Representations of Collective Memory in Georgia, Armenia, Abkhazia and Nagorno Karabakh: The Political, Memory and Power

The book is a unique proposal for an integral description of memory regimes in the South Caucasus region, covering both the independent states of Armenia and Georgia, but also the separatist entities created as a result of the turbulent changes of the early 1990s - Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Being a transdisciplinary proposal, encompassing the perspectives of political science, history and social anthropology, the book may be of interest to researchers from different academic disciplines. At the same time, due to its narrative form, it can also be an interesting proposal for students of eastern studies, allowing for a fuller understanding of the dynamics of political change in the post-Soviet space. The comprehensive and integral approach to the issue of analysing and interpreting collective memory through the prism of its representation, presented in the form of an anthropological story based on case studies, may also be of interest to those not associated with institutional Academia. Contents About the Author About the Translator List of Diagrams List of Images List of Tables Chapter 1: The South Caucasus as a Space of Memory Scope, Aims, Hypotheses Reasons for Addressing the Topic What Is This Book About? Scope and Field of Study Hypotheses Aims Around Paradigm, Terminology and Limitations Paradigmatic and Methodological Framework Some Definitional, Terminological and Linguistic Remarks Limitations Structure of the Book Bibliography Chapter 2: Structure of the Memory Discourse of Armenia, Georgia, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh The Ambiguity of Collective Memory The Concept of Collective Memory Collective Memory and History Communicative and Cultural Memory vis-à-vis Collective Memory Collective Memory vis-à-vis Politics of Memory and Counter-Memory Memory and its Representations, Reflections, Reconstructions and the Imaginary Memory vis-à-vis the Relation of Power Memory and Forgetting Memory, Space and the Imaginary Memory, Discourse, Hegemony The Political of Memory Structure of the Field of Study Dimensions of Remembering and Forgetting Between Institutional Memory and Counter-Memory Structure of the Research Bibliography Chapter 3: History and the Present: Sovietisation and Post-Sovietism of Memory The Issue of Sovietisation and the Sovietisation of the Space of Memory Sovietisation of the South Caucasus: A Narrow View Establishing Soviet Power and Korenizatsiia Armenia Nagorno-Karabakh Georgia Abkhazia Sovietisation of the Memory Space: A Broad Approach Towards National Communism and Imperial Colonialism Structure of The Political of Soviet Memory Symbolic Elements of the Sovietisation of Memory The Great Patriotic War Victory Day Lenin, the October Revolution, and Local Analogies Repressed and Forgotten Elements Sovietisation of Memory in the South Caucasus Local Soviet Memory Pre-Soviet References in the Soviet Space of Memory Repressed Symbolic Elements in the Armenian Memory Space Repressed Symbolic Elements in the Georgian Memory Space De-Sovietisation as Rupture, Process, and Structure Remnants of the Sovietisation of Memory Reconstruction of the Elites Legacy of the Great Patriotic War Between Soviet Rationality and Religious Anti-Modernism Bibliography Chapter 4: Dimensions of Memory in Armenia, Georgia, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh Postcolonialism, Post-Socialism and Post-Imperialism vis-à-vis Memory The Postcoloniality of Post-Sovietism The Postcolonial Dimension of Memory Dependency: Subordinated Memory Dry Bridge Stalin Monument in Zemo Alvani Lenin Monument and Commemoration of the Great Patriotic War Nostalgia, Irony, Duality Memory and Conflict Antagonistic Memory The Conflictual Dimension of Memory Conflict as a Site of Memory Memory of War and Memory of Victory: Shusha Memory of Emptiness and Lack: Aghdam and Vank Permanent State of Emergency Memory and Community Memory as a Consolidating Factor The Communal Dimension of Memory Creation: Community and Memory Gagra: From Individual Commemoration to Official Memory Park of Glory in Sukhum Everyday Creation of Ethnicity and Nationhood Destruction of Gali and Ochamchire A New Community The Imaginary of Memory Bibliography Chapter 5: Between Institutional Memory and Counter-Memory Institutional Memory and the New Regime of Truth Soviet Occupation Museum in Tbilisi Power/Knowledge. Reductive Institutional Memory The Individual Practice of The Political of Memory Tbilisi Printing Museum Counter-Memory, Forgetting, and Rejection The Georgian Junction Narrative: Ambivalent Memory Stalin Museum in Gori The Lingering Stalin The Armenian Junction Narrative: Total Memory Armenian Genocide Museum Identity of Trauma and Liberation Bibliography Chapter 6: Conclusion