177 Florian Mühlfried THE DIPLOMATIC AND MILITARY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GEORGIAN HIGHLANDERS AND THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE: FROM THE 17 TH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY Abstract: The cultures and societies of mountain dwellers are main- ly perceived as conservative. Recently, the anthropologist James Scott has challenged this perception by conceptualizing life in the highlands as a form of resistance to being governed. This chapter is intended to produce a more nuanced picture of the interrelationships between highlanders and lowlanders, referring to case examples from an alpine region of Georgia called Tusheti. The epoch scrutinized is the 17 th cen- tury, but some historical continuities and discontinuities will also be outlined. Two core features of interaction between mountain dwellers and lowland power holders are foregrounded: military support and dip- lomatic relations. Keywords: Caucasus, Mountains, State, Military, Diplomacy Introduction Both in academia and beyond, the cultures and societies of mountain dwellers are predominantly perceived as ancient and conservative. 1 The Caucasus highlanders are no exception. Their dialects are of interest to linguists because they are said to contain traces of older forms of the standard language, as in the case of the Khevsur dialect of standard Georgian, for example. Their folklore fascinates those with an interest 1 The material presented here is largely based on my monograph Being a State and States of Being in Highland Georgia published by Berghahn Press in 2014. I would like to express my gratitude to the publisher for their permission to republish the material in the present context.