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THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
Volume 5 Issue 1-2 2011
Beka CHEDIA
Ph.D. (Political Science), Head of Publishing Projects at the Tbilisi School of Political Studies (Tbilisi, Georgia).
GEORGIAN NATIONALISM TODAY: FACING THE CHALLENGES OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM
Abstract
T
his article takes an in-depth look at Georgian nationalism, its roots, and its present status at the national level in
the context of the liberal, cosmopolitan, and traditionalist approaches of the political discourse in Georgia today.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Georgia became inundated by nationalism; in this respect it differed little from the other former Soviet republics; the ideas of ethnic and religious superiority were fed by the awakened and rising pride in the nation's past and deification of the country's history and its heroes.
In the 1990s, all sorts of structures, departments, and facilities were tagged as "national."
The independence proclaimed by Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the first Georgian president, stirred up nationalist-minded leaders who came up with the idea that the country's name, different in different languages, should be the same as in Georgian. This meant that the Russian Gruzia, English Georgia, German Georgien, or Turkish Gurcistan, etc. should be replaced with the Georgian name Sakartvelo (which roughly translates as "the land of the Georgians"). Later the idea was abandoned for the simple reason that the world would be confused by a new name for a country well known all over the world under its old name.
It should be said that, more often than not, in the 21st century Georgian nationalism (which in the 20th century was driven by its antagonism with the metropolitan country) is identified with traditionalism, post-Soviet liberalism being its main ideological rival.
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The Sources of Georgian Nationalism and Ethnogenesis of the Georgians
Georgian nationalism is rooted in the messianic idea of the 12th century which stated that Georgian was the language of Jesus Christ, that Georgia was the land of the Holy Mother, and that this was where Christ's Robe was buried. The fact that the Georgian alphabet is one of the world's 14 alphabets is treated as a nationalist argument.
In the 1980s, the revived conception of Georgian nationalism was inspired by the "heroic" past of a country that stretched from Nikopsia to Derbent.
Georgian nationalism of our days is rooted in the mid-19th century when Ilia Chavchavadze, an outstanding public figure of his time, put its idea in a nutshell: "Language, Motherland, Religion." The leaders of the national-liberation movement of the late 1980s-early 1990s (Zviad Gam-sakhurdia among them) described themselves as his followers. As could be expected, literary critic Gamsakhurdia dressed the conception of Georgian nationalism in philological rather than political garbs. On 2 May, 1990, he gave a lecture called The Spiritual Mission of Georgia, which touched on the ethnogenesis of the Georgians, at the Idriart Festival in the Tbilisi Philharmonic House.
In the 20th century, the leading lights of Georgian academic science, academicians Ivane Java-khishvili and Niko Marr, arrived at a conclusion about the Georgian ethnogenesis which upturned everything Soviet orthodox science had been treating as the sacred truth.
In the Soviet Union, the findings of great German scholar Wilhelm Humboldt remained suppressed: his studies of the Basque tongue and history of the most ancient people living on the Iberian Peninsula convinced him that the earliest autochthonous population of Southern Europe (the Pyrenees, Italy, and the Mediterranean Islands) had been Iberian. These people were called proto-Iberi-ans and were the ancestors of all the European people.
The academic community operates with the terms such as "the Mediterranean race," "the Caucasian race," "the palaeo-Caucasian race," "the earliest Caucasian race," and "the earliest Mediterranean race," the terms being interchangeable.
They lived on the Iberian Peninsula, along the Mediterranean coast, in the Balkans, in the territory that today constitutes Greece and India, and in the Caucasus, Asia Minor, and Palestine. Humboldt believed that the proto-Iberian race (or people), which had many offshoots, used the same language (the proto-Iberian language) with numerous dialects (Lusitanian, Turdetan, Etruscan, Pelas-gian, etc.). Academician Marr added the Sumerian (the language of the ancient Iberian tribes who lived in Asia Minor or Mesopotamia).1
Since that time, the hypothesis of the origin of the Basques, very popular in the 1990s, has lost much of its former attraction.
Significantly, post-Soviet nationalism regards myths as historical truth. Today, the Georgians indulge themselves in the myth of Prometheus, the tale of Amirani who was chained to a rock in the Caucasus. The Georgian leaders are fond of saying that even if Prometheus was not a Georgian, he was chained in Georgia. After the Rose Revolution, a monument was even erected to this mythological Greek hero in Tbilisi, although it was later moved to the small tourist town of Sighnaghi. From the very beginning, Georgia's Prometheus was obviously intended as a tourist attraction rather than a national hero.
In the late 1980s, the republican media helped to spread rumors about the Georgian origin of President George Bush; later the same was said about President Putin, who was allegedly born in the Georgian village of Metekhi and was half-Georgian.
1 See: Z. Gamsakhurdia, The Spiritual Mission of Georgia, A lecture delivered at the Idriart Festival in Tbilisi Philharmonic House, 2 May, 1990 (in Georgian).
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The Motherland or the State.
Whence the Slogan "Georgia for the Georgians"
In the 1990s, the idea of an independent state was the Georgians' national idea; unlike the dissidents of Eastern Europe and Russia, who fought communism, the Georgians wanted to detach themselves from the Soviet Union, which explains why the collapse of communism revived the nationalist ideas in Georgia.
It should be said that, after gaining their independence, the Georgians retained the Soviet idea of their own country as a motherland rather than a state; in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the national anthem was much less popular than folk songs.
Throughout its history, Georgian nationalism assumed different forms. On 9 March, 1956, for example, Georgia rose against Khrushchev, who condemned the personality cult of Stalin (a symbol of Georgian national pride); the cruelly suppressed anti-Soviet manifestation in Tbilisi left about 150 dead.
On 12 April, 1978, Georgia protested against the Kremlin's intention to amend the Constitutional provision about the state language.
The leaders of the national-liberation movement were accused of ultra-nationalism. Their slogan "Georgia for the Georgians!" proved useful when it came to deposing Gamsakhurdia.
At all times, Georgia was one of the multi-ethnic Soviet republics, while the leaders of the national-liberation movement were apprehensive about the ethnic Georgians.
In 1991, when the crisis inside the country became exacerbated, the supporters of President Gamsakhurdia accused prominent Georgian film director Eldar Shengelaya, who was a member of the opposition, of promoting the idea of marrying Russian girls among Georgian young men in his films which appeared in Soviet times.
In 1999, under Shevardnadze, it was decided not to register nationality in national passports; this caused a lot of concern: the Georgian nationalists wanted to preserve their nationality, while the national minorities feared assimilation. It was explained that this was being done to strengthen equality among the ethnic groups and that it was a more or less normal international practice. Time has confirmed that no one lost their nationality, while none of the ethnic groups became assimilated.
Since Georgia's first day in the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), this structure has not discussed a single instance of discrimination against the ethnic minorities in the republic. The ECRI concentrated on violation of the rights of religious minorities and the fact that many of the national minorities do not know the Georgian language.
Even before the Rose Revolution, the U.S. Department of State expressed its concern about the mounting religious extremism in Georgia, mainly prompted by an excommunicated priest of the Georgian Orthodox Church, a self-appointed "custodian of Orthodoxy" who organized pogroms against members of new religious movements (the Jehovah's Witnesses among them).
Under Shevardnadze, religious nationalism invaded the sphere of political decision-making. For example, nationalist-minded politicians objected to using the music from two operas (Daisi and Absalom and Eteri) by prominent Georgian composer Zakaria Paliashvili as the national anthem: music written by a Catholic was unsuitable for an Orthodox state. In April 2004, after the Rose Revolution, the music was finally approved as the new national anthem of Georgia.
It was about the same time that a wave of Asian immigrants (the media reported some 40 to 50 thousand Chinese immigrants) caused quite a stir across the country.
In 2007, passions over the "yellow threat" reached their peak; the opposition capitalized on public concern to accuse the people in power of supporting Chinese immigration and betraying national interests.
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It turned out that about 2 thousand Chinese had arrived in Georgia on their way to Europe.
The Georgians, who are very fond of their traditional national minorities (even though they sometimes succumb to outside political speculations), still regard Chinese and dark-skinned immigrants with suspicion, a prejudice that harks back to the days of the Iron Curtain: on the one hand, they are exotic, while on the other, they are seen as a demographic threat. The same can be said about religious nationalism: the traditional religious minorities are treated with a great deal of benevolence, while the nation has found it hard to accept the non-traditional minorities.
It should be said that NGOs accused President Saakashvili of racism on the strength of what he had said at a Cabinet meeting on 27 July, 2010. When commenting on the way customs officers at the Tbilisi airport had been handling the luggage of Georgian citizens, he said: "Are we Negroes or what? Explain to me why we are acting as savages?" The press service came forward with an official statement that the president had used an idiom and that his words had not been used in the context of racial discrimination.2
The president of Georgia takes satisfaction in saying that during the Georgian-Russian war of 2008 special units staffed with ethnic Armenians stopped a Russian motorized column heading to the south of Georgia.
It should be said that compact groups of ethnic minorities do not know Georgian, which is the state language, but they have never been fined; on the other hand, this prevents their complete integration into society. For several years now, the Georgian government has been working on a project for teaching various ethnic groups Georgian; those who intend to enroll in higher educational establishments enjoy certain privileges.
In 2009, Minister for the Diasporas Yulon Gagoshidze stirred up another scandal by saying that the Georgians and Abkhazians were the only two autochthonous peoples, while "the members of other nationalities living in Georgia should be regarded as diasporas of other countries." He wanted to say that as distinct from other nationalities, Georgia was the historical homeland of the Georgians and Abkhazians. The minister was removed from his post even though nothing of what he said smacked of nationalism.
Georgian political thought makes no mention of hatred of other nations, which means that tolerance is a stable trend. Prominent Georgian writer and public figure Yakov Gogebashvili (18401912) wrote: "Not infrequently Georgians treat one another dishonestly, but they have always respected the members of other tribes and this respect strengthened as Georgia became stronger."3
Liberalism as a Road toward Cosmopolitism?
At all times, nationalism has been opposing liberalism and cosmopolitism in Georgia's public and political discourse. Back in 1905, Georgian writer Vazha Pshavela wrote in his Cosmopolitism and Patriotism that "we should understand cosmopolitism in the following way: we should love our Motherland and work for it, but never hate other nations. Those who renounce their nationality because of their alleged cosmopolitism are the worst enemies of mankind. Cosmopolitism should not be understood as the rejection of one's nationality."4
In 2010, groups of people appeared who moved resolutely against the so-called liberals, the self-name for people with a Western education (or those who try to pass for such) who deem it neces-
2
3 Ya. Gogebashvili, Selected Works, in five volumes, Vol. 2, Tbilisi, 1990, p. 404 (in Georgian).
[http://rustavi2.co/index.php?option=com_news&task=gourl&id=1945].
4 V. Pshavela, Collected Works, in five volumes, Vol. 5, Cosmopolitism and Patriotism, Sabchota Sakartvelo, Tbilisi, 1987, p. 682 (in Georgian).
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sary to actively interfere in the processes underway in the country and society. The liberal "intellectuals" (as they call themselves) do not bother to conceal their anti-Orthodox sentiments and reject national traditions.
The liberal camp is not united: some of the liberals serve as a public and ideological pillar of power; others are their opponents. Both publish journals which contain only liberal articles. Both groups, however, present a united front to the traditionalists.
On 7 May, 2010, the Orthodox Parents' Union became the talk of the day when its most active members attacked journalists at TV Kavkasia, one of the opposition media. The leader escaped to Russia, which gave the Georgian liberals reason to insist that the Kremlin was pulling the strings of the recently much more vigorous nationalist movements that manipulate the nation's religious and national feelings to spilt Georgian society.
Liberalism has become the latest rage in Georgia: absolutely everything should be privatized; people who call themselves writers indulge in scabrous writings.
The liberals insist that "there is in fact tension between the democrats and those who support the liberal values and institutions. Democracy speaks of the involvement of the masses in political processes which may or may not be liberal."5
The liberals regret that the Georgian government is compelled to reckon with the will of the majority and pursue a policy of so-called civil nationalism instead of carrying out unpopular liberal reforms. The critics, however, have not clarified what they mean by "civil nationalism."
One thing is clear: the liberals are convinced that the nation is largely nationalist-minded, and this is an evil that must be opposed.
They also say: "We have real enemies who have still not come out with a clear idea. They call us freemasons, homosexuals, and Soros people. Today, Georgian anti-liberalism is best described as nostalgia for Brezhnev; as nationalism of 'the Georgian stock,' ingratiating and superficially Orthodox; as envy, pure and simple, of successful young people who speak English and use the computer. They are not the opponents worth a real fight."6
Nationalism can be detected in the economic discourse as well: the privatization or sale of forests or their renting out to foreigners causes a veritable storm of accusations ("they are selling off our homeland, our land") raised by nationalist-minded political groups. Geopolitical rhetoric, likewise, is a field of battle between the defenders of traditional values and liberals: to become part of the political "West," Georgia must revise its national traditions and reject certain stereotypes.
National Traditions in Georgian Politics
Recently, the nation has been asking itself what Georgia's traditions are and should they be protected? Some people say that many of Georgia's traditions and rituals were lost during Communist rule.
Some liberals, for example, insist that Georgian festive meals and Georgian cuisine, trademarks of the country and the nation, are nothing more than a vestige of Soviet times.
What was said after the Rose Revolution about Georgian festive meals traditions being an ideological communist distortion and the worst enemy of liberalism smacks of hypocrisy. In fact, folk dances and songs helped the Soviet Georgians preserve their national identity.
5 An interview with politologist Gia Nodia, Solidaroba, Journal of the Office of Ombudsman of Georgia (Tbilisi), No. 3 (36), 2010, p. 62 (in Georgian).
6 G. Nodia, "Liberalism and Its Etiquette," Tabula (Tbilisi), 15-21 March, 2010, p. 39 (in Georgian).
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In August 2010, the government, frequently accused of betraying the national traditions and values, suggested that folk dances be taught in school and popularized among national minorities.
The Chokha-Wearers Society (chokha is the Georgian national male costume), which appeared in 1991, developed in 2006 into a much larger organization called The Society of the Knights of All Georgia in Chokhas, with Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II as its elected chairman. The society intends to protect, develop, and popularize the moral, historical, and cultural values of the Georgians.
A strange thing happened in 2005 during President George W. Bush's visit to Georgia. He was greeted with folk dancing, but the president's personal bodyguard insisted that the swords (part of the chokha attire) should be removed. The nation took this as disrespect for the national traditions of the Georgians.
After the revolution, the new leaders made a failed attempt to introduce the national dress as part of the diplomatic protocol as is the case in some countries. In 2004, Valery Chechelashvili, who wore the national dress when presenting his credentials to President of Russia Putin, was a sorry sight with the sword attached to his belt in the wrong way.
The Russian press wrote that the president's bodyguard refused to let the ambassador attend the ceremony with the sword, but the latter insisted that it was part of the chokha and refused to part with it. Finally Foreign Minister of Russia Lavrov had to interfere to settle the problem.7
Moreover, the Georgian opposition criticized the ambassador for appearing before President Putin in a mini-chokha and with a sword of insufficient length. This quenched the Georgian leaders' passion for introducing "nationalistic" elements into the diplomatic dress-code.
On the whole, the national dress is very popular for weddings, religious holidays, and similar occasions. Politicians and the so-called new Georgians pose in national dress in front of TV cameras to demonstrate their loyalty (often insincere) to the national traditions.
"Georgia is the homeland of the grapevine and wine!" has become so deeply rooted in the Georgian consciousness that it has also become a national value. The opposition used one of the national TV channels to show a Georgian peasant who had to destroy his vineyard to vacate the space for more profitable crops, that is, he was forced to renounce a national value. The reverence of the grapevine goes back to St. Nino of Cappadocia, the Enlightener of Georgia and Equal to the Apostles. She baptized the local population of Georgia with a grapevine cross.
The Islamic Factor in Georgian Politics
There are several Muslim ethnic groups in Georgia: the Shi'a Azeris (the largest of the other Muslim groups), the Sunni Ajarians, and the Lezghians and Kistins (Chechens who have been living in Georgia from time immemorial).
Mosques are built in great numbers all over the country; in Tbilisi, the Sunnis and Shi'a share a mosque (inherited from Soviet times), which is described as a unique phenomenon.
Inspired by Georgia's independence and the revived status of the Georgian Orthodox Church, the Ajarians moved back into the fold of the Orthodox Church (a trend not infrequently dismissed as a manifestation of Georgian religious ultra-nationalism). However, it was quite natural that after 70 years of official atheism, Ajaria (a Muslim area under Soviet power) did not escape the religious catharsis along with the rest of the country.
Ajaria was the only Soviet autonomous republic based on the confessional, rather than ethnic, principle. How did a "religious" republic appear in an atheist state?
' See: Kommersant, 10 February, 2005.
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It was under Soviet power that attempts were made to split the Georgian nation. Strange as it may seem, Stalin, an ethnic Georgian, said: "We should apply the hot flat iron of the October Revolution to Georgia" and later, in 1925, at a Comintern Congress in Moscow: "The Georgians are chauvinists; they infringe on the rights of others—Armenians, Azeris, Abkhazians, Ajarians, and Ossets. The Georgian nationality is best described as a conglomerate."8
In the 1990s, Moscow revived the idea of a disunited Georgian nation; the Mingrelians and Svans, the core of the Georgian nation, were presented as two different and unconnected nationalities.
Back in 1992, amid the civil war which broke out as soon as Gamsakhurdia was deposed, Russia tried to play the Mingrelian card.
In 2006, the Kremlin tried its hand in Svanetia, where Georgia carried out an anti-criminal operation in upper Abkhazia (in the Kodori Gorge situated in Svanetia and controlled by Georgia). Emzar Kvitsiani, leader of an illegal armed unit who used to represent the president of Georgia in the Kodori Gorge, spoke about infringement of the rights of the Svans. He insisted that the Americans were also involved. Speaking on Russian TV he said: "The Americans are fighting us, a tiny nation!"
Another attempt to play the ethnic card to raise political tension in Georgia was made during the Rose Revolution when the Russian press did not exclude the possibility that Guria, the homeland of President Shevardnadze, might rebel against the new revolutionary power.
After the August war of 2008, the Georgians living in Russia were divided, in the official documents, into Georgians, Mingrelians, Svans, etc., with the emphasis on the two latter ethnic groups, which have dialects of their own.
In 1999, along with membership in the Council of Europe, Georgia pledged to join the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. By regional languages, the Georgians meant the languages of the ethnic minorities living compactly in their territory; later, however, the Council of Europe stopped short of recognizing Mingrelian and Svan as regional languages, which led to talk about raising their status.
It should be said that both languages are an important element of Georgia's ethnographic heritage and a matter of national pride (and, to a certain extent, a source of Georgian nationalism).
Mingrelian Konstantin Gamsakhurdia (father of the first president of Georgia Zviad Gamsa-khurdia) is one of the most prominent nationalist writers; the Mingrelians are fond of saying that they are "the most pure-bred Georgians" among the nationalities of Georgia and "direct descendants of the Colchians" (the most ancient of the Georgian tribes).
C o n c l u s i o n
During the period of its restored independence, Georgian nationalism has changed its makeup and opponents several times. Nationalist rhetoric, however, remains at the center of the Georgian political discourse and is exploited, with varying success, by all manner of forces.
Confronted with globalization, a very real threat to this small country's national specifics, Georgian nationalism today is very different from its predominantly ethnic predecessor of the late 1980s and early 1990s, which emerged among the rubble of the Union state.
Georgian nationalists and defenders of Georgian traditions are accused of fanning anti-Western sentiments; they are described as the enemies of Georgia's integration into the European and Euroat-lantic structures. It should be said, however, that influential political opponents of the country's integration into the international structures are few and far between.
The nationalists reciprocate by accusing the pro-Western liberals of corrupting the idea of Georgia drawing closer to the West by denying the country's national values.
1 Quoted from: "How Stalin was Forged," Tabula, 15-21 March, 2010, p. 41.
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The first McDonald's restaurant in Georgia illustrates the struggle between the Georgian nationalists and the globalists. Back in Eduard Shevardnadze's time, there were plans to build it in the very center of the Georgian capital; one of the parliamentarians organized a protest rally to prevent its appearance next to the monument to Shota Rustaveli, a Georgian poet of the 12th century of whom the nation is rightly proud. Later passions subsided, while McDonald's, in no way imposing on the monument to the great Georgian poet, has found its niche among the eateries based on traditional Georgian cuisine.
Today, Georgian nationalism is undergoing a crisis; it has lost its bearings and is looking for a new image and new ideas. A new Georgian idea is at the top of Georgia's political agenda; today, however, it is much more important to decide what kind of state the Georgians need.
