Download or read book The Making of the Georgian Nation Second Edition written by Ronald Grigor Suny and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1994-10-22 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ". . . the best study in English to date for an understanding of Georgian nationalism." —Religious Studies Review ". . . the standard account of Georgian history in English." —American Historical Review ". . . tour de force research . . . fascinating reading." —American Political Science Review Like the other republics floating free after the demise of the Soviet empire, the independent republic of Georgia is reinventing its past, recovering what had been forgotten or distorted during the long years of Russian and Soviet rule. Whether Georgia can successfully be transformed from a society rent by conflict into a pluralistic democratic nation will depend on Georgians rethinking their history. This is the first comprehensive treatment of Georgian history, from the ethnogenesis of the Georgians in the first millennium B.C., through the period of Russian and Soviet rule in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to the emergence of an independent republic in 1991, the ethnic and civil warfare that has ensued, and perspectives for Georgia's future.

Download or read book Familiar Strangers written by Erik R. Scott and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Familiar Strangers examines how the Soviet empire was built, and ultimately dismantled, by ethnic outsiders. Scott retells Soviet history from the perspective of the socialist state's internal Georgian diaspora, illuminating processes of mobility within Soviet borders and offering an understanding of empire that transcends the divide between colonizer and colonized.

Download or read book Russia written by Geoffrey A. Hosking and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the sixteenth century roots of the lack of a unified Russian identity, the division between the gentry and the peasantry, and the widening gap in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which led to revolution and continues to affect Russia today.

Download or read book Georgia Diary A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the Post Soviet Caucasus written by Thomas Goltz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-04 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2015. The author of the acclaimed Azerbaijan Diary and Chechnya Diary now recounts his experiences in the strife-ridden Republic of Georgia. Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Georgia fell prey to a series of power struggles, rampant crime and corruption, secessionist wars, and the spillover of the war in neighboring Chechenya. Journalist Goltz traces these developments with the same kind of vivid, personal narrative that made his previous books so compelling. This fast-paced, first-person account is filled with fascinating details about the ongoing struggles of this little-known region of the former Soviet Union. Featuring memorable portraits of individuals in high places and low, it traces the story from 1992 through the Rose Revolution, the resignation of Eduard Shevardnadze, and the new presidency of U.S.-educated Mikhail Saakashvili.

Download or read book Exploring the Caucasus in the 21st Century written by Françoise Companjen and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brings together investigations of both the north and south Caucasus to explain aspects of the history, linguistic complexity, current politics, and self-representations of the peoples who live between Russia and the Middle East.

Download or read book Cinema State Socialism and Society in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe 1917 1989 written by Sanja Bahun and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-25 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a comprehensive re-examination of the cinemas of the Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe during the communist era. It argues that, since the end of communism in these countries, film scholars are able to view these cinemas in a different way, no longer bound by an outlook relying on binary Cold War terms. With the opening of archives in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, much more is known about these states and societies; at the same time, the field has been reinvigorated by its opening up to more contemporary concepts, themes and approaches in film studies and adjacent disciplines. Taking stock of these developments, this book presents a rich, varied tapestry, relating specific films to specific national and transnational circumstances, rather than viewing them as a single, monolithic "Cold War Communist" cinema.

Download or read book A Federal Perspective on the Abkhaz Georgian Conflict written by Neno Gabelia and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2017-08-21 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the beginning of the 21st century, the problem of the development of regional security has become increasingly relevant in international politics. Of particular concern is the post-Soviet space, which remains in the most difficult process of transformation. The Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, which entered a sharp phase in 1992, was one of the first and most lengthy (1992–2008) international conflicts in the former Soviet Union. Complex factors, such as the deep roots of the confrontation, the great human sacrifices of the political parties during the hostilities, the high degree of defensive involvement of the entire population of Abkhazia, and the asymmetry in the approaches of the parties, all determine the need for an analysis of the nature and the origins and dynamics of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. This book identifies the nature and the origins of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict and the causes of the inefficiency of the official negotiation process, and it evaluates the hypothesis of a possible federalist transformation of the institutions of both Georgia and Abkhazia. In the international panorama, federalism, in fact, is being increasingly considered as an instrument of conflict transformation in the case of conflicts based on cultural diversity and ethnicity.

Download or read book Ethnic American Food Today written by Lucy M. Long and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-07-17 with total page 741 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ethnic American Food Today introduces readers to the myriad ethnic food cultures in the U.S. today. Entries are organized alphabetically by nation and present the background and history of each food culture along with explorations of the place of that food in mainstream American society today. Many of the entries draw upon ethnographic research and personal experience, giving insights into the meanings of various ethnic food traditions as well as into what, how, and why people of different ethnicities are actually eating today. The entries look at foodways—the network of activities surrounding food itself—as well as the beliefs and aesthetics surrounding that food, and the changes that have occurred over time and place. They also address stereotypes of that food culture and the culture’s influence on American eating habits and menus, describing foodways practices in both private and public contexts, such as restaurants, groceries, social organizations, and the contemporary world of culinary arts. Recipes of representative or iconic dishes are included. This timely two-volume encyclopedia addresses the complexity—and richness—of both ethnicity and food in America today.

Download or read book Architecture and Asceticism Cultural interaction between Syria and Georgia in Late Antiquity written by Emma Loosley Leeming and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Architecture and Asceticism Loosley Leeming presents the first interdisciplinary exploration of Late Antique Syrian-Georgian relations available in English. The author takes an inter-disciplinary approach and examines the question from archaeological, art historical, historical, literary and theological viewpoints to try and explore the relationship as thoroughly as possible. Taking the Georgian belief that ‘Thirteen Syrian Fathers’ introduced monasticism to the country in the sixth century as a starting point, this volume explores the evidence for trade, cultural and religious relations between Syria and the Kingdom of Kartli (what is now eastern Georgia) between the fourth and seventh centuries CE. It considers whether there is any evidence to support the medieval texts and tries to place this posited relationship within a wider regional context.

Download or read book War and Peace in the Caucasus written by Vicken Cheterian and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-12 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Caucasus was wracked by ethnic and separatist violence as the peoples of the region struggled for self-determination. Vicken Cheterian, who spent many years as a reporter and analyst covering the region's conflicts, asks why nationalism emerged as a dominant political current, and why, of the many nationalist movements that emerged, some led to violence while others did not. He explains also why minority rebellions were victorious against larger armies, in mountainous Karabakh, Abkhazia, and in the first war of Chechnya, and discusses the ongoing instability and armed resistance in the North Caucasus. He concludes his book by examining chapters the great power competition between Russia, the US, and the EU over the oil and gas resources of the Caspian region.

Download or read book Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art written by Louise Hardiman and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2017-11-13 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1911 Vasily Kandinsky published the first edition of ‘On the Spiritual in Art’, a landmark modernist treatise in which he sought to reframe the meaning of art and the true role of the artist. For many artists of late Imperial Russia – a culture deeply influenced by the regime’s adoption of Byzantine Orthodoxy centuries before – questions of religion and spirituality were of paramount importance. As artists and the wider art community experimented with new ideas and interpretations at the dawn of the twentieth century, their relationship with ‘the spiritual’ – broadly defined – was inextricably linked to their roles as pioneers of modernism. This diverse collection of essays introduces new and stimulating approaches to the ongoing debate as to how Russian artistic modernism engaged with questions of spirituality in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Ten chapters from emerging and established voices offer new perspectives on Kandinsky and other familiar names, such as Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Larionov, and Natalia Goncharova, and introduce less well-known figures, such as the Georgian artists Ucha Japaridze and Lado Gudiashvili, and the craftswoman and art promoter Aleksandra Pogosskaia. Prefaced by a lively and informative introduction by Louise Hardiman and Nicola Kozicharow that sets these perspectives in their historical and critical context, Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art: New Perspectives enriches our understanding of the modernist period and breaks new ground in its re-examination of the role of religion and spirituality in the visual arts in late Imperial Russia. Of interest to historians and enthusiasts of Russian art, culture, and religion, and those of international modernism and the avant-garde, it offers innovative readings of a history only partially explored, revealing uncharted corners and challenging long-held assumptions.

Download or read book Looking Toward Ararat written by Ronald Grigor Suny and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1993-05-22 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a new independent Republic of Armenia is established among the ruins of the Soviet Union, Armenians are rethinking their history—the processes by which they arrived at statehood in a small part of their historic homeland, and the definitions they might give to boundaries of their nation. Both a victim and a beneficiary of rival empires, Armenia experienced a complex evolution as a divided or an erased polity with a widespread diaspora. Ronald Grigor Suny traces the cultural and social transformations and interventions that created a new sense of Armenian nationality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Perceptions of antiquity and uniqueness combined in the popular imagination with the experiences of dispersion, genocide, and regeneration to forge an Armenian nation in Transcaucasia. Suny shows that while the limits of Armenia at times excluded the diaspora, now, at a time of state renewal, the boundaries have been expanded to include Armenians who live beyond the borders of the republic.

Download or read book Cultural Linguistic and Ethnological Interrelations In and Around Armenia written by Uwe Bläsing and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-15 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The geographical region of the Southern Caucasus, the lowlands between the Black and the Caspian Sees and the Armenian and Anatolian highlands is located on the peripheries of Europe from Asia. This region shares a common pre-history, with pre-Christian and pre-Muslim cultures and beliefs. The later periods, however, starting from the pre-Christian Iranian dominations, followed by the Arab conquest and the later campaigns of Seljuks, Mongols and Ottomans, had a heavy impact on the development of the region’s various ethnic languages and cultures. Nevertheless, many similarities can be found in the languages, cultures and religious traditions of the people living in this region. Armenia has often been a bridge between various cultures. Even though Armenians have succeeded in preserving their original language and culture through the centuries, many of their traditions and myths, their linguistic peculiarities, particularly in Armenian dialects, may be explained by an often long-lasting influence of other cultures, be it occidental (Hellenistic/Roman, later Byzantine and Medieval European) or oriental (Iranian, later Arab, Turkic, Mongolian, etc.) or even Caucasian. The Armenians have also left many traces in the languages and cultures of the Occident, Orient and the Caucasus. This volume gives an impressive approach to an interdisciplinary view of the linguistic and cultural properties which Armenians share with their neighbours.

Download or read book Bourdieu s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus written by Georgi M. Derluguian and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-07-15 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus is a gripping account of the developmental dynamics involved in the collapse of Soviet socialism. Fusing a narrative of human agency to his critical discussion of structural forces, Georgi M. Derluguian reconstructs from firsthand accounts the life story of Musa Shanib—who from a small town in the Caucasus grew to be a prominent leader in the Chechen revolution. In his examination of Shanib and his keen interest in the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, Derluguian discerns how and why this dissident intellectual became a nationalist warlord. Exploring globalization, democratization, ethnic identity, and international terrorism, Derluguian contextualizes Shanib's personal trajectory from de-Stalinization through the nationalist rebellions of the 1990s, to the recent rise in Islamic militancy. He masterfully reveals not only how external economic and political forces affect the former Soviet republics but how those forces are in turn shaped by the individuals, institutions, ethnicities, and social networks that make up those societies. Drawing on the work of Charles Tilly, Immanuel Wallerstein, and, of course, Bourdieu, Derluguian's explanation of the recent ethnic wars and terrorist acts in Russia succeeds in illuminating the role of human agency in shaping history.

Download or read book Georgian and Soviet written by Claire P. Kaiser and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-15 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Georgian and Soviet investigates the constitutive capacity of Soviet nationhood and empire. The Soviet republic of Georgia, located in the mountainous Caucasus region, received the same nation-building template as other national republics of the USSR. Yet Stalin's Georgian heritage, intimate knowledge of Caucasian affairs, and personal involvement in local matters as he ascended to prominence left his homeland to confront a distinct set of challenges after his death in 1953. Utilizing Georgian archives and Georgian-language sources, Claire P. Kaiser argues that the postwar and post-Stalin era was decisive in the creation of a "Georgian" Georgia. This was due not only to the peculiar role played by the Stalin cult in the construction of modern Georgian nationhood but also to the subsequent changes that de-Stalinization wrought among Georgia's populace and in the unusual imperial relationship between Moscow and Tbilisi. Kaiser describes how the Soviet empire could be repressive yet also encourage opportunities for advancement—for individual careers as well as for certain nationalities. The creation of national hierarchies of entitlement could be as much about local and republic-level imperial imaginations as those of a Moscow center. Georgian and Soviet reveals that the entitled, republic-level national hierarchies that the Soviet Union created laid a foundation for the claims of nationalizing states that would emerge from the empire's wake in 1991. Today, Georgia still grapples with the legacies of its Soviet century, and the Stalin factor likewise lingers as new generations of Georgians reevaluate the symbiotic relationship between Soso Jughashvili and his native land.

Download or read book Dynamics and Policies of Prejudice from the Eighteenth to the Twenty first Century written by Giuseppe Motta and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2018-09-30 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prejudice is a multi-faceted concept that affects the relationships between individuals and groups and the creation of socially formed categories of ideas. It concerns race, religion, gender, social distinctions and political beliefs, and can be considered as a natural human process of out-group homogeneity, as well as the product of an authoritarian context or as a reaction against modernization or other symbolic or realistic threats. This volume defines the dynamics and policies of prejudice in the historical passage between the modern and contemporary age, bringing together articles by different scholars representing various disciplines, which allows an analysis of the different aspects of prejudice. The book includes interesting chapters on anti-Semitism, the ethnic conflicts of the twentieth century, Russia and the Balkans, and gender bias, among other subjects.

Download or read book The Making of Modern Georgia 1918 2012 written by Stephen F. Jones and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-14 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When most of Eastern Europe was struggling with dictatorships of one kind or another, the Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921) established a constitution, a parliamentary system with national elections, an active opposition, and a free press. Like the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1918, its successors emerged after 1991 from a bankrupt empire, and faced, yet again, the task of establishing a new economic, political and social system from scratch. In both 1918 and 1991, Georgia was confronted with a hostile Russia and followed a pro-Western and pro-democratic course. The top regional experts in this book explore the domestic and external parallels between the Georgian post-colonial governments of the early twentieth and twenty-first centuries. How did the inexperienced Georgian leaders in both eras deal with the challenge of secessionism, what were their state building strategies, and what did democracy mean to them? What did their electoral systems look like, why were their economic strategies so different, and how did they negotiate with the international community neighbouring threats. These are the central challenges of transitional governments around the world today. Georgia’s experience over one hundred years suggests that both history and contemporary political analysis offer the best (and most interesting) explanation of the often ambivalent outcomes.