“Georgian Nationalism Throughout the Post-Stalin Period”;
28 November 2016
Georgian Nationalism Throughout the Post-Stalin Period
The history of nationalistic sentiment in the Republic of Georgia over the course of the Soviet period manifested itself as a complicated mass of seemingly contradictory attitudes regarding Communist rule and Georgians’ reverence for their national language, culture, religion, and history that evolved wildly in form between the emergence of Khrushchev and the eventual fall of the iron curtain (Suny, 1994; Jones, 1992a). Some of the seeds of Georgian nationalism, which sprouted and developed within the less-restricted socio-political climate of the post-Stalin period, had been unintentionally sown under Stalin’s rule by institutions that had ironically been intended to suppress such sentiments (Jones, 1992b)—and were further encouraged by policies enacted by a post-Stalinist regime which nonetheless perpetually insisted that “modernization [would] inevitably reduce national differences” (Jones, 1989; Parsons, 1982; quote in Parsons, p. 550). One surprising force that provided a vehicle for nationalistic sentiments to grow and eventually boil over was the epitomization, particularly in social and cultural senses, of the nation of Georgia by the Georgian Orthodox Church, which operated with various levels of official tolerance under Soviet control (Ramet, 1989; Jones, 1989). Ultimately, the Georgian nation’s self-identity, which had been fully realized during the republic’s pre-Soviet independence between 1918 and 1921 (Jones, 1989), simmered beneath the surface for decades and turned from a “cult of personality” worshipping its native-born Stalin in the 1940s and 1950s (Suny, 1994; Jones, 1989; quote in Suny, p. 302) to an outright popular movement for independence by the late 1980s and early 1990s (Jones, 1992b).
Despite the fact that several facets of Georgian nationalism held their origins in the nation’s short-lived pre-Soviet period of independence and the subsequent resentments that followed the Soviet invasion of 1921 (Jones, 1989), it is perplexing that one of “the first open expression[s] of Georgian nationalism” (p. 303) since the 1920s took the form of the March 5, 1956, Tbilisi protests against Khrushchev’s “’Secret Speech’ [which had denounced] the…crimes of the Stalin era” (p. 302) (Suny, 1994). Given the fact that many ranking Communists throughout the Soviet Union were anxious, following his death, to ‘turn the page’ on Stalin’s overbearing brutality and centralized control, the initial resistance against de-Stalinization within Georgia was a unique phenomenon (Suny, 1994). These surprising sentiments were fueled by university students who had grown up amid Soviet-sponsored educational opportunities and “cultural revival[s]” (p. 300) that reinforced the local language and traditions (and, inadvertently, national pride), but also too late to have had first-hand knowledge of Stalin’s many episodes of terror (Suny, 1994). Some other Stalinist policies that had been “national in form, [but] socialist in content” (Parsons, 1982; quote in text, p. 558), which had had the unintended effect of maintaining a subconscious sense of nationalism among the Georgian population, were national identifications in passports, republic-specific government and party apparatuses, and Soviet support of literacy and scholarship in local national languages, among other developments (Jones, 1992b). These underlying sentiments, which had helped improve Georgian attitudes toward Communist rule late under Stalin’s tenure, were further reinforced by policies enacted by Khrushchev that increased local economic and political power—just as Georgians blaming Stalin’s successor for a deadly military retaliation against ‘Secret Speech’ protesters initiated the process of turning a nationally proud population back toward opposition to the Soviet system (Suny, 1994).
Relative pacification of outward nationalism became a new normal in Georgia through the late 1950s into the 1960s—in light of Khrushchev’s steps toward de-Stalinization—under the local party leadership of Vasilii Mzhavanadze, who tolerated forms of “official nationalism” (Jones, 1992b; quote in text, p. 75). In 1961, Khrushchev addressed the thought process behind this markedly lax approach toward overt national pride in general in a speech given to the twenty-second party congress, explaining that the party believed “national differences were subsiding” (Parsons, p. 547) and that ‘natural’ Soviet progress would inevitably erase ethnic divisions throughout the USSR without “artificial prodding” (Suny, p. 294) (Parsons, 1982; Suny, 1994). Khrushchev’s tact was relaxed even further in 1964 as Brezhnev succeeded him, insisting that “social forces” would be more effective at uniting the Soviet Union than party intervention (Suny, 1994). Mzhavanadze’s Georgia saw ethnic nationals rise in rank within the national party, relative to their minority counterparts, as well as tolerance of “a new freedom to explore the nation’s past and…achievements” (Jones, 1989; quote on p. 183). Another significant nationalizing factor present during the 1960s that heavily reinforced Georgians’ influence within their own republic was a negative rate of immigration by ethnic Russians and Armenians into Georgia that coincided with a positive rate of immigration by Georgians into their homeland (Parsons, 1982; Jones 1989). The result, by 1970, was a Georgian population that a majority of whom were ethnic Georgians and which included all but less than four percent of all Soviet Georgians (Parsons, 1982). A couple of likely driving forces behind this swing were the maintenance of Georgian—the alphabet of which is distinct from that of Russian—as the official language within the republic and increasing Georgian membership within the local party to a degree that over-represented their segment of the republic’s population—not unexpectedly making Georgia more politically and economically ‘habitable’ for its native people (Parsons, 1982).
Despite the party’s repeated ‘wishful thinking,’ social forces in play in the absence of party intervention may have actually been slowly polarizing the peoples of the USSR and orienting their reverences closer to home (Suny, 1994; Parsons, 1982). Social forces within Georgia were uniquely strong compared to most other Soviet republics as a result of geographical circumstances—including its small land area and prevalence of valleys—that tended to consolidate and organize population centers in such a way that prevented the urban population from losing touch with its rural Georgian roots (Parsons, 1982). Given Georgians’ sentimental attachment to their historical independence predating the Russian Empire and nationality factors like language and religion (Jones, 1992a), it would not be difficult to surmise that the strong prevalence of rural culture—which carried heavy influence over literature and popular media—surrounding the cities (Parsons, 1982). It was also distinctive that the then ongoing ‘outmigration’ of ethnic minorities had composed an urban population in which Georgians far outnumbered “a large number of small [minority ethnicities]” (Parsons, 1982; quote on p. 555).
The 1970s gave rise to two distinct strands of nationalism—“orthodox” and “unorthodox”—both of which nonetheless consisted of individuals who found themselves inextricably linked by separate, yet intertwined nationalist interests that facilitated their coalescence behind a Georgian Orthodox Church that served as a powerful platform from which to maintain a nationalist push to preserve Georgian culture and institutions through the end of the Soviet period (Jones, 1989). One reason for this development had to do with both factions’ common “interests…in the spheres of language, territory,…national history[,….and] human rights,” which made sense in the context of the Church’s view of itself as inseparable from the Georgian nation (Jones, 1989; quote on p. 184). The essential nature of the church’s position to spearhead growing nationalist sentiments made it a natural target of renewed “Russification measures” (Jones, 1989, quote on p. 180), including the installation of a Soviet puppet—by the name of Devdariani—as the church patriarch in 1972 and the promotion of atheism throughout the decade (Ramet, 1989). Devdariani set about an attempted de-nationalization of the church by curbing the use of the Georgian language in church business and by operating under the intention of bringing the Georgian church—which had exercised autocephaly since 1943—back under the full authority of the Russian Orthodox Church (Ramet, 1989). The moves by Devdariani backfired, however, alienating a flock that began calling for a reformation of the church in response to exposed ecclesiastical scandals, eventually resulting in Devdariani’s replacement by the more Georgian-friendly Shiolashvili in 1977 (Ramet, 1989). The turmoil of the five years of Devdariani’s troubled leadership can be concisely summed up by the remarks of an ‘unorthodox’ nationalist who opined, “the struggle against the Georgian Church is a struggle against the Georgian language and culture” (Ramet, 1989; quote in text, p. 36). That sentiment was later echoed by Shiolashvili who insisted, “without Christianity [Georgia] would not be a distinctive nation” (Ramet, 1989; quote in text, p. 36). It is worth noting that Shiolashvili was likely far from the only Georgian to view the nation and the church as having such infrangible destinies, given the resistance Georgian residents of neighboring Islamic ethnicities had faced over the course of the Soviet period—not only from the predominantly Christian natives, but also the atheist Bolsheviks—which, in general, conceivably may have further contributed to the high assemblage of Georgians within their own republic (Pelkmans, 2006).
In the same speech in which Shiolashvili made the above comment regarding the importance of Christianity to Georgia, he also took what was likely a thinly veiled shot at his predecessor, insinuating that, “where [the Georgian] language declines, so the nation falls” (Ramet, 1989; quote in text, p. 36). The church’s reverence for the republic’s native language reflected the church’s vital role in Georgians’ growing national pride—not in a role as a religious organization, but as a cultural one (Jones, 1989). While most Georgian university students—one of the primary blocs of the “unorthodox” nationalists—did not consider themselves ‘followers’ per-se of the church during the late Soviet period, many yet were drawn to participate in church activities, according to one student, “by interest in culture. A great role is played by national feeling” (Jones, 1989; quote in text, p. 194). Another student insisted that, “Georgian culture was…forged from the heart of the church. The church…is the keeper of the ancient rich treasure,…[including] many unique icons adorned with the master-work of our ancestors” (Jones, 1989; quote in text, p. 194). To find an example of the church filling this role, one need not look any further than its 1981 sponsorship of a “memorial service in the…ancient capital of Georgia” paying tribute to the success achieved by protesters three years earlier to force the restoration of Georgian as the constitutionally official language of the republic (Ramet, 1989; quote on p. 36). The service functioned to maintain nationalist resentments stirred up by a 1977 Soviet constitution that had verbally eschewed nationalities by lumping all of them into a “new historical community of people, the Soviet people,” (quoted in text, p. 547), had nearly been written, according to Brezhnev, “to abolish the union and autonomous republics” (quoted in text, p. 547) altogether (Parsons, 1982), and which had actually eliminated military and diplomatic authority that had previously been delegated to the republics (Suny, 1994).
In tandem with the Soviets’ attempted commandeering of the Georgian Orthodox Church in 1972, the Georgian party was taken over that same year by Eduard Shevardnadze who, following the lead of the central party’s rekindled opposition to the nationalities, instituted policies meant to curtail anything he perceived to exude “Georgian-centrism” (Jones, 1992b; quote in text, p. 75). Unsurprisingly, these institutions included the black market, cultural celebrations, and the church (Jones, 1992b), with the black market—the scope of which had allowed Georgian peasant wealth to far outpace their ‘legitimate’ earnings in a major affront to Soviet authority—being his primary target (Parsons, 1982). Despite Shevardnadze’s efforts, economic misconduct persisted (Parsons, 1982) and media propagation of nationalist-sensitized content expanded as the 1970s waned (Jones, 1992b).
The completion of nationalist sentiments in Georgia turning to an outright push for independence took place over the course of the 1980s—particularly in the foreground of reforms attempted by Gorbachev with the intention of reaffirming Soviet stability, but which in reality set the Georgian people on a politically messy path toward self-determination (Suny, 1994). With the introduction of tolerance for oppositional political parties under Gorbachev, Georgian nationalists, by 1988, began outwardly campaigning for independence amid poor economic conditions and decentralized authority (Jones, 1992b). This fully awakened nationalist push was only further emboldened by the angry popular response to the deadly military repression of secessionist protests that took place in 1988 and 1989 (Aves, 1992; Jones, 1992b). New, non-Soviet national symbols were enacted in 1990 by Georgia’s first multi-party legislature to be elected since the invasion of the Red Army in 1921, which was followed the next year by the ratification of a referendum on independence by 99.6 percent of participating voters (Nelson, et. al., 1992). Georgia’s achievement of separation from the Soviet Union was far from straightforward, however, as the nation’s political climate “[descended] into anarchy” (Aves, 1992, quote on p. 157) and the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia subsequently sought their own independence (Jones, 2013).
The course of Georgian nationalist sentiments after the death of Stalin followed a surprising path from emergence in protests against the denunciation of a fierce dictator, winding through decades of suppressed expressions of reverence for treasured national institutions, to finally shatter through the cracks of a crumbling Union apparatus as a full-fledged movement for independence.
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