Abstract
This chapter is built around the idea of two voices through which a nation is imagined and offers an analysis of a geopolitically contextualized “memory project” which involves the writing of the textbooks on 200 years of Russian Occupation. The project stems from the political and ideological crisis and enacts the node between the state, its imagined publics, the intelligentsia, and modern intellectuals. In the subterranean polemic where the Soviet generation of intelligentsia and liberal intellectuals animate the past of Russian-Georgian relations in two distinct ways, the past becomes a critical terrain where the struggle over Georgia’s geopolitical belonging and the resulting disputes on national identity take place. This analysis not only fleshes out recent discursive rifts, linking them to broader political processes, but traces the genealogies of the narrative practices that enable two idioms of nationalist discourse.
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Notes
- 1.
Dodo is referring to several surveys conducted by the NDI (National Democratic Institute, a U.S. organization devoted to developing civil society in places like Georgia) over the years of 2010–2012, according to which 74 percent of Georgians agreed with the government’s ambition to join the European Union and 70 percent agreed with its NATO aspirations. In the same survey, 49 percent thought Russia is a real and existing threat to Georgia and 30 percent thought that Russia is a threat but is exaggarated, only 8 percent declared that Russia is not a threat according to the NDI research (National Democratic Institute, Public Attitudes in Georgia, February 2012 Survey).
- 2.
At the time of the interview, I had a 20-year-old student assisting me with my research. She sat in on an interview and later helped transcribe it. When she sent me her finished transcripts, she wrote the following to me: “It was so hard to transcribe this record. I never actually realized how much of what we hear is never being said, how much we omit from our spoken sentences. I sat in there and I was sure I heard her say these things and then I never found these on the record.” The episode is interesting in many ways, but it speaks to the point made here, that ellipses and half-words are filled with meanings not exclusively for the specific intelligentsia circle, but are culturally shared across social layers and generations.
- 3.
Representatives at the Rustaveli Fund refused to give information on the rest of the five proposals, hence I was unable to find out who were the authors of the other projects in the competition.
- 4.
Although Vaja did point out that they were not state representatives who criticized the approach, he refrained from naming the specific individuals he had in mind. He mentioned that a member of “Euroclio”–the European Association of History Education that works in different countries to promote a “European standard” for developing history curriculum–was oneof those critics. I later enquired about this from one of Euroclio’s members who denied any involvement of this organization with the history textbook on Russian-Georgian relations.
- 5.
Rusuliokupatsiis 200 Tseli: sadaosaxelmdzghvanelo [200 Years of Russian Occupation: Disputed Textbook], www.netgazeti.ge (accessed October 7, 2010).
- 6.
She spelled out her sentences in response to my half-articulated questions and they came less in a form of a monologue, but rather were punctuated with silences and hesitations, as if she was responding to the hidden chain of dialogues. It was hard to tell where the line was drawn between her own views and her sense of what others thought.
- 7.
Throughout the years of my research and countless informal conversations, I have heard such statements made more than once from a number of respondents, so although I place it in quotation marks, I am hesitant to identify any one particular individual as its author.
- 8.
I have had different individuals articulating these phrases on multiple occasions, hence I cannot attribute it to any of my particular respondents. I have heard similar claims made in media outlets, on Facebook posts, during conversations with taxi drivers, salespeople in stores, my friends and family members, university professors, etc. In many cases, even the wording was identical.
- 9.
Memory, as this book hopefully demonstrates, is a language of argument and it enters the discursive realm when a point needs to be proved, when someone needs to be persuaded of something. This in a way posited a methodological challenge for my research, because “the past” would never come about in the process of interviewing my subjects as it slips in within naturally occurring dialogues. Over the course of my three-year-long fieldwork I learned that I had to employ what Kusenbach calls the “go along” method (Kusenbach 2003) in order to access memory as it occurs in situ, and this in Georgia meant I had to enter a debate.
- 10.
Russophilia is commonly used by Georgians as a derogatory term that is used to refer to those groups or individuals who are in favor of Russia, but whose penchant for close ties with the Russian society is sustained by some unhealthy, particularistic, and “primitive” interests.
- 11.
Manning, Ram, and Shatirishvili have pointed out that the “geopolitics” of the nineteenth-century intelligentsia was expressive of their new-found and ambivalent position as a relatively privileged colonial class under Russian rule (Ram and Shatirishvili 2004).
- 12.
The author actually uses here street jargon, the verb “gavfarchakdit,” the root word is “far’chaki’” (i.e., pitiful, surrendered, submitted and battered, the prefix “ga” denotes the process of becoming, the “v” in “gav” is a first person marker) and the verb here is dynamic passive.
- 13.
The word he uses here literally is “no man” –Georgian arakaci.
- 14.
- 15.
Dimitri Qipiani was a nineteenth-century writer, publicist and a public statesmen, leader of the liberal intellectuals. He was exiled and assassinated in 1886. Kipiani is a significant figure as someone who had served under the imperial regime but whose work is valued for its nationalist agenda. The HI textbook section on Kipiani is entitled “In the service of the enemy for the homeland.” In 2007, the Georgian Orthodox Church canonized him as a saint. This is another example of how the Georgian church appropriates and incorporates secular heroes into its sacred domain. Such monumentalization and sacralization of figures like Dimitri Kipiani (or Ilia Chavchavadze who is also canonized as a Georgian saint) result in a crystalization of public figures that become canonical and intact and their image can only enter public debate from a single, univocal perspective. Such images cannot be reflected upon or critically discussed, but can only be venerated as authorities of the divine nature.
- 16.
Bendukidze subscribed to an extreme right-wing ideology and once metaphorically described the degree of his ideological belonging: “on my right side there is a wall.” Given that, whenever he used term “rational,” I was compelled to wonder whether he took human rationalism to the same degree of absolutism. So, I asked him once: do you think human beings are rational? In response, he said, “It depends on what we define as rational. I’m not entirely certain ‘rationality’ is the right word at all. Every act can be defined as rational from some perspective. If a man jumps from this window because he wanted to exit the building, we will regard it as an irrational act, but from his point of view it may have been perfectly rational. He may have sat and thought about it and from the way he perceived the world it may have made perfect sense to him, so it’s not irrational. Rationality is always about third party perspective and it’s not right to devise the term.” To that I noted, “You are a lot more post-modern than you’d like to admit.” Bendukidze smiled but asked, “Why” I tried to explain: “Well, because of what you are saying right now; isn’t it all about everyone having his/her own truth and that truth can be absolutely valid and legitimate from their point of view?” But he did not think of himself as post-modern: “No, I’m definitely not post-modern, because I just think rationality may not be the right term, but I do believe that most times people are adequate, otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here. Well, say, for instance, that there is a forest with animals and 30 lions are among them, do you think lions are adequate?” “If there are lions, then they are,” I replied. Satisfied with my answer, Bendukidze continued: “Good, that’s right, if they survive, then they are adequate. If their number increases to 70, that means they are adequate, right? Well, humans more than any other animals have had the greatest increase in population over their existence.” Me: “But unlike other animals they also have the ability to manipulate their environment which does not make them any less adequate, of course, so, yes, I understand what you mean.” The reason I am quoting this discussion is to provide a bracketed definition of the term “rational” as Bendukidze used it in the statement above. His understanding of human adequacy was inherent and somehow evident in his approach to people as a manager of the institution. His belief in a priori adequacy of human beings informed his conviction that when given a choice and sufficient information, every individual will make the best of his opportunity. My impression after working with him for three years was that, for him, no one was inherently stupid or incapable.
- 17.
The kind of “understanding of the world” and Russian-Georgian relations Bendukidze mentioned is the very opposite of “the fairy-tale” he criticized in his article. If, in the first case, Russia is a cruel enemy that Georgians continuously resisted, in the second case Russia appears as a protector. There is the paradox in these mismatched representations, but not of Bendukidze’s vision but of Russian-Georgian memory’s dual paradigm which I discuss at length in Chap. 7.
- 18.
Gori is a city in the eastern Georgia, approximately 80 kilometers away from Tbilisi, bordering the disputed territory of South Ossetia. The city is known as the hometown of Joseph Stalin. Russian troops occupied Gori during the 2008 August war.
- 19.
The original text by Stephen of Taron is fully quoted at the end of this introductory chapter. The actions of the Georgians seem even more reckless and outrageous in the original source. Here is the translation of the passage from the text:Some warrior from the Russian infantry was carrying hay to his horse. One Iverian [Georgian] walked up to him and took the hay away from him. Then another Russian rushed to help him [the Russian warrior]. The Iverian called his own people, who rushed in and killed the first Russian. Then all the Russians who were there prepared for battle; there were six thousand of them, infantry armed with spears and shields … The lords and vassals of the Tao [Georgian territory] came out together against them and were defeated.
- 20.
Tolerance Center under the auspices of the Public Defender: www.tolerantoba.ge.
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Batiashvili, N. (2018). Libri Magni or the Books that Will Stop the War. In: The Bivocal Nation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62286-6_6
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