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The Bivocal Nation pp 5–26Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

We, Us, Ourselves and Our Others

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Abstract

Ethnographic vignettes, such as a humorous discussion by liberal intellectuals on the Soviet intelligentsia’s methods of writing history, or on the “ridiculous” exaggerations of national myths, lead the analysis in this chapter to demonstrate how the past is employed as a rhetorical strategy in certain speech acts and how through their hidden addressivity such acts of speaking mark off one form of “cultural mentality” from another. Rhetorical practices of marking-off bring alternative national publics into being, distinctly voiced through national myths of selfhood. This chapter adopts certain points on “publics and counterpublics” from Michael Warner’s work and employs it in the critical revision of the concept of “imagining” to argue that it is imagining in terms of internal fragmentation that is inherent to the sense of belonging to a national community.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Lake Bazaleti is located some 60 kilometers northwest of Tbilisi, with a surrounding recreation area and a village (with the same name).

  2. 2.

    “Georgianness” (in Georgian, kartveloba) is a term in common use that would be simply translated as Georgian identity, but while identity is a neutral term, Georgianness is a value-charged word that functions as a condensed symbol representing some essentialist notions of the character of the Georgian people.

  3. 3.

    “Bendukidze’s reforms,” as Georgians refer to it, resulted in the Georgian state budget’s increasing from approximately $US400 million to $US4.5 billion.

  4. 4.

    The legislation was amended in 2010 and has since been inactive as per Georgian Legal Act N2911 (information obtained from the official webpage of Georgian codex: www.codexserver.com).

  5. 5.

    While I refer to Kakha Bendukidze and few other individuals who appear in this study by their full name, I prefer to use only first names (or pseudonyms where stated) with respect to others, even in cases where I have been granted permission to use their real and/or full names.

  6. 6.

    Colchis is the first proto-Georgian state on the eastern coast of the Black Sea established in the Middle Bronze Age (see Suny 1994; Rayfield 2012).

  7. 7.

    “Mother History” (in Georgian, deda-istoria) is the title of a historical novel by Levan Sanikidze that portrays the history of Georgia from ancient times till the twentieth century, through the adventures of Georgians’ heroism and self-sacrifice, first published in late 1986. But “mother history” is a term of common use that, on the one hand, signifies a particular vision of Georgia’s past, and on the other, expresses the notion that Georgia’s past (as portrayed in Sanikidze’s novel) is a birth-giver (hence a mother) of the Georgian nation. However, this group deploys the term as a way to satirize this particular vision of the past as an expression of “exaggerated Georgianness” (see more on this in Chap. 5).

  8. 8.

    The person in question was the head of the committee in the parliament of Georgia. I prefer to conceal the real name of the person and specific details of his position for ethical reasons.

  9. 9.

    Abkhazia is a secessionist republic on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, recognized first by Russia and a few other states as an autonomous republic. The conflict between Abkhazia and Georgia errupted in the early 1990s, and to this day it remains a disputed territory.

  10. 10.

    The Georgian word he uses is “bedukughmartoba,” literally the backwardness of fate.

  11. 11.

    For a tremendously insightful examination of the role of shame in mediating sense of national belonging, see Khalvashi (2015).

  12. 12.

    Taking Renan’s quote further, Mitchell Reyes, in his insightful essay on memory and alterity, argues that “The things people have in common comprise the space of intersubjectivity, and intersubjective figures as the condition for the possibility of collective identity.”

  13. 13.

    Patriarch Ilia II, “Epistles, Speeches, Preachings,” Volume 1, Tbilisi 1997.

  14. 14.

    See See www.orthodoxy.ge

  15. 15.

    I have found references to the Georgian Church as a “Trojan horse” in several forums: during informal conversations, but mostly in my discussions with liberal intellectuals as well as historians of the older generation. The right-wing liberal magazine Tabula featured a column, “The Law of Russian-Georgian Eternity” (qartul rusuli maradisobis kanoni) that outlined the long history of relations between the Russian and Georgian churches in a section “Trojan Horse,” which included the following quote: “…in reality, this naive hope in a common faith (ertmortsmuneoba in Georgian literally is common faith-ness) played the role of a real Trojan horse in the preparation for [Georgia’s] occupation and annexation” (February 22, 2013).

  16. 16.

    Information obtained from Georgian Ministry of Culture in 2011.

  17. 17.

    Full transcription (in English) on www.civil.ge

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  1. Free University of Tbilisi, Tbilisi, Georgia

    Nutsa Batiashvili

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Batiashvili, N. (2018). We, Us, Ourselves and Our Others. In: The Bivocal Nation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62286-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62286-6_1

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