-strategic structure but also as a multifunctional institutional space.

The article demonstrates that Khikhani Fortress functioned as a center of regional governance, where defense, law, and social order operated as an integrated system. Particular attention is devoted to the role of communal assemblies as mechanisms for the formation, interpretation, and enforcement of customary law. The analysis of property disputes, criminal cases, and family-inheritance conflicts shows that legal practi­ce was grounded in collective deliberation, compromise, and consensus, thereby ensuring the de-escalation of conflicts and the preservation of social balance.

The study further highlights the specific character of the Khikhani legal system under Ottoman rule, where legal pluralism and the coexistence of imperial and local norms were evident. This system was based on mediatory governance, grounded in moral authority and social trust, which is particularly visible in the governing practices of the Khimshiashvili family.

Comparative analysis with other Georgian mountainous regions demonstrates that the Khikhani legal model was distinguished by flexibility and an orientation toward the peaceful resolution of conflicts. As a result, Khikhani Fortress emerges as an institutional center of customary law and a space of legal mediation, whose function extends beyond the regional framework and acquires broader significance within the context of Caucasian legal traditions.

The study argues that the legal and governance model of Khikhani Fortress represents a notable example of consensus-based law, which ensured the structural stability of society and its adaptation within a multi-layered political reality.