On a Retrospective and Contemporary Understanding of Georgian Civilizational Identity

This topic, the essential problems of Georgian civilization, its peculiarities arose from the past, modern tensions and future perspectives already has discussed almost two decades ago by Emzar Kakhidze. Now, together with the co-authors, the same issues are discussed on the perspective of recent events. We will briefly repeat that initial outlines of the Georgian cultural and civilizational identity were formed under the influence of the East, which did not become its organic part. Approximately the same was happened with the Classical world. However, one cannot fail to see the enormous cultural and historical significance of ties with the Classical world. With respect to Georgia the significance of the Oriental influence should not be forgotten either, which played the role of a certain equilibrant. All this found reflection in the opposition between Byzantium and Persia in the fifth-sixth centuries AD, when Georgia primarily as a result of the inner decision remained within the Christian world, but the eastern “heritage” also favoured certain distancing from the Byzantine Empire and this cultural inheritance has played a huge role in formation of Georgian people’s outlook. It is another question that the East, beginning from the Arabs, to say it figuratively, “reminded of itself” its former borderland, but the decision taken in the fourth-sixth centuries proved the final choice.With great difficulty, but this choice was preserved after the collapse of the united Georgian kingdom, when Georgia returned to its local policy, where passionate individuals, not in demand at home, achieved great success in the political arena of the Eastern countries. It seems that, since this period a distorted vision of the problem of a raspberry country was formed, the inhabitants of which are always wayward, not subject to rule, etc. With the appearance of Russia in the Caucasus, the advantage of Muslim countries was over and the Georgians, as well as the Armenians, enthusiastically greeted the state of the same faith, the successor of Byzantium. Russia, which, of course, separated Georgia from the Eastern path of development, ultimately failed or, most likely, did not want to integrate our country into the Western political and cultural environment. As the experience of the 20th and 21st centuries shows, this environment was not entirely organic for Russia itself. What unites us from the distant past is, of course, Byzantium. However, our Eastern admixtures are different – Russia is more influenced by Steppe Asia, while the Islamic world has more influence on Georgia. However, unlike Rome itself and especially Byzantium, relations with Moscow, despite the unification of the national organism, did not lead to the rise of the Georgian state. Actually, while Russian imperialistic sentiments prevailing, serous improvements towards Georgia and other post-Soviet countries are not expected. The matter is that free and furthermore successful Georgia, which geopolitically has a key position in the Southern Caucasus, is simply unacceptable for imperialistic circles. Another important issue is that our élite is very far from the Georgian people, they do not realize, that close historical contacts with the Middle East, influence of the religion and the communal organisation, superficial influence of the Classical civilization and a traditional way of life were the main features of Georgian society. These features, in many respects, have remained till today. Despite the deep influence of the western civilisation in recent years, political and cultural features of Georgia still remained a post-Soviet style. Georgian society still finds it difficult to internalize the main postulates of democracy. In our view, it is necessary to find things in common with neighbours, only from it closer and important partners. The future of the region largely depends on settling the conflicts and achieving a fundamental change in the approaches of understanding of main priorities, most urgent of those is the implementing principles of cooperation and partnership between the South Caucasian countries.