Category: Georgia

RUCARR seminars with Prof. Oliver Reisner – November 12 and 26

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Prof. Oliver Reisner, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, visiting researcher at RUCARR, will give two seminars. Welcome to join us on campus or Zoom:

Social Cohesion and Political Developments in Georgia in Times of Democratic Backsliding and Growing Authoritarianism

When: November 12, 15.00 – 17.00
Hybrid seminar: Seminar room, 9th  floor, Niagara, Nordenskiöldsgatan 1
Or Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/68228687099, Meeting ID: 682 2868 7099

Golden or Pink – Stalin as an Embattled Memory Site, or How to Cope with a Traumatic Past in Post-Soviet Georgia

When: November 26, 15.00 – 17.00
Hybrid seminar:Seminar room, 9th  floor, Niagara, Nordenskiöldsgatan 1
Or Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/69679035449 Meeting ID: 696 7903 5449

 Short Bio

Since September 2016 Oliver Reisner works as Jean Monnet Professor in European & Caucasian Studies at Ilia State University and teaches courses for BA, MA and PhD students with majors in “European Studies” and “Caucasian Studies.” In 2000 he graduated with a Dr. phil. in Eastern European History, Slavic Studies and Medieval and Modern History from Georg August University Goettingen (Germany). 2000 – 2003 he prepared and coordinated a MA program “Central Asia/Caucasus” at the Department for Central Asian Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin. 2003 – 2005 as a human rights program manager for World Vision Georgia he implemented a civic integration project in Samtskhe-Javakheti and Kvemo Kartli regions of Georgia. 2005 – 2015 as project manager at the EU Delegation to Georgia he dealt with democratisation, minority, education, youth, labour and social affairs. In 25 years of research on Russian, Georgian, Caucasian history and contemporary affairs in theory and practice he covered topics of 1) Nation-building and identity in the Caucasus during the 19th and 20th centuries; 2) Memory studies on dealing with the Soviet past in Georgia and the Caucasus; 3) History of Caucasian Studies as area studies and 4) the role of religion in Georgia.

 

 

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Visit to RUCARR by the board of Friends of Georgia Society, SWEDEN

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Seminar and networking meeting at RUCARR with the Friends of Georgia Society

On August 30 RUCARR hosted a meeting with members of the board of the Friends of Georgia, Society, SWEDEN. The expertise and experience of the members of the board in various fields of business, culture, politics and other perspectives of the Georgian society is quite unique. Among them Chairman Sven Holmström with expertise in Georgian agriculture,  advisor to the board Per Eklund, former EU ambassador to Georgia and Armenia, professor Joakim Enwall (Uppsala University), one of the founding members and Georgian expert, Anuki Sturua, former secretary to the ambassador of Georgia to Sweden, Eric Jönsson, CEO to the Fulbright Commission in Stockholm and former honorary consul in Tbilisi, Bengt Carlström, chair of the Swedish-Georgian chamber of commerce, Ulrica Söderlind, Senior lecturer at Umeå University, gastronomic expert and the author of several books in the field, historian Ann Grönhammar and Suzanne Menzel Persson, with special inerest in travel in the Georgian highlands..

It was a pleasure for the RUCARR reseachers to present their research and activities with a focus on Georgia (see program below), and to have very lively and good discussions and networking among all participants. 

Prof. Derek Hutcheson, vice dean and RUCARR researcher, thanked chairman Sven Holmström and the Society on behalf of the Faculty Culture and Society nd RUCARR. (photo below).

Program

Prof. Karina Vamling, RUCARR och Sven Holmström, Chairman of  Friends of Georgia society: Welcome and introductory words
 
Karina Vamling, Prof: Presentation of Caucasus Studies and RUCARR
The online course in Georgian. “Swedish-Georigan contacts in the early years”
Dr. Manana Kock Kobaidze: “Literary translations Swedish-Georgian”
Dr. Revaz Tchantouria: “Two Georgian-Swedish art exhibitions”
Dr. Katrine Gotfredsen: “Everyday experiences and effects of occupation and borderization in Georgia: Displacement, precarity and social rupture”
PhD Candidate Nick Baigent: “Hydropower development and its political and social challenges in Georgia”
Dr. Michel Anderlini: ”EU and the Georgian dilemma”
Dr Tom Nilsson: ”Summer Academy for Young Professionals”
Dr Mariia Tyshchenko: “Empowering Civil Society in Eastern Partnership Countries”
Dr Svitlana Babenko: “Gender Studies and Russia’s War Challenges: Networking for Excellence in Teaching and Institutional Development”
Lecturer Teresa Tomasevic: “Teaching of Swedish at Tbilisi State University Exchange and cooperation”
 

Seminar May 14 – The Georgian-Byzantine literary interaction in the 11th century

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The Georgian-Byzantine literary interaction in the eleventh century

— Christian Høgel, Professor of Greek and Latin, Lund University

Welcome to this joint seminar with RUCARR and CEMES-network “Thinking the European Academy of Letters”!

When: May 14, 15.15-16.30 CET
Where: Zoom link https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/67115473647

After the Georgian nobleman Ioane Tornike supported the young Byzantine emperor Basil II against pretenders to the Byzantine throne, Georgians became much closer connected to Byzantine politics and to Byzantine text culture. The establishment of the Iviron monastery in mount Athos turned out a most productive translation center but also became an aristocratic setting of Georgians within the Byzantine world. Our extant text material witnesses both this Byzantine-Georgian literary exchanges and gives us valuable information on different text cultures along the Silk Road.

Bio

Christian Høgel is professor of Greek and Latin at Lund University since 2023. He has published widely on Byzantine hagiography and on translations – on the early Greek translation of the Qur’an and on translations from Georgian. He is co-director of the Retracing Connections research programme (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond).

RUCARR Seminar, April 23, 15:15-17:00: Civil society in the South Caucasus: Resource dependencies, organizational behaviors and shifting environments

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Civil society in the South Caucasus: Resource dependencies, organizational behaviors and shifting environments

When? April 23rd, 15:15-17:00

Where? On Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/69994454484

Abstract

Civil society developments in the Eurasia region have been under scholarly scrutiny since the early 1990s, particularly due to their presumed actorness in political and societal transitions. In the meantime, a growing number of challenges, including limited trust and participation, lingering legitimacy, agency and accountability issues, external aid dependence, precarious professionalization, and governments’ increased regulative and political assaults, have faced civil society organizations (CSOs). This talk will draw on research into cases of the South Caucasus countries – Azerbaijan and Georgia – from neo-institutional and resource dependence perspectives. The Azerbaijani case will highlight the transformation of organizational behaviors of CSOs in the wake of government-imposed restrictions over the past decade, focusing on the trend of de-NGOization under entrenched authoritarianism. The Georgian case will discuss the effects of foreign funding on self-regulation in civil society, focusing on agency and accountability practices against the background of government allegations and legislative proposals deeming CSOs as “foreign agents.”

Bio

Najmin Kamilsoy is a doctoral candidate at Charles University Department of Public and Social Policy, where he received a master’s degree in 2019. His current research area is civil society development and organizational behaviors in non-democracies, with a regional and comparative focus on the South Caucasus. Kamilsoy is a co-founder and policy analyst of Agora Analytical Collective, a think tank that has been dealing with the analysis of social and economic policies in Azerbaijan since 2022. He held a visiting Ph.D. fellowship at the University of Zurich in 2021 and he is an upcoming research fellow at Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

 

Visit from the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul

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Roundtable at Malmö University on the topic of “The Caucasus between Turkey and Russia” at the annual meeting of the Research Collegium of the Swedish Research Institute , Istanbul (https://srii.org/), hosted by RUCARR.

Presenters: PhD Candidate Michel Anderlini, Dr George Mchedlishvili, Dr Natia Gamkrelidze, Dr Kamal Makili-Aliyev, Prof. Karina Vamling. Moderator: Prof. Bo Petersson.

Sign-up for Symposium on November 6-7

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Language in Conflict and War – Ukraine, Caucasus, Russia

November 6  (online zoom panels) and November 7  (campus & webinar)

Sign-up link for November 6 and 7

Registration required for zoom and webinar links. [check for program updates]

NOVEMBER 6

10.00 Opening of the Symposium

10.15-11.45 Language in conflict and war – focus: Ukraine Abstracts

— Dr. Liudmyla Pidkuimukha (Justus Liebig University Giessen) Weaponizing Language: How Russia Commits Linguicide on the Occupied Territories of Ukraine
—Svetlana L’nyavsky (Lund University): I am a Russian Ukrainian, but I will not learn Ukrainian just for you! Language ideological debates, linguistic vigilantism, and Internally Displaced People at the time of war
— Solomija Buk, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Department of General Linguistics: Ukrainian for Foreigners in Russian-Ukrainian War: Changes and Challenges

13.00-14.40 Central Asia’s Complex Tapestry: Language, Education, Colonial Legacies, and Decolonial Perspectives   Abstracts

— Juldyz Smagulova and Kara Fleming (College of Humanities and Education, at KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan): Shame and struggles for power: New speakers of Kazakh in Kazakhstan— 
— Edward Lemon (Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University) and Oleg Antonov (visiting researcher at GPS and RUCARR, Malmö University; visiting researcher at Södertörn University): Academic Diplomacy: The Educational Aspects of Russian Soft Power in Tajikistan
— Victoria Clement Central Asian Insights): Avoiding a Reckoning: Memory Days and History in Turkmenistan
— PhD candidate Dina Kucherbayeva and Prof. Juldyz Smagulova: Language Revitalization: Challenges for Kazakh in Higher Education

14.50-16.30. Language in conflict and war – focus: North Caucasus and Turkey  Abstracts

— Emre Pshigusa (U.S. State Department, English Language Fellow): The Circassian language and identity created a feeling of illegality in us” Language Ideologies, Policies, and Circassian Language Rights in Turkey
— Lars Funch Hansen (Circassian Studies) The marginalisation of Circassian language through local history teaching, with cases from Krasnodar Krai including the Black Sea coast
— Valeriya Minakova (Penn State): “It all starts in the family”: Placing discourses on the role of families in Circassian language preservation into a historical-political context

Merab Chukhua (Tbilisi State University and the Circassian Culture Center, Tbilisi): One case of reflecting a historical fact in language

16.40-17.40. Historical perspectives   Abstracts

— Otari Gulbani (Central European University MA): Russian Imperial Orientalism in Svaneti: A Discursive Analysis
— Sam Tarpley (Tulane University, Grad stud): Contemporary Deconstruction: Post-Soviet Monuments and the American South


NOVEMBER 7   (campus and webinar)  Abstracts 

Sign-up link for November 6 and 7

10.15 Welcome  (Niagara, 5th floor, C section (Nordenskiöldsgatan 1)

10.30-11.45. Morning session 

Giorgi Alibegashvili (State Language Department of Georgia) & Maka Tetradze. (State Language Department of Georgia & Tbilisi State University):: Street Georgian – as a Reflection of functioning of the State language in Georgia

Tinatin Bolkvadze (Tbilisi State University & State Language Department): How to assess the functioning of the Russian language in Georgia (online)

13.00-14.15 Afternoon session 1 

Nadiya Kiss (JLU Giessen): Languages at war: Language shift, contested language diversity and ambivalent enmity in Ukraine

Andrey Makarychev (University of Tartu): “Estonian Russophones: A Biopolitical Story”

14.30-15.45. Afternoon session 2

Mariam Manjgaladze (Caucasus University): Issues of the Official Language Ecology in Contemporary Georgia  

Lidia Zhigunova (Tulane University, USA): Russia’s War on Indigenous Languages: The Case of Circassian in the North Caucasus

15.50-16.20. Concluding Roundtable

Moderator: Professor Barbara Thörnquist-Plewa, Central and Eastern European Studies, Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University

Seminar with Dr Maia Barkaia: Georgia’s North-Eastern Borderland Entanglements

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Dr Maia Barkaia, Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, Visiting RUCARR  researcher: A Valley of Misconstrued: Georgia’s North-Eastern Borderland Entanglements

The post-Soviet wars and socio-economic crisis of the 1990s in Georgia and the North Caucasus shaped the lives of Pankisi residents, transforming the borderland region into the epicenter of tension. While Pankisi residents have kept a distinct Kist identity in Georgia, they have also maintained their ties with their Northern neighbours, and political developments in Chechnya and Ingushetia have often had a significant impact on their lives. The transition of North-Eastern Georgian borders from open to closed  after the collapse of the Soviet Union unfolded in a specific way in Pankisi Gorge. This shift in border regimes coincided with the Russo-Chechen war. These events played a pivotal role in shaping their ethnic and religious identities and became an integral part of the collective memory of Pankisi Kists. It is against the backdrop of the Russo-Chechen wars and Georgia’s western-oriented geopolitical aspirations that I seek to understand the „valley of misconstrued“ by examining the formation of  borderland identity at this politically and socially pivotal juncture.

When: October 24, 15.16-17.00
Where: Seminar room, 9th floor (campus seminar)

How do parties compete in hybrid regimes – seminar with Levan Kakhishvili

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How do parties compete in hybrid regimes: Programmes, clientelism or the marriage of the two? Case study of Georgia

Seminar given by Levan Kakhishvili, Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences (BAGSS), Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg

When? Tuesday 17th of October, 15:15-17:00 (CET)

Where? https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/64850283542

Description: Party competition in hybrid regimes, especially in post-Soviet context, is often treated as a popularity contest of the party leaders seeking public office. At best, it is assumed that competition is over votes through informal networks and vote-buying practices, while policy ideas are almost entirely absent from the equation. This, however, is a rather simplistic account of party politics in hybrid regimes. Party competition in non-democratic contexts is a complex phenomenon and exhibits both programmatic and clientelistic characteristics. Therefore, studying hybrid regimes can lead to answers to questions such as: How do parties win elections in hybrid regimes? How does clientelistic competition work? How does it co-exist with programmatic competition? How does programmatic competition emerge? Why do parties produce electoral programmes in contexts where they matter little in terms of electoral outcome? Based on the primary data of 48 hand-coded party manifestos, 16 in-depth interviews with party representatives, 20 informal interviews with electoral brokers, and publicly available surveys, this research explores the questions of party competition in post-Soviet Georgia.

Levan Kakhishvili

Seminar with Katrine Gotfredsen on Georgian borderland villages – Living with “borderization”

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Living with “borderization”: Accommodating, negotiating and contesting occupation in Georgian borderland villages

Welcome to next RUCARR  seminar on March 21 with Dr Katrine Godfredsen, senior lecturer in Caucasus Studies at Malmö Unversity.

When: March 21, 15.15-17.00

Where: Sign-up here for zoom link    (new link)

Zoom Meeting  https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/67632369897  Meeting ID: 676 3236 9897

Abstract

In this presentation I will outline some preliminary findings from recent ethnographic fieldwork in Georgia conducted as part of the research project “Occupied Intimacies: Borderization in Palestine, Georgia and Western Sahara”. The project as a whole is about contemporary military occupations and their effects on the everyday lives of people under their rule. It compares three cases of on-going and disputed military occupations: the Russian occupation of the Georgian territory of South Ossetia, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.

The Georgian case study explores local effects of Russian border-making practices, or “borderization”, between the occupied territory of South Ossetia and Tbilisi controlled territory. Through the installation of physical barriers and symbolic gestures, such as signposts, fences and patrolling border guards, a previously invisible and elastic administrative boundary line (ABL) is gradually being turned into a de-facto international border. Moreover, these activities are accompanied by instances of what is locally described as “creeping occupation” – the step-by-step moving of fences and barbed wire further into Georgian controlled land and seizing of more Georgian territory.

Borderization has grave effects on the lives and livelihoods of borderland village communities. Some families have already experienced being cut off, or displaced, from their native farmlands, gardens and orchards, and others live with the fear and risk that this might happen at any time. This ongoing uncertainty presents local families with a number of economic and social problems and dilemmas, but it also fosters innovative strategies of accommodation, negotiation and contestation. In this presentation, I will examine how, and to which effect, borderization as a tool of dominance and subordination affects and reconfigures local village communities and livelihoods.