Caucasian prisoners, or How Georgian intellectuals invent traditions and (re)produce meanings

Therefore, Nikoloz Mitsishvili was forced to state: “when I refe r to our history, I do not find a higher meaning and a `divine hand' in it. All our existence is the irony of fate, the mockery of providence. A lion and a flea, a devil and an angel, a talent and a pompous arrogance coexist in each of us. The past does not seem complete, monolithic, it was hastily tailored and sloppy glued, scattered in pieces mosaically, and lost also. I do not find the main core, the spine of the Georgian idea, the thought in the history of Georgia... Perhaps the highest meaning, salvation, and justification of Georgia are in Christianity... the cross was constantly cut, was torn from all sides, and torn into pieces. But after all, the cross blessed peace and holiness. Where is this blessing? Is our tragic, bitter and bloody history good? Is it possible that for two thousand years the power and strength of this cross could not bring to life, create fateful phenomena that define its special destiny and idea? Does Georgia lose forever `a bright, life-giving pillar that covers every nation's way of a new word and creativity'?! ... Georgia is a passive phenomenon. Its energy, restricted by external factors (the energy of a worm crushed by a foot), lacked inner activity always... As a result, it was outside the higher and fair court, it lost universal sympathy and justification, its own religion, its confession, and it's thought...” (Robakidze, 2004).

Sovietisation of Georgia aggravated these psychological and cultural traumas of Georgian intellectual class. Sovietisation of the intelligentsia ac- tualised its servilist functions when it mutated from intellectual commun i- ties into an institution of identity. Sovietisation of Georgia led to the emergence of a professional intelligentsia that legitimised the regime willingly and inspiredly, imagined the nation and invented history.

Georgian intellectuals believed naively and idealistically that they invented a national identity, but in fact, they cultivated a myth. The triumph of the ethnocentric national myth inspired, on the one hand, the rise of Georgian nationalism and its radicalisation simultaneously, and on the other hand, it sanctioned the enslavement of Georgian intelligentsia, which understood that it fell into a dependence on power and could not propose any alternative model for the existence of an intellectual class.

Therefore, Georgian intellectuals were deported to academic reservations subordinated to the Academy of Sciences. This intellectual emigration, as Nino Pirtshalava defined, in the “realm of fantasy and heroic folklore” (Pirtshalava, 1997) transformed Georgian intellectuals into “myth-makers and only the tragic-comic grimace of the homegrown totalitarian regime of nationalistic persuasion sobered the intellectuals who blessedly stayed in the realm of dreams, pushed them out of it. The magical realm of its history, populated entirely by wise kings and queens, and the noble and brave knights also... intellectuals realised that this myth-making was not а harmless fun” (Pirtshalava, 1997).

The degree of this understanding was different; the effect was superficial because representatives of the former Georgian intelligentsia who b e- came intellectuals of independent Georgia began to do what they specialised in and what they were able to in the best way. Georgian intellectuals recovered relatively quickly from the moral trauma and the consequences of civil conflict and realised that the invention and imagination of new myths and identity were the best way to consolidate the nation. Zaal An- dronikashvili and Giorgi Maisuradze, developing these assumptions of the 1990s, suggested a decade later that “the political project of independence was based primarily on returning to history imagined not in terms of active social and political activities in state or difficult work of memory, but in the sense of restoration of the idealised Georgian medieval statehood (a national-secular version of the myth about a paradise state before the fall). This picture of the world does not imply modernization in general with all its problems and real collisions. A homeostatic society emerged in this space and it aimed to preserve the certain state and prevented it from deviations” (Andronikashvili, 2012; Andronikashvili, 2007).

In fact, the dominance of these sentiments and idealised perceptions of the past and national history in Georgian society actualised its unwillingness to radical political modernization and decisive democratic reforms. Social and cultural institutions responsible for the development of identity were under control of the intellectuals. Georgian intellectuals were more active in myth-making than in a real democratisation of society. Actually the myth-making of Georgian intelligentsia that mutated into heterogeneous intellectual communities became one more institution of identity, and the author presumes that the myth as an institution was more adaptive than formal institutions of identity, including secondary school and universities, which, educating and nurturing new generations, assisted transformation of national identity to mass production of new meanings and senses of archaic and traditional institutions.

Myth as an institution of identity had adapted to the ideological demands of the Soviet communist doctrine, the romanticised and ethnicised nationalism of early independent Georgia, the imitative democracy of Eduard Shevardnadze and the political regimes of his successors. The political dynamics of the post-Soviet Georgia assisted to the gradual fragmentation of the thinking class into dzveli int 'eligentsiis or “the old intelligentsia” and akhali int'elekt'ualebi or “new intellectuals” (Shatirishvili, 2003) despite the fact that the boundaries between these social and cultural categories had frontier character and were extremely conventional and imagined. Some authors use the definition marginali intelek'tualebi or marginal intellectuals (Metreveli, 2014), but it does not describe the wide range of social and cultural contradictions among the Georgian heterogeneous thinking class b ecause the signs and characteristics of marginality are extremely subjective.

Georgian intellectuals who are ideologically biased use it as a political label for strict critics of their ideological opponents. The domination of these sentiments predetermined the fact that Georgian intellectuals became victims and hostages of melancholy and the prolonged political and ideological depression. The image of “plumber of melancholy” (lat'ashvili, 2016) arose even in Georgian poetry in this intellectual context. Motives of depression and despair became central in the reflections of Georgian intellectuals and entered their identity so deeply that they began to imagine mi s- fortune as a natural and normal psychological state of the nation [ch'ighvinadze, alek'si. uazro situats'iebis gmiris...]. Georgian intellectuals are torn between common cultural universals and national historical and political myths agonizingly.

Georgian intellectuals as hostages of political language

These myths form the basis of the national Kartvelian identity of Georgian nation. The motives of k'alak'i (city) and images of gamok'vabuli (cave) (T'avdgiridze, 2016) became universals of Georgian political culture and national identity that rooted in the mutually exclusive myths of the “cave” as a stronghold of Christian virtue and morality and the “city” as a motor of social and cultural changes, modernizations and transformations. The simultaneous coexistence of these motifs with a sense of uncertainty predetermined that images of gzis (road) and gza (way) (Mi- lorava, 2013) entered the number of central ones in Georgian identity because they actualise the general incompleteness of national and political construction in a country that, unlike other post -socialist states, continues to exist and develop in the stage of transition from communism to democracy. Motives of the uncertain trajectories of political movement actualise the numerous problems and contradictions of the state that communism in the past resolutely, but the post-communism is still an insurmountable obstacle for Georgian intellectual communities and political elites.

The images of k 'alak 'i and gamok 'vabuli, gzis and gza are not the only collective mythologems invented by Georgian nationalists. Georgian intellectuals proposed several invented traditions, including k'veqana (country), dedamitsaze (motherland), samshoblo (fatherland), t'avisup'leba (freedom), damoukidebloba (independence), ik'neba (liberty). These invented traditions are extremely diverse and actualise various forms and dimensions of the national and cultural identities of the Georgian nation as an ethnic community and political body. The narratives of k'alak'i and gamok'vabuli belong to the number of elements of archaic heritage in present-time Georgian identity and actualise mainly religious components of national identity. The concepts of k'alak'i and gamok'vabuli became the result of the development of the book Christian culture and traditions of martyrdom, monasticism, and asceticism. They included Georgian identity into the wider context of the Western Christian political tradition.

These concepts were among the most influential in the traditional premodern Georgian identity, but their significance declined rapidly and sharply in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially in the Soviet period when Georgia became the victim of a forced modernization, which inspired secularization of Georgian society. The political and social dynamics of the 20th century inspired the rapid simultaneous disruption and desecration of concepts of k'alak'i and gamok'vabuli in Georgian identity despite the fact that Georgia was able to save more formal attributes of Christianity in the geographical landscape of the republic than the other parts of the Soviet empire. Narratives and images of k'veqana (country), dedamitsaze (motherland), samshoblo (fatherland), t 'avisup 'leba (freedom), damoukidebloba (independence), ik'neba (liberty) became later constructs in Georgian identity. Georgian political nationalism and civic activism inspired their appearance in the social, political and intellectual discourses of Georgia.

These invented traditions had predominantly instrumental purposes and applied nature because nationalists and other politicians used them to describe political changes and transformations, as well as legitimise them. The triad of k'veqana (country), dedamitsaze (motherland), samshoblo (fatherland) and t'avisup'leba (freedom), damoukidebloba (independence), ik'neba (liberty) emerged as a result of efforts of Georgian nationalist to develop nationalism as a predominantly political ideology. These narratives describe predominantly secular political virtues of Georgian state project because they were resulting from the transplantation of ideas inspired by Western bourgeois revolutions and the triumph of political nationalism introduced to the intellectual Georgian discourse. These invented traditions inspired the emergence of new political myths, which were more in demand in the period after Georgia regained its state and political indepen d- ence. These definitions lost their abstract character in the 1990s because t'avisup'leba (freedom) and damoukidebloba (independence) ceased to be only abstract concepts in the Georgian language as they were a few years earlier when Georgia was a Soviet republic.

Georgian nationalism in these intellectual contexts gradually tran s- formed from an exclusively political and ideological phenomenon into a

fact of the social medical situation of contemporary Georgian society because nationalistic discourse actualises signs of social paranoia and cultural schizophrenia simultaneously. George Orwell, an English writer, presumed that nationalism actualises three social states, including obsession, instability, and indifference to reality (Orwell, 1945), but these three features b e- came the causes of the unstable position of intellectuals in the modern world where they mutated into educated marginals. Edward Said, commenting on this situation, wrote that “there is something fundamentally unsettling about intellectuals who have neither offices to protect nor territory to consolidate and guard; self-irony is, therefore, more frequent than pomposity, directness more than hemming and hawing. But there is no dodging the inescapable reality that such representations by intellectuals will neither make them friends in high places nor win them official honours. It is a lonely condition” (Said, 1994).

On the one hand, the discourse of modern Georgian nationalism functions as a reproduction of new meanings and senses or revision of old ones that became archaic ideas in Georgian nationalism because nationalist - minded Georgian intellectuals idealised them in the 20th century, and modern Georgian intellectuals canonized and mythologized the legacy of their political predecessors. On the other hand, nationalist discourse programs and determines the way of thinking of citizens who belong to a nation imagined and invented by nationalism. This feature of the nationalist di s- course actualizes dimensions of nationalism as a deliberately planned and “programmed response” (Teslya, 2014) to threats of archaization and radical modernization as globalization simultaneously. Russian historians state that “the symbolic world of the innovation group is fundamentally opened and antidogmatic, anti-authoritative” (Dubin, Boris; Gudkov, Lev. Evro- peiskii intellectual...), but the history of Georgian intellectual community actualizes tendencies of isolation and inclination towards dogmatic thinking, active participation in the imagination and invention of new political and national myths.

Georgian intellectuals as hostages of the historical lost time

Georgian intellectuals felt an acute sense of loneliness in the Soviet period because Georgian culture retained the significant degree of freedom and internal independence and its tonality; in general, it was different from other national cultures. Georgian society faced other problems when it tried to part with the images and symbols of Stalin (Nodia, 2010) imagined as the greatest Georgian of the 20th century. This parting with Stalin's era legacy was very long and continued until the beginning of the 2010s when the last monument of the Soviet leader was dismantled in Gori's central square and moved to his house-museum. The demolition of Soviet monuments was symbolic in the contexts of the struggle against the Soviet political and ideological heritage.

The authorities of independent Georgia dismantled the monuments of Sergo Ordzhonikidze who made a significant impact to the Sovietisation of Georgia despite that he was an ethnic Georgian. Georgian authorities did it immediately as the political and state independence was restored in the early 1990s. Monuments of Lenin as ethnically and ideologically alien monuments of the Soviet era were dismantled a little bit later.

The demolition of Stalin's monument in 2010 was an attempt to prove that the ideas of n a- tional statehood, freedom, and independence became emotionally more important and attractive for Georgian citizens. Restoration of political independence did not abolish this sense of cultural and intellectual loneliness, which predetermined attempts by Georgian intellectuals (Kharbedia, 2017) to find mentally related cultures in the European context. Intellectual discourse in Georgia develop intensively, and local cultural spaces are very heterogeneous and amorphous [mrgvali magida: XXI saukunis...], and this fact force Georgian intellectuals to recognise the absence of general tendencies in developments of literature and cinema which were the main means of formation of the attractive image of the country in the world and promotion of its reputation as an oasis of European culture and freedom in the undemocratic USSR during the Soviet period. Georgian intellectuals in the 20th century mythologized identity and their heirs of the 21st century received several extremely stable myths about the great Georgian culture and literature as a stronghold of national identity.

Therefore, Georgian intelligentsia parted with old stereotypes and collective ideas very painfully. Any intellectual initiatives to revise old ideas are perceived as national treason and an attempt to assassinate the national myth and cultural foundations of the nation. Therefore, the attempt of Gi a Nodia, who stated that he does not understand why Konstantin Gamsakhurdia has a reputation of the great writer [nodia, gia. konstantine gamsakhurdia...], to reconsider the stable and even stagnant pantheon of Georgian classics remained unnoticed because the society preferred to ignore it. Georgian intellectuals, in this cultural atmosphere, prefer to ignore this problem and therefore alternative points of view are extremely rare. Therefore, Georgian intellectuals dismantle the old stereotypes very slowly and they can not part with the standard pantheon of the founding fathers of the modern Georgian nation. Parting with the past and unpleasant totalitar ian experience (Kharbedia, 2011) and the Soviet legacy predetermined intellectual traumas among representatives of Georgian intellectual community.

The social feeling of depression (Lomidze, 2015; Kekelidze, 2014) and collective fears institutionalized in the phenomenon of national melancholy and the myth of a yearning nation became system characteristics of Georgian contemporary intelligentsia and cultural elite. These feelings coexist with fears of “post-apocalyptic zombies” (Zark'ua, 2010) because of Georgian society, where some citizens recalled the Soviet era nostalgically, is not able to overcome the fears that communism will be restored. The domination of collective fears predetermined the existence of Georgian intelligentsia in a closed model of development because Georgian intellectuals seek to avoid carefully acute and unpleasant topics and problems, including war (Kharbedia, 2011], civil conflicts, social problems, clericalization of society (Ninidze, 2014).

In general, Georgian authors (Kakabadze, 2008) recognise that the intellectual spaces of contemporary Georgia are too heterogeneous internally. The concept of tsit'eli inteligents'iis relates to marginali intelek'tualebi genetically and even historically precedes it, but it has more political and ideological character because some Georgian authors use it actively in their attempts to demonise the old intelligentsia. Levan Javakhishvili accuses the old intelligentsia, defined as `the red' by him, in the overthrow of Zviad Gamsakhurdia (Zviad gamsakhurdiadan zviad gamsakhurdiamde.; sak'art'velos respublikis prezidenti..; Sharadze, 1995; Gamakharia, 2004; Sajaia, 2004; Ghlonti, 2007) and legitimation of the state upheaval (Javakhishvili, 2010). Georgian intelligentsia in the USSR and Georgian intellectuals in independent Georgia had never known what political and cultural freedom was (Maisuradze, 2012), the degree of their influence was too different. Jago Hvichia [Khvich'ia, iago. Personaluri snobi, vupis t'edzo da.] presumes that no more than one percent of Georgian citizens unde r- stand and accept the ideas of the liberal intelligentsia, and attempts to free and abandon the authoritarian legacy and totalitarian Soviet heritage were not very successful because Georgian intellectuals preferred to do it in an academic way, comparing German National Socialism and Stalinist Bolshevism (Gabelia, Alek'sandre. 'Politikis est'etisats'ia' da.).

This idea of the intellectuals was incomprehensible to other citizens who did not have special knowledge in the history of the authoritarian p o- litical experience of the 20th century. Liberal experiments in politics and post-modernist experiments in literature became equally alien and incomprehensible for a significant number of citizens of independent Georgia. These rejections had cultural and social background because Georgian society, despite of all attempts of the forced economic and social modernizations in the 20th century, continued to be traditional and even partly arch a- ic. The border line of intellectual and cultural division between the various segments and cultural strata of Georgian society lay in their relation to religion in general and to the Orthodox Church in particular. Zaza Burchuladze's texts “Instant Kafka” and “Mineral Jazz” actualised various att i- tudes towards Orthodoxy that ranged from denial to ridicule with elements of political satire. Zaza Burchuladze actualised the state of cultural and intellectual schism and the semantic fragmentation of modern Georgian society in his texts where some groups accepted and assimilated Western values whereas others preferred to preserve archaic cultural and religious background.

The groups of Tbilisi intellectuals in the texts of Zaza Burchuladze actively and successfully imitate and simulate Western cultural practices and strategies because social and cultural behaviour was rooted in the denial of traditional models. Heroes of Zaza Burchuladze's prose attack an old man in Tbilisi park and forcibly circumcise him. This moment actualises the ritual circumcision of modern post-religious Georgian culture because it represents the act of parting with the past, the rejection of traditions and their decisive desacralisation. It will be a simplification to assume that Zaza Bu- ruchladze deliberately deconstructs the foundations of the classical Georgian identity.

The secular and postmodern messages coexist with attempts at the religious enlightenment of heroes who allow themselves incorrect and frankly offensive phrases about the Catholicos Patriarch. Zaza Burchuladze criticises the Church actively and believes that “Georgian church is a system that became festered from within ... when 80 percent of residents are Orthodox fundamentalists, it's very dumbfounded for a free person to live in this space ... this society radicalises from day to day ... Our priests like fight dogs... You can say something about the patriarch, and you can be b eaten easily by someone. When I wrote about the patriarch's breast in my novel `Instant Kafka', I had problems. I was sworn in the streets. the taxi dri vers have icons in their cars, there are icons in the offices of our ministers. everyone baptises. The people fast almost all year. It is some sort of collective hallucinosis. I teach a course in the Caucasian Media School with the symptomatic title `Pop mechanics'. I meet wildly and stupidly believing young people. it is difficult to communicate with them: freedom of speech and freedom of the body also are closed for them” (Burchuladze, 2012).

Literary texts and political meanings produced and reproduced by intellectuals after a historical turning point when Georgia restored its political independence and sovereignty, were understandable only for a small number of intellectuals. Actually, Georgian intellectuals in independent Georgia did not reproduce the meanings for mass cultural consumption. Georgia in this historical context echoed the intellectual experience of other Western countries where intellectual communities formed and developed historically as thinking social and cultural minorities. This ignorance became a consequence of negative political dynamics because neither the Soviet intellectuals nor intellectuals of independent Georgia have ever tried to become independent and distance themselves from the state and political power. Despite the objective differences between the old intelligentsia and the new intellectuals, these cultural groups have much in common, including Soviet genetic roots and origins, the experience of symbiosis with party nomenclature, fascination with the ideology of nationalism (Shubit'idze, 2013; Da vit'ashvili, 2003) and national patriotic myths, conformism and the ability to adapt to any political regime [inteligent-intelek'tualt'a qop 'ierebis... ].

Georgian authors presume that the old intelligentsia and new intellectuals are very different groups with diametrically opposed and even mutually exclusive economic, social, cultural preferences, forms and ways of thinking, intellectual tactics, and strategies. The old intelligentsia and new intellectuals live in different social and cultural spaces. The old intelligentsia is connected with Eduard Shevardnadze's political era genetically, but in fact, they continue Soviet cultural and political traditions because the second president of Georgia was the product of the Soviet system and the party elite. New intellectuals are very different from the old intelligentsia in their political preferences because the vardebis revolutsia (Kopitersis, 2006) or Rose Revolution and President Mikheil Saakashvili were, in fact, the factors that inspired intellectuals and turned them into an influential force and factor of Georgian social and cultural life. New intellectuals and old intelligentsia consciously and intentionally use various definitions: the old intelligentsia uses the concept of “intelligentsia” in its attempts to act u- alise historical ties with Georgian intelligentsia of the pre-Soviet and Soviet epochs. New intellectuals tend to reject the definition of “intelligentsia” in general because they perceive it as the Soviet political and ideological construct and form of Soviet influence.

The definition of t'ergdaleulebi (Ch'khaidze, 2009) is still applicable to the representatives of the old intelligentsia because they imagine themselves as part of European cultural elite. New intellectuals, unlike the old post-Soviet intelligentsia, can be defined as potomakdaleulebi because American culture became more attractive for them in general than the Russian one. Despite the attractiveness of American political culture and traditions, Georgian media are less active in its popularisation and prefer to publish translations of European intellectuals and thinkers than the texts of their American counterparts [Ts'khadaia, Giorgi. Interviu berni...]. Contemporary Georgian intellectuals, disappointed in the society and culture of unrestrained consumerism [Khvich'ia, Iago. Dzudzuebi, Integrats'ia, Trak'torisats'ia...], mastered, assimilated and integrated the main achievements of Western humanitarian knowledge into national Georgian contexts successfully [K'oiava, Revaz. Istoriuli METS'NIEREBA...].

Despite formal differences between historical and cultural generations of Georgian intellectuals, representatives of various groups of contemp o- rary Georgian intelligentsia deny the objective laws of knowledge and perceive scientific universalism in particular and the very idea of logos in general as social archaisms inherited from the era of Enlightenment. If the Georgian intellectuals of the 17th and 18th centuries discovered Europe for themselves (Kharbedia, 2016; Zark'ua, 2015) and invented the ideal images of Georgia for Europe, the modern Georgian intellectual communities changed the geographical coordinates of their cultural and political preferences resolutely and radically. If the idea of the West, in general, was popular among representatives of the Soviet Georgian intelligentsia, which carefully studied the historical aspects of Georgian-European cultural ties, then contemporary Georgian intellectuals preferred to minimize the concept of the Western world to the North American political space. European culture in particular also became less popular, but the interest in European intellectual experience as the regional form of Western one is still very st able.

Therefore, contemporary Georgian authors in their attempts to tran slate and popularise the classical works of European intellectuals, including founding fathers of Marxism (Shanidze, 2016; Tavelidze, 2014; Abramish- vili, 2014; Kit'khvari - T'anamedrove K'art'uli... 2013, 25 noembers; Markuze, Herbert. Utopiis Dasasruli.; Markuze, Herbert. Haidegeris An a- lizi....; Markuze, Herbert. Dzaladobisa da Radikaluri....; Markuze, He r- bert. Agresiuloba Motsinave....; Lukach'i, Georg. Moralis roli...; Badiu, Alan. Ch'ven ar Unda...; P'romi, Erikh. Mark'sizmi, P'sik'oanalizi...; Zhizheki, Slavoi. ar Shegiqvardet'....; Marineti, P'ilipo Tomazo. P'uturizmis Daarseba da.), seek to integrate the theoretical reflections and achievements of European political culture with the national contexts. Attempts to transplant the European including the Italian intellectual exper i- ence into Georgian contexts generate some curiosities rooted in common pro-American sympathies. Antonio Gramsci's (Gramshi, 2016) texts about political responsibility of intellectual class were translated into Georgian from English because his Georgian popularisers prefer to bypass Italian original source, but it does not mean that Georgian intellectuals completed their romantic relationship with Italy and Italian culture (Khatiashvili, 2017) because Italian motifs become visible in the modern cultural space of Georgia from time to time.

Georgian intellectuals are interested in Italian historical, political and cultural experience and attempt to find traces of Italian influence in the Georgian cultural landscapes, including the architectural appearance of Tbilisi (Kalandarishvili, 2017; Ts'khovrebadze, 2017; Berdzenishvili, 2017; Gegelia, 2017). The “old” Georgian intellectuals in the 1990s and 2000s were forced to hide in traditional academic institutions (Academy of Sciences, universities etc) and creative unions (Writers' Union, etc.) that Georgia inherited from the USSR. “New” intellectuals, unlike the “old” ones, preferred non-governmental organisations or new independent media based on market principles. Cultural and social preferences and differences inspired the fragmentation of the intellectual community: Russian, French, German and some other regional European languages including Italian or Spanish were the main foreign languages for the “old” post-Soviet Georgian intellectuals. New intellectuals prefer to use English and ignore and even forget Russian.

The political events of the early 1990s inspired the political radicalisation of Georgian intelligentsia because Zviad Gamsakhurdia himself used radical methods and his opponents also believed that radical forms of political struggle were most effective. Zviad Gamsakhurdia was able to gain control over the political sphere, but his triumph was extremely short. D espite the statements and assurances of Georgian intellectual Dato Barb a- kadze that “poetry and politics will never stretch one another's hands” (Barbakadze, 2009), the poet was able to become a political leader.

The Georgian intelligentsia in the 1990s became a hostage of political struggle, and political ruling elites were not interested in its ideological fluctuations despite the fact that intellectuals imagined and invented the identity of the new Georgian political nation. Dato Barbakadze presumes that this political choice actualised certain features of the Georgian intelligentsia, which “adapted to the current situation always... and plays the role of an autho r- ised and controlled opposition in the extreme situations” (Barbakadze, 2003). Georgian intellectuals, despite all the contradictions of the era of political transition from authoritarianism to democracy, could become a cu l- tural force that gained control over the symbolic political resources of the formation of civil and national identities. The 1990s marginalized the communist and extreme nationalist discourse in Georgian political thin king. Therefore, modern Georgian intellectuals are compelled to remain in liberal discourse which they imagined as a universal and inevitable political and ideological compromise between the communist stagnation and the extremes and horrors of ethnic nationalism.

Conclusions: eternal captives of senses, nation, Europe and the national mission

Institutions of identity and production of meanings in Georgia were diverse, their political values and swarms were also unequal. Symbolic institutions and practices of the reproduction of meanings had a predominantly symbolic sense and stimulated the progress of ethnic and radical forms of nationalism. Intellectual communities ceased to be sovereigns of thoughts and lost in competition with professional politicians who formed a semi-closed political class that no longer needs the intellectuals, and ident i- ties, and nations they imagined and invented. The secondary school and universities which imagined and invented nations in Europe in the 19th century, which standardised folk dialects turning them into national languages, became actual outsiders and social marginals in the modern information society, which no longer has a sustainable social need in these archaic institutions.

National histories, histories of literature, great historical and political narratives, national pantheons of the founding fathers of nation invented and imagined by intellectuals are among the social and cultural relics because they ceased to be interesting and important for political elites and classes. The small number of intellectuals still tries to invent senses and meanings of identity and legitimise social and cultural spaces where national identity exists. The institutions of identity and the production of meanings in Georgia in these intellectual contexts became special cases of inventing traditions in general and invented tradition s in particular. Modern nationalism exists and develops in the context of imagination and its invention by intellectuals who imagine, invent and maintain nationalist di s- course. They can no longer stop the production of meanings their historical predecessors began several decades earlier. Political classes and elites r emoved the intellectuals and nationalists from the political decision -making processes and started to participate in social and cultural games that their nationalistic and romantic predecessors inspired in the 19th century. Nationalism will create institutions of identity that will reproduce social, cu l- tural and political meanings, but other actors, including political classes and mass media, are doomed to generate new meanings and become service personnel of the universal body of nationalist discourse.

Intellectuals became an important factor in political, cultural and social histories of Georgia and they are responsible for the modernization that determines the social face of contemporary Georgia as a nation and state. Intellectuals became the founding fathers of the modern political nation and formulators of its imagined and invented traditions.

The idea of Georgian ethnic and political nation emerged, developed, progressed after intellectuals imagined it in various cultural and social practices and activities. Georgian intellectuals of the 20th century and their modern heirs and successors lived and continue to live in a dynamically changing nationalizing and modernizing society where nationalism did not become part of history, but continues to function as a real political force that determines the social shape of Georgian society and the basic trajectories of the development of Georgian statehood, simultaneously.

The assertions and statements that Georgian intellectuals are nationalists became a common place and sound quite trite. Georgian intellectuals provided the Georgian nation, which they actively imagined and invented, with the necessary social, political and cultural attributes. Georgian history, Georgian literature, Georgian language, Georgian geography became imagined constructs and invented political traditions. Georgian intellectuals as nationalists actualised the significant consolidation potential of national myths. Nationalists were the first who codified the myths and collected unsystematized disparate ideas of Kartvelian groups turning them into an ethnic and political Georgian nation. Georgian intellectuals became not only nationalists, but they became hostages of the sad and unpleasant political situation that led to the tragedy of intellectual communities in Georgia. Georgian intellectuals became victims of several tragic situations, including unsuccessful attempts to create a national independent statehood that b e- came a victim of Sovietisation; integration into the political apparatus of Soviet authoritarianism; crisis and the disintegration of the habitual social environment in the early 1990s.

The epoch of Zviad Gamsakhurdia became the era of the rise and fall of political intellectuals in post-Soviet Georgia because formally Zviad Gamsakhurdia became the first intellectual who could gain real political power in Georgia, but intellectuals could not control it in competition with the former party nomenclature that formed the core of professional politicians, united by corruption and participation in other informal political and economic institutions. The tragedy of professional intellectuals who gained political power was the result of their radicalization and ethnicization b ecause they preferred to replace the slogans of political nationalism, rights, and freedoms with the values and myths of ethnic nationalism and radicalism. These political tragedies inspired the gradual radicalisation of Georgian intellectuals and institutionalised foundations for their protracted relationship with ethnic nationalism.

This political metamorphosis inspired intellectual attempts to ethnicize history and the rise of ethnic myths which became new invented traditions because they marginalized political nationalism. Georgian intellectuals got a unique and unpleasant experience in years of transition from authoritarianism to democracy, despite the fact that this transition had a formal nature before the historic moment of “Rose Revolution”. The years of political transit changed the social and cultural appearance of the old Georgian Soviet intelligentsia radically. A new generation of intellectuals pr e- ferred to become intellectuals in the Western meaning of this concept.

The heterogeneous Georgian intellectual communities replaced the old Soviet intelligentsia, but the intellectuals, as their Soviet historical predecessors, were very ideological and politicised. Contemporary Georgian intellectuals remained secular and did not become radical fanatics of the church or ethnic nationalism as a new universal political religion. Intellectual communities in Georgia, despite the fact that they are extremely fragmented and heterogeneous, continue to be factories where intellectuals produce meanings and transplant them into the political and cultural spaces of modern Georgian society. Georgian intellectuals, especially those who are close to political elites, take active part in the functioning of the official state machine that produces meanings and promotes the identity of the nation. Actually, Georgian intellectuals, in those cultural and social situations, became theorists of the new political economy for the nation and nationalism.

The production of meanings became a form of symbolic exchange and an act of political communication between various groups of elites. On the one hand, Georgian intellectuals continue to develop European narratives which bring them closer to the Soviet intelligentsia, but they prefer to r eplace European sympathies with American ones. On the other hand, Georgian intellectuals face many problems and difficulties because their ideas are incomprehensible to most Georgians who prefer to preserve traditional values, including Orthodoxy. Georgian intellectuals are forced to exist in a society that prefers to remain partly traditional and archaic because of the values, principles, and ideas of secularisation in Georgia, unlike Christian i- ty, became victims of social marginalization. Georgia experienced modernization in the 20th century, but Georgian modernization did not inspire the radical secularisation of society.

Therefore, Georgian intellectual communities are forced to exist in two social and cultural times. On the one hand, intellectual communities live in the same time zones with intellectuals of the West. On the other hand, Georgian intellectuals in their attempts to keep in contact with their fellow citizens use local time, which lags behind the paces and velocities of social and cultural changes and transformations of the Western wor ld. These features of the social and cultural situations in Georgia turned intellectuals into a spiritually isolated group from formally `their' society in general, but intellectuals were able to maintain their unity with the rest of the world. The vectors and trajectories of the further developments of Georgian intellectual communities continue to remain vague, but their social and cultural roles are undoubted and significant.

References

President of the Republic of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia, 1992-1993 (1955). Tbilisi: Khma erisa.

(February 15, 2017). The birth of the Italian State. Arili.

(October 16, 2009). Intolerant lightness of intelligentsia-intellectual existence. Arili.

Abramishvili, D. (2014). Sak'art'velo t'anamedrove khelovnebis rukaze. Arili. (In Georgian)

Ap'khazet'is avtonomiuri respublikis konstituts'ia. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://abkhazia.gov.ge/index.php?lang_id=GEO&sec_id=24/ (In Georgian)

Andronikashvili, Z. (2012). Glory to powerlessness. Martrilological paradigm of Geor- gianpolitical theology. Retrieved from https://history.wikireading.ru/196855/ (In Russian)

Andronikashvili, Z. & Maisuradze, G. (2007). Georgia-1990: Phylogeme of Independence, or Unlearned Experience. Retrieved from http://magazines.russ.ru/nlo/2007/83/an10.html (In Russian)

Badiu, A. (2015). Ch'ven ar unda vitirot'. Retrieved from

http://www.demo.ge/index.php?do=full&id=1394/ (In Georgian)

Barbak'adze, T. (2010). Essay marginalisation and boredom. Semiotika.

Berdzenishvili, L. (February 15, 2017). Dante today. Arili.

Berekashvili, T. (January 9, 2012). Time and Mirror. Retrieved from

https://semioticsjournal.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/

Beriashvili, L. (2015). State capitalism in the context of modern Georgian culture. Retrieved from http://www.demo.ge/index.php?do=full&id=1241/

Burchuladze, Z. (2011). Inflatable angel. Tbilisi.

Barbakadze, D. (2003). Between "nothing" and "something": observation of a Georgian writer. Retrieved from http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2003/1/barb.html (In Russian)

Barbakadze, D. (2009). Poetry and Politics. Retrieved from

http://magazines.russ.ru/nov_yun/2009/4/ba5.html (In Russian)

Burchuladze, Z. (2012). We are in the middle of nowhere. Retrieved from https://lenta.ru/articles/2012/10/12/zaza/ (In Russian)

Ch'ighvinadze, A. (2011). Instructions for Hero in Wonderful Situations. Retrieved from http://www.demo.ge/index.php?do=full&id=707/

Ch'khaidze, I. (2009). Modernist Theory of Nationalism and Georgian National Project ("Tergaglebi"). Tbilisi: Akhali azri.

Фронтир, идентичность и культурная память | https://doi.org/10.46539/jfs.v5i3.153

Ch'khataraishvili, K. (1985). Incorporation of Gurian Principality in Russia. Tbilisi: Mets'niereba.

Davit'ashvili, Z. (2003). Nationalism and Globalisation. Tbilisi: Mets'niereba.

Dubin, B. & Gudkov, L. (2014). The European Intellectual: An Attempt to Apologize Subjectivity. Retrieved from https://postnauka.ru/longreads/22471/ (In Russian)

Dzigua M. (2009). Intelligentsia in the works of Mikheil Javakhishvili. Tbilisi.

Elizbarashvili, E. (January 26, 2012). Jean-Bodriar's Cultural Broth and Georgian "Bullion" Time. in semiotika, Retrieved from https://semioticsjournal.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/elizbar-elizbarashvili-_-zh/

Elizbarashvili, E. (May 2, 2014). Time "read" according to the spatial coordinates of the fourth dimension of the universe. Retrieved from https://semioticsjournal.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/elizbar-elizbarashvili-_-d/

Gabelia, A. (2017). "Esthetisation of Politics" and "Politics of Esthetics". Retrieved from http://www.demo.ge/index.php?do=full&id=1352/

Gamakharia J. (2004). Zviad Gamsakhurdia's politics in Abkhazia (1990 - 1993). Tbilisi: Lika.

Gamsakhurdia Z. (1990). Georgian spiritual mission. Tbilisi: Ganat'leba.

Gamsakhurdia Z. (1995). Zviad Gamsakhurdia about Zviad Gamsakhurdia, 1991-1995. Tbilisi: Samart'l.

Gamsakhurdia Z. (2000). "Choose Georgian Ero!": Zviad Gamsakhurdia's statements. Tbilisi: Dzmoba "graalis mts'velni".

Gegelia, G. (February 23, 2017). When they created the Republic - the birth of Italy. Arili.

Gelneri, E. (2003). Nations and Nationalism. Tbilisi: Nekeri.

Ghlonti S. (2007). Christian belief of Zviad Gamsakhurdia: Chronicle of life and work. Tbilisi.

Gramshi, A. (2016). Formation of intellectuals. Retrieved from http://european.ge/antonio-gramchi-inteleqtualebis-formireba/

Gurgenidze I. (1988). Tbilisi University Rectors. Tbilisi: T'bil. un-tis gam-ba.

Guseinov, G. (2012). An intellectual cannot be liked by society. Retrieved from http://gefter.ru/archive/2866/ (In Russian)

Hech'teri, M. (2007). Nats'ionalizmis shech'ereba. T'bilisi: CSS. (In Georgian)

Hech'teri, M. (2007). Stop of nationalism. Tbilisi: CSS.

Hobsbaumi, E. (2012). Erebi da nats'ionalizmi 1780 tslidan: programa, mit'i, realoba. Tbilisi: Ilias sakhelmts. (In Georgian)

Iat'ashvili, S. (August 29, 2016). Sanitas of Sadness. Arili.

Javakhishvili, L. (2010). Intellectuals as the ideal killers of Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Dor- ni.

Jorbenadze S. (1988). Brief History of Tbilisi University. Tbilisi: T'bil.

Kakabadze, N. (2008). Conjunctive captivity. Ts'kheli shokoladi, (43).

Kakitelashvili, K. (2012). Georgian and European Identity Issues: Collection. Tbilisi.

Kalandarishvili, L. (February 1, 2017). Adventures of Italian architects in Tbilisi. Arili.

Kharbedia, M. (2011). The first Georgian military novel. Arili.

Kharbedia, M. (December 8, 2016). "Journey to Europe" - an attempt to archaeology of the text. Arili.

Kharbedia, M. (January 22, 2012). Zaza Burchuladze's "Inflatable Angel". Radio t'avisup'leba.

Kharbedia, M. (January 5, 2017). Boat and chest - Basque blogs. Arili.

Kharbedia, M. (March 25, 2011). Totalitarianism and Literary Discourse. Arili.

Khatiashvili, T. (Febuary 15, 2017). A romantic admirer of death. Arili.

Khomeriki, M. (2012). The abolition of the Kingdom of Imereti, the revolt of 1819-1820 and the Imereti an Bagrations. Tbilisi: Universali.

Khvich'ia, I. (2010). Personalized soul, whip hip and Georgian liberals. Retrieved from http://www.demo.ge/index.php?do=full&id=505

Khvich'ia, I. (2010). Tits, integration, tractorisation. Retrieved from http://www.demo.ge/index.php?do=full&id=480

Kikodze G. (1919). National Energy. Tbilisi.

Kit'khvari (Novembre 25, 2013). Questionnaire - Modern Georgian Prose. Arili.

Kopertesis B. (2006). Statehood and Security: Georgia after the Rose Revolution. Tbilisi.

Kozhoridze, D. (1987). Samtskhe-Javakheti - past and present. Tbilisi: Sabchoto sak'art'velo.

K'arumidze, Z. (2014). Post-Soviet Georgia and Postmodernism. Retrieved from http://www.demo.ge/new.php?do=full&id=814/

K'oiava, R. (2014). Historical Science in Postmodern Era. Retrieved from http://www.demo.ge/index.php?do=full&id=1198/

Lomidze, G. (May 15, 2015). Cataracts effect of past transformation. Tbilisi: Siesta.

Lukach'i, G. (2017). Role of Moral in Communist production. Retrieved from http://www.demo.ge/index.php?do=full&id=1389/

Maghlap'eridze T. (2005). Presentation of the essay: essays on Georgian literature and intelligentsia. Tbilisi: Universali.

Maisuradze, G. (2010). Polarisation. Retrieved from http://www.demo.ge/index.php?do=full&id=521/

Maisuradze, G. (July 23, 2012). Intellectuals and Power, in radio t'avisup'leba. Retrieved from https://www.radiotavisupleba.ge/a/blog-maisuradze- intelectuals/24654268.html