Stéphane Voell (Ed.) Traditional Law in the Caucasus

Stéphane Voell (ed.) Traditional Law in the Caucasus

Reihe Curupira Workshop, Band 20, herausgegeben von Curupira: Förderverein Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie in Marburg e.V. durch Ingo W. Schröder, Anja Bohnenberger und Mark Münzel

The practice of traditional law in Georgia has been described mostly for the mountain regions. A Georgian-German research team investigated how former mountain dwellers who were relocated from Svaneti to southern Georgia rely on local legal conceptions in everyday life. Research showed that traditional law is still practiced, but only rarely used as a legal frame of reference. In the lowlands Svan traditional law should rather be described in terms of cultural narratives and a strategy of social localisation. In their individual papers the researchers discuss the practice of traditional law in Soviet times, blood feuding, concepts of honour and shame in gender relations and the spatial dimension of cultural narratives.

Traditional Law in the Caucasus Local Legal Practices in the Georgian Lowlands

edited by Stéphane Voell

CURUPIRA

Curupira: Förderverein Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie in Marburg e.V. wurde 1993 gegründet. Seine Aufgabe besteht unter anderem in der He- rausgabe der ethnologischen Schriftenreihen ›Curupira‹ und ›Curupira Workshop‹. Auskünfte erhalten Sie unter folgender Adresse:

Curupira: Förderverein Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie in Marburg e.V. c/o Institut für Vergleichende Kulturforschung – Fachgebiet Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie Deutschhausstraße 3, 35032 Marburg/Lahn Tel. 06421/282-2082, Fax: 06421/282-2140, E-Mail: [email protected] www.curupira.de

Cover picture: Road near the village of Khaishi, Kvemo Kartli, in 2009 (photo: Voell).

Contents

Preface ...... 7

Stéphane Voell, Natia Jalabadze, Lavrenti Janiashvili, Elke Kamm Traditional Law as Social Practice and Cultural Narrative: Introduction ...... 11

Lavrenti Janiashvili Traditional Legal Practice in Soviet Times ...... 83

Natia Jalabadze The Blood Feud in the Georgian Lowlands ...... 125

Elke Kamm Restoring Order: Bride Kidnapping between Social Disintegration and Concepts of Honour and Shame ...... 167

Stéphane Voell The Battle of Shashviani: Inscriptions into a Contested Space ...... 205

List of Illustrations...... 245

Contributors ...... 249

Preface

This book should already have been published several years ago. Our research project ›The Revitalisation of Traditional Law in Georgia‹, fund- ed by the Volkswagen Foundation, ended in December 2011. The unpre- dictable paths of a researcher’s life, meandering between project applica- tions and their frequent rejections, employment changes and periods of unemployment have led to the recurrent postponing of the publication process. One of the requirements of the funding initiative ›Between Europe and the Orient – A Focus on Research and Higher Education in/on Central Asia and the Caucasus‹ of the Volkswagen Foundation was to develop the application and conduct research jointly with researchers from the target region. It was a matter of personal importance for me and the entire team to build a close and fruitful Georgian-German relationship from the first steps in the preparation of the project in 2004 up to the publication of this book. The project has benefited from impressive local expertise on the Georgian side, while the Germans in the group contributed a more neutral and theory-driven perspective from the outside. We have not always shared the same opinion concerning the results of our joint ethnographic endeavour and the book reflects this variety of interpretations. However, we continue to be a good team, which has met on a regular basis since the end of the project and which looks forward to working together again on new topics if the opportunity arises. At this point I must not forget to mention our brilliant research assistants Tatia

7 Khutsishvili, Sandro Shanidze, Natalie Turabelidze, Nika Loladze, Natia Abashidze and Ekaterine Kordzaia. Mark Münzel, chair of the Anthropology Department in Marburg until 2008, was co-applicant and co-leader of the project. He has supported our project from its early stages of planning to the final application. Dur- ing the lifespan of the project, he was a very fruitful conversational part- ner and a constant advisor. Unfortunately, he was unable to join us in Georgia; we would have liked to show him our research field in the Cau- casus. Münzel’s successor in Marburg, Ernst Halbmayer, gave us and our project considerable leeway and has kindly supported this and other projects in the Caucasus, far removed from the department’s regional focus on Latin America. We are deeply grateful to the Volkswagen-Foundation for generously funding our project in Georgia. We especially want to thank Wolfgang Levermann for his patience with the frequent changes in our budget. We were, for example, able to shift some project money in order to fund the trip of the entire team to the conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) in Maynooth, Ireland, in 2010. One thing, however, that the foundation did not agree to fund was the manufactur- ing of a Svan elder’s wooden chair. A Svan artist offered to carve such chair for the ethnographic collection of the department in Marburg. I believe that the book’s introduction will show that the elder’s chair is indeed an integral part of the topic we were researching. We received support from many people in Georgia at various stages of the project, starting from organisational issues in the field to participation in the workshops and the conference we organized. I would like to mention two individuals in particular here: in 2004 I met Lia Melikishvili of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, the doyenne of Georgian ethnography, and her team in Tbilisi for the first time. Since then our study of traditional law has benefited immensely from her knowledge and experience. Another important figure in Georgian anthropology is Ketevan Khutsishvili of Tbilisi State University. She was especially help- ful to Elke and me in terms of friendship, advice, and organizational sup-

8 port and introduced us to some of her most promising students who became our research assistants. Most of the English language editing of the book was done by Ingo W. Schröder (Marburg). Some parts, like my chapter and half of the introduction, were also reviewed by Andreas Hemming (Halle/Saale). Two village names (Teliani, Shashviani) and personal names were anonymised in order to protect the anonymity of the inhabitants. The final words in this preface belong to the people in Kvemo Kartli, especially the Svans, who freely shared their knowledge with us. Svans are often belittled as somewhat strange mountaineers, but we experienced Svan people as open-hearted, friendly, and proud. We thank them with all our hearts for their cooperation. The book, however, expresses our individual interpretations of the information we gathered from them. Mis- takes, flaws and misinterpretations are of course ours: be lenient with us.

Marburg, June 2016 Stéphane Voell

Stéphane Voell, Natia Jalabadze, Lavrenti Janiashvili and Elke Kamm

Traditional Law as Social Practice and Cultural Narrative Introduction

The head of the house sits on his massive wooden chair (fig. 1), like a king during a public audience. Calm, precise and somehow ceremonial, the elder answers questions on the contemporary relevance of Svan culture. He describes eloquently how Svan religious celebrations, family structures or traditional law continue to be respected. The elder and his throne, however, are not located in the highlands of Svaneti in north- western Georgia. The elder lectures to the curious anthropologist in the south of the country, where the Svans have resettled in the last twenty- five years as a result of natural disasters, economic difficulties, and war. Each member in our research team experienced a situation like this: when meeting a Svan family in Kvemo Kartli1 for the first time, we usually introduced ourselves as anthropologists conducting research on how Svan culture is preserved, here in the south of Georgia, many hours away from the Svan homeland in the mountains. We were then invited to the house and asked to have a seat in the guest room. Often, the head of the family chose not to sit at eye level; instead he took his place on this wooden throne.

1 The Georgian word kvemo means ›lower‹ (Kvemo Kartli is ›Lower‹ Kartli); zemo means ›upper‹ (Zemo Svaneti is ›Upper‹ Svaneti).

11 Fig. 1: Svan wooden chair (sakurtskhili) in the village of Khaishi.

12 In old Svaneti, elders used to sit on such special wooden chairs (sakurtskhili). These were massive pieces of folk art, square-cut and with a height of around one metre. The sides were covered with carved orna- ments that cited Christian and pre-Christian symbols. In the museum of Mestia, the regional centre of Zemo Svaneti in the Georgian highlands, one can find impressive examples of such chairs from across Svaneti (fig. 2). The ethnographer Giorgi Chitaia (1925), one of the founding fathers of academic ethnology in Georgia, argues that the elder’s chair was the essential attribute of a Svan family, no matter how wealthy the family was. This specific type of chair was intended for the family patriarch (makhvshi). Only honoured guests were invited to sit on it (Kharadze 1960). The chair was positioned near the fireplace. From here the elder oversaw the council of the extended family in which important issues were discussed. The makhvshi was the undisputed head of the family. During the family councils he was first to speak and also had the last word. His decision was final (Bardavelidze 1957). When a conflict had to be settled and this elder hosted the resolution process with the mediators (morval), the makhvshi would preside over the negotiations from this chair. The chair was given up neither to the priest nor to higher ranking lineage (gvari) elders (Chitaia 1925). In the Svan villages of Kvemo Kartli we saw numerous chairs like the old sakurtskhili. It is not possible to give their exact number, but in every village in which we worked there were families who owned such chairs. These are generally not the same chairs brought from Svaneti; they have been carved by family members after their resettlement to Kvemo Kartli. They remain examples of an impressive folk art tradition with a great deal of ornamentation, although the nature of this ornamentation has changed, acquiring a certain touch of kitsch. The corner pieces can have the form of Svan fortified towers (koshki, fig. 3 and 4). One Svan man from the village of Teliani showed us with a mischievous smile the back of his chair: there he had carved his personal vision of Justitia, half naked and smiling without her blindfold (fig. 5.1-5.2).

13 In this book, we examine the practice of traditional law among the Svan population of Kvemo Kartli. This practice is a bit like the contemporary relevance of these chairs for the elders. Today, the chair is no longer a holy throne for Svan dignitaries who hold a kind of ultimate authority over everything that happens in the family and in the village. The same is the case for traditional law. It is far from being the ultimate legal guideline in Kvemo Kartli. Still, the elders’ throne is there and it is used. It is proudly displayed and the head of the household still sits upon it. It appears to be a kind of memento of what was once common practice. Can traditional law in Kvemo Kartli be understood on the same terms? Numerous sources attest to the extensive research that has been done on Svan traditional law. Its relevance was studied in Svaneti before, during and after the Soviet era – we will trace this development below. But these studies were conducted in Svaneti itself, while today, 25 years after Georgian independence, large parts of the Svan population no longer live in the Caucasian highlands. Many Svans resettled in various lowland regions of Georgia and noum others emigrated. The region on which our project focused was Kvemo Kartli, where many new Svan villages are located. There were three basic reasons for the resettlement of the Svans to this region: first, there were the so-called ›eco-migrants‹, namely, Svans who had to relocate in the late 1980s after a long and hard winter with massive snowfalls had destroyed villages and the infrastructure in Zemo and Kvemo Svaneti. Entire villages were relocated to, among other regions, Kvemo Kartli in the south of Georgia. Second, some Svans left Svaneti especially since the turn of the 21st century for economic reasons. Third, Svans residing in the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia – which was the last piece of territory in Abkhazia that Georgia controlled – were expelled from the region by Russian and Abkhazian forces during the Russian-Georgian War of 2008 (Liklikadze 2008). All these Svans live together in Kvemo Kartli today. The core question that this book addresses is if the much discussed Svan traditional law is also practiced in Svan villages outside of Svaneti. Does Svan traditional law have any relevance in Kvemo Kartli, and if so,

14 Fig. 2: Svan wooden chair in the museum in Mestia (Svaneti). in which contexts is it practiced? As we will discover, it is not easy to state that Svan traditional law is either effectively in use or not. The basic difficulty here is what is actually meant by ›Svan traditional law‹? In order to grasp the concept of law in the Svan context, we will present Svan traditional law on the one hand as a repertoire for social action (Benda-Beckmann 1986) in relation to conflicts and social order. On the other hand, law in this context can also be described as a ›legal imaginary‹ used for self-portrayal and in ›cultural narratives‹. Law in this very general sense means a ›way of life‹ (Benda-Beckmann and Benda-Beckmann 2004) or a ›Weltanschauung‹ (Geertz 1983) and it is manifested through legal action, for example in conflicts or property relations. But it is also expressed through ›cultural narratives‹ (Liechty 2002, Somers 1997) in

15 which values from the past are transposed into the present to give orientation for the future.

Research

The authors in this book worked together as a research team in the years 2009-2011. The Georgian-German project was financed by the Volks- wagen-Foundation (Hannover, Germany) as part of the research initiative ›Between Europe and the Orient: a Focus on Research and Higher Edu- cation in/on Central Asia and the Caucasus‹. Our bi-national team combined local expertise with a look from the outside. Together, we – two Georgians and two Germans – developed a conceptual approach and conducted joint research. During our close cooperation in the field, in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and at Philipps University in Germany, we found that we shared many of our conclusions, but had very different theoretical and methodological approaches, which were owed to the different research traditions into which we were socialised (Voell 2013a). While our research focus was on the contemporary relevance of traditional law, the realisation of the project included a mutual discovery of these very dissimilar scientific traditions and their negotiation. Our research brought us to Kvemo Kartli, a multi-ethnic region in southern Georgia (fig. 6). The region is not one of the usual hotspots for research in Georgia. This is surprising because due to the numerous ethnic categories to which people feel attached, the variety of religious practices and its turbulent history, Kvemo Kartli could be considered a condensed version of the Caucasus in general. It is the merit mainly of our Georgian team members that our research focused on this region; Natia Jalabadze and Lavrenti Janiashvili knew it from previous research visits and it appeared well suited to the project because of the large number of Svan villages. There were periods when the team members worked together, but they also did research individually and in pairs of one Georgian and one Ger- man researcher.

Fig. 3-4: Svan wooden chairs with new interpretations in the village of Teliani and in Tetritskaro. 17 We started the project in the spring of 2009 with a discussion of conceptual approaches, selected the prospective field sites and took our first steps into the field. The team travelled to Svaneti in September 2009 and undertook regular joint excursions to Kvemo Kartli. Our preliminary research findings were presented and discussed repeatedly during the project, be it in Georgia or in Germany, after the field research phase. We organised two workshops in Tbilisi during which we discussed these results with local scholars.2 The project’s end was marked by the conference ›Perceptions of the State and Legal Practice in the Caucasus: An- thropological Perspectives on Law and Politics‹, held in November 2011 in Batumi on the Black Sea coast (Voell and Kaliszewska 2015). The Georgian team members usually travelled two to three times per month to the field site to conduct semi-directed interviews in the Svan villages, especially in the municipalities of Gardabani, Marneuli, Bolnisi and Dmanisi. They also interviewed other Georgians of the region and Azerbaijanis living in the neighbouring villages. Moreover, they evaluated the numerous Georgian and Russian sources on Svan tradition and traditional law, with a focus on the practice of traditional law in Soviet times. The German team members spent eleven months of fieldwork in Georgia (three months in 2009 and eight in 2010). For most of this time they stayed in Tetritskaro and conducted research in the surrounding municipalities together with their field assistants.3 They talked with Svans, other Georgians, employees of the local administration, regional judicial staff, notaries and lawyers, former state attorneys and judges, police officials and representatives of various non-governmental organisations (NGO).

2 Both workshops in Tbilisi were entitled ›Traditional Law in the Republic of Georgia‹ and took place on 16 September 2009 and 1 October 2010 respectively. 3 Our research would not have been possible without the support of our field assistants: Tatia Khutsishvili, Sandro Shanidze, Natalie Turabelidze, Nika Loladze, Natia Abashidze and Ekaterine Kordzaia.

Fig. 5.1: Svan chair in Teliani. Fig. 5.2: Back side of the Svan chair.

Fig. 5.3: Justitia on the back of the Svan chair, detail.

19 Svans and Svaneti

An often cited book on the history of Georgia states that Svaneti, »the most remote and inaccessible part of Georgia, was distinguished by the ferocity of its people’s determination to preserve their traditional way of life« (Suny 1994: 109). This is the standard image in the scholarly literature and the social imagination of these showcase mountaineers, who are painted as violent and bellicose, but also as brave and true Georgians (Jersild 2002, Manning 2012). In Georgia, where ethnic and regional groups tend to be associated with specific ›mentalities‹, the Svans are considered on the one hand to be short-tempered highlanders; many jokes are told about their impulsiveness. On the other hand, they are respected and admired because they managed to resist foreign invaders for centuries. Because of their administrative and cultural autonomy, they are often considered to be the carriers of some kind of undistorted pris- tine Georgian culture. Svaneti is situated in the north-western highlands of Georgia, bordering on the Russian Federation’s Republics of Karachay-Cherkessia and Ka- bardino-Balkaria (fig. 7). Its geography is marked by two narrow gorges. The region around the river Enguri is called Zemo Svaneti and is one of the most recognisable places of Georgia. The regional centre Mestia and villages like Kala, Mulakhi or Ushguli are famous for their many fortified towers and attract numerous tourists. The highest Georgian mountains, among them Mt Shkhara (5068 m), Mt Tetnuldi (4858 m) and Mt Ushba (4700 m), dominate the landscape.4 Less prominent is the region of Kvemo Svaneti which consists of the Tskhenistskali River gorge. Kvemo Svaneti with the district town Lentekhi is separated from Zemo Svaneti

4 Zemo Svaneti is on the UNESCO World Heritage list because it »is of out- standing universal value being an exceptional landscape that has preserved to a remarkable degree its original medieval appearance, notable for the distribution, form, and architecture of its human settlements«, http://whc.unesco.org/ en/list/709/, accessed 06.08.2014.

20 by a mountain range that in the past and especially in winter made communication and transportation difficult. To this day, these two adjoining regions hardly interact; the interconnecting infrastructure is still poor and the two valleys belong to two different administrative units. In the 19th century another important Svan community relocated to Kodori Gorge. This region, which is also called Dali’s Gorge, is located in the unrecognised quasi-state of Abkhazia. In 1860 about 10,000 people lived in Svaneti; in 1859 31,000 were counted (Nizharadze 1999). While around 35,000 people resided there in the 1980s (Gippert 1986), today only 23,000 are officially registered in the two Svan administrative regions (Zemo Svaneti: 14,600 and Kvemo Svaneti: 9,000).5 The number of people actually living there is much lower. Many Svans who resettled to various parts of Georgia are still registered in their home region. In Svaneti, agriculture and cattle-breeding have always been the basic means of livelihood (Engel 2006, Koehler 1999, 2000, Topchishvili 2005). The narrow valleys leave little room for cultivation and grazing. The Svans also worked in forestry and in Soviet times the region was an important tourist destination especially attractive for mountaineers. After the collapse of the USSR and – in turn – the local economy, the Svans returned to subsistence agriculture and, since this alone could not provide enough for survival, depended on remittances from seasonal migration in the winter months. Since for five to six months a year there was no work on the fields in Svaneti, many men left the highlands in order to find work in the lowlands. This form of labour migration is an old phenomenon (Topchishvili 2005) that regained in importance after the end of socialism. Recently, the economic situation of Svaneti has improved significantly. During the latter years of Mikhail Saakashvili’s presidency (2004-2013) numerous investments were made in Zemo Svaneti. A ski resort was developed and the centre of Mestia was ›renovated‹. The facades of nu-

5 Information from the Georgian National Statistics Office (www.geostat.ge), 2012.

21 merous houses were constructed such that they were reminiscent of Swiss alpine villages. The road to Mestia was also rebuilt, as was the local air- port with a small, futuristic-looking terminal. Massive construction was also planned along the road to Mestia. Finally, a 200-metres-high hydroe- lectric dam (Khudoni Hydro Power Plant) is projected at Enguri River. Around 200 families from the village of Khaishi will have to be relocated and the population is fighting the constructions plans along with envi- ronmental NGOs.

Free Svaneti and Svan religious practice

The Svans see themselves as ›ethnic Georgians‹. However, the Svans from Zemo and Kvemo Svaneti, the Kodori Gorge and the resettled Svans in various parts of the country are far from being one homogenous group. ›Svan‹ is a distinct, non-literary language belonging to the South Caucasian or so-called Kartvelian linguistic family and is divided in four dialects (Deeters 1963, Gippert 1986).6 It is unintelligible to other Geor- gians. Svans speak also Georgian. The Svan language is, especially outside of the highlands, increasingly being abandoned by its speakers. One area of Svaneti is of particular interest. Large parts of Zemo Svaneti – especially the regions where one finds most of the above- mentioned towers – used to be called ›Free Svaneti‹ (tavisupali-ubatono svaneti) because it enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy until the late 19th century, the moment when all of Georgia was finally incorporated into the Russian Empire. During the Georgian ›Golden Age‹ between the 11th and 13th century, Svaneti was part of the Georgian kingdom. But after the Mongol incursions this Georgian kingdom disintegrated into fragmented feudal structures (Okinaschwili 2001, Silogava and Shengelia 2007). In the following centuries the upper part of Zemo Svaneti increasingly achieved a kind of autonomy. At the end of the 18th century this

6 The Department of Caucasology in Jena identifies a fifth Svan dialect (see Tschantladse et al. 2003).

22 part of Svaneti was not subject to any local ruler and serfdom was non- existent (Nizharadze 1999, Topchishvili 2005). Free Svaneti was characterised by a segmentary lineage structure in which no family held such dominant position that it might have been called ›ruling‹. Differences between former noble and non-noble families (›peasants‹) continued to be relevant, however (Tuite 2002). The Svan imaginary (as they describe themselves but also as other people describe them) is still fed by this image of Free Svaneti. This region was independent and Svans never fail to remind interviewers that they were the last to be conquered by the Russian Empire. The image of Free Svaneti, described as an independent community of villages with well-functioning political, administrative and legal structures (Okinaschwili 2001), nourishes Svan self-perception as being a distinct and ›free‹ group of people with its own laws. Political relationships in Free Svaneti were based on common interests to organise self-defence jointly, to protect common property and ensure social order. A general assembly with representatives from every extended family was the main administrative body. At these occasions the union of families was sealed with an oath on an icon, which is a crucial element in traditional legal but also in Svan religious practice. Svan religion can be called Christian Orthodox with significant folk religious elements. The apostles Andrew and Simon the Zealot are believed to have been the first to disseminate Christianity in the Caucasus in the first century AD (Mgaloblishvili 1998, Suny 1994 ). In the early 4th century Christiani- ty slowly began to hold sway in the region now known as Georgia. St Nino from Cappadocia (Hauptmann 1990, Heiser 1989) proselytised in central Georgia and King Mirian of Kartli-Iberia adopted Christianity as state religion at the beginning of the 3rd century – the second ›state‹ to do so after Armenia just some years before. While the Georgian lowlands were Christianised rather rapidly, it was only under King Mirian’s son Bakur that the highlands made contact with the new religion. Generally speaking, pagan religious practices continued to be practiced even in the lowlands during the Golden Age (Suny 1994).

Fig. 6: Map of Kvemo Kartli.

Fig. 7: Map of Svaneti.

24 Whereas the history of the development and spread of Christian practices is often difficult to trace, the churches built since the 10th century, even in the most remote areas of Georgia, bear witness to the dissemina- tion of Christianity to all parts of Georgia (Martin-Hisard 1994 [1993]). In the heyday of Georgian feudalism between the 9th and the 13th centuries, Orthodox religious practice – which was deeply intertwined with the feudal structures – spread to the Svan highlands. Over one hundred churches can be found in Zemo Svaneti today. For Kevin Tuite (2002) this fact proves that the Orthodox Church was at that time well established in the region and Svaneti equally well incorporated into feudal Georgia. In Free Svaneti, every settlement or hamlet had a church. The churches often look like very simple, ordinary houses from the outside. They are small rectangular stone buildings with room inside for only a small con- gregation. Kvemo Svaneti, which was integrated into overarching feudal structures until the abolishment of serfdom in the mid-19th century, was different. Nobles ruled here. Each lineage (gvari) has to this day its own church; sometimes a smaller lineage worshipped together with a larger one in one church. Svan religious practice is even today characterised on the one hand by a commitment to pre-Christian religious beliefs (Charachidzé 2001 [1968], Tuite 2002, Zerediani 1998) and on the other by the independent historical evolution of religious practice in Zemo Svaneti. After the decline of the Georgian kingdom of the Golden Age there was no supra-regional Church administration present anymore in Zemo Svaneti. Orthodox practices continued to be observed but developed local variations, which Alexander Grigolia (1977 [1939]) for example disqualified as ›fantasy‹. Religious services were guided either by ›unofficial‹ but quasi- professional lay priests called bapi or by family elders (Grigolia 1977 [1939], Topchishvili 2005). The situation in Soviet Georgia was comparable in the sense that religious practice was locally organised in homes or in small churches (Dragadze 1993). The Svans we talked to were unfamiliar with the term bapi or said that it refers to the official priest. The lay

25 priests in Zemo Svaneti were called by the Svan term mzri. The term used in Kvemo Svaneti shows in itself the transformation process. The lay priest there was and still is called sarosta, which comes from the Russian word starosta, that is, a position of leadership or elder. In Orthodox religious practice icons hold a dominant position (fig. 8);7 Jesus ›made‹ the first icon according to Orthodox tradition. He wiped his face with a linen cloth which left an image of him on it. Painted icons based on this image, this first icon, are valid reproductions because they are linked in this way to the authentic original. But icons are not only copies: »By representing that original in a particular way it maintains a connection with it, as a translation does with the original text« (Kenna 1985: 348). In Georgia, the Orthodox churches are full of icons that are pictures intended to transmit divine grace to human devotees. The classic icons are pictures that can be carried around and are painted on wood, with a special technique, special colours and rules. They are highly vener- ated objects and most often important pieces of art. For the Svans they are also important in the context of oath-taking after a conflict resolution (see below).

The resettlement of Svans to Kvemo Kartli

We conducted our research on traditional law not in Svaneti, where its practice has already been extensively described, but among Svan migrants in the administrative region of Kvemo Kartli in the south of Georgia. Many of these Svans are so-called ›eco-migrants‹, that is, migrants because of ecological hardships. In the winter of 1987 unusual long and heavy snowfall led to a natural disaster (Iosiliani 1988, Nizharadze 1999, Trier and Turashvili 2007). It snowed for weeks and many villages in Zemo and Kvemo Svaneti were destroyed by the masses of snow or by ava- lanches. Around 2,000 houses were damaged or destroyed and – depend-

7 The literature on icons in Eastern Christianity is huge; from an anthropological perspective see for example Herzfeld 1990a, Kenna 1985.

26 ing on the sources – between 80 and 100 people perished. The already poor infrastructure suffered severely. The – at the time still socialist – Georgian government initiated a large resettlement program. Around 16,000 people were evacuated and many of them resettled to various regions in Georgia. Entire villages from Svaneti were relocated to new village sites that emerged directly from the drawing board. At this time, many residents of the village of Khaishi in Zemo Svaneti were also relocated, not, however, because of the snow disaster. The construction of the Khudoni Dam had already started in 1979 and – before it was stopped by the turmoil of the end of the Soviet Union in 1989 – many Svans from this area were resettled to a village which today bears the same name in Kvemo Kartli. By the end of the 1980s the Soviet state spent 300 million roubles to provide a residential environment for the eco-migrants in their new home areas. Arable land was allocated, houses and infrastructure were built and a bank account opened for the collection of money from private individuals and organisations to help the affected population (74 million roubles accumulated on this account). By 1993 twenty new villages were built with the appropriate infrastructure and 2,421 houses. The affected families were supported by a singular payment of 4,000 roubles, the provision of furniture and household items free of charge, the offer of interest-free loans, etc. (Nizharadze 1999). The new villages in Kvemo Kartli in the more fertile eastern part of Georgia were considered attractive at first. Life had not always been easy in Svaneti and now there was an opportunity to move to new villages, to obtain land with an – at the time – functioning irrigation system. There was no obligation to leave Svaneti, because the government under Jum- ber Patiashvili (First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, 1985- 1989) also intended to support renovations in Svaneti. The fertile soil of the plains proved highly attractive to the highlanders, however, and almost half of Svaneti’s population left their mountainous homeland. With the demise of Soviet Georgia the rather well organised resettlement and village building programs declined rapidly. Promised allocations of land

27 and money could no longer be provided. Because of the lack of building material that originated from Russia many houses remained half- or un- finished. Even today empty house frames can be found in numerous Svan villages of Kvemo Kartli (fig. 9). Today, the new Svan villages in Kvemo Kartli are apparently fully accepted by the people. The houses, all of which looked alike in the beginning, have been individually altered, enlarged or modernised. Around the villages many small shrines or places of prayer can be found which are used on religious holidays. Sometimes these may even be ruins of old church buildings. Over the last ten years new settlers from Svaneti arrived. Their reasons for relocating are now economic rather than ecological. As already mentioned, life in Svaneti is hard and at the time before major investments in tourism were made, economic hardship forced many families to follow the path of the eco-migrants of twenty years before. Especially Svans from Zemo Svaneti and from the Kodori Gorge migrated to Kvemo Kartli and other places in the plains. The Svans from Kodori had to leave the region after the Georgian-Russian war of 2008. Unlike the eco- migrants’ relocation, this was not an organised resettlement process and no new villages were built. This time the Svans took over abandoned Greek villages.

The new home for the Svans

The administrative region of Kvemo Kartli is located in the southeast of Georgia, at the border to Armenia and Azerbaijan (see fig. 6). It has about 513,000 inhabitants and is divided into six municipalities (Bolnisi, Dmanisi, Gardabani, Marneuli, Tetritskaro and Tsalka), named after their regional centres. The administrative capital of Kvemo Kartli is the industrial city of Rustavi (122,500 inhabitants).8 In the ethnographic concep-

8 See National Statistics Office of Georgia (www.geostat.ge) for more statistical information.

28 tion of Georgia, Kvemo Kartli is generally presented as a lowland region although it is in fact an area of foothills with an altitude between 400 and 1,500 meters.9 Although since the 19th century Kvemo Kartli has increasingly become a multi-ethnic region where Georgians are in the minority, it is considered by most Georgians as part of their ancient heartland. This has to do – among other things – with the Battle of Didgori (1121) the so-called ›wonderful victory‹ (Fähnrich 1994, Silogava and Shengelia 2007, Suny 1994 [1988]) where King David IV (1089-1125) defeated the Seljuk Turks, the former overlords of the region. The Battle of Didgori marked the end of the time when the Georgian Kingdom was tributary to the Turks. The city of Tbilisi, ruled for centuries by Muslims, was shortly thereafter reconquered by the Christian King David IV. The Battle of Didgori is also memorable because a small army of about 55,700 men (Georgians and their allies) defeated an impressive Seljuk army of 400,000 soldiers, mostly due to the strategic skills of King David IV. Didgori marks the beginning of the Georgian Golden Age. David IV, later called ›the Builder‹, united various local principalities of the region into one kingdom and Georgia rose to a powerful Christian Empire. In the Gold- en Age, which lasted until the beginning of the 13th century, Georgia reached the largest geographic spread it ever had, but also economy, arts and culture flourished. As mentioned before, Kvemo Kartli is a multi-ethnic region. According to the last official figures on the ethnic composition of Kvemo Kartli in 2002, there live Azerbaijanis (45.1%), Georgians (44.7%), Armenians (6.4%), Greeks (1.5%) and others (for example Ossetians, Kurds, Kists or

9 In fact, there is not a big difference between the altitudes of the settlements in both areas. The Svan village Shashviani, close to Tetritskaro in Kvemo Kartli, has an altitude of 1131 metres. Its inhabitants hail from the municipality of Lentekhi in Kvemo Svaneti, which has an altitude of 730 metres.

29 Russians, 2.3%).10 At the beginning of the 1990s, as will be described below, a massive out-migration of Ossetians and Greeks took place (Nodia 1996), also because of severe economic hardships in the region (ISSA 2011). The region of Kvemo Kartli saw the most dramatic changes in its population structure: 18.2% of the population left the region between 1989 and 2002. Especially in the municipalities of Dmanisi and Tsalka one could witness almost a complete exodus of the Greek population (ISSA 2011, Wheatley 2005). According to the 2002 census, the largest group were Azerbaijanis with around 285,000 people living in the area. This is 6.5% of the Georgia’s population; almost 80% of all the Azerbaijani living in Georgia reside in Kvemo Kartli, mostly in the municipalities of Bolnisi, Dmanisi, Gar- dabani and Marneuli. Armenians and Greeks live mostly in the area around Tsalka. Despite this ethnic pluralism, most of the positions in the local administration – especially the important posts – were occupied by Georgians. In Soviet times, Azerbaijanis had held the majority of positions in the administration and the leadership of the cooperatives. Ten years ago non- Georgian people were underrepresented in higher administrative positions (Wheatley 2005). Sources for Kvemo Kartli claim that the economic situation of Georgians is slightly better than that of the other groups (ISSA 2011).11

10 See the data on the website of ECMI (accessed 16.07.2014). For the last 12 years no new data on ethnic groups were published. Officially, ethnicity is not a relevant category anymore and there is no ›fifth column‹ in the passport like in Soviet times. From the municipality of Tetritskaro we know, however, that the ethnic configuration is recorded. Once a year, the local representative (gamgebeli) for several villages informs the administration of the municipality’s ethnic composition. It is unclear, however, how the data are obtained. (Are the people questioned? Does the gamgebeli categorise the people on his own account?) 11 The situation is far from clear, however. Numerous Georgians from Adjara, who relocated in the same period and for the same reasons as the Svan eco- migrants, quickly left Kvemo Kartli again and returned to Adjara. They claim that they left because of the bad economic conditions in Kvemo Kartli.

Fig. 8: Icons at a Svan shrine near the village of Shashviani.

Fig. 9: Empty house frame in a Svan village in Kvemo Kartli.

31 Like in many other postsocialist countries the process of de- collectivisation in Kvemo Kartli was a complex issue which caused numerous problems (GTZ and CIPDD 2006, Wheatley 2006). The privati- sation of land that was formerly part of the large cooperatives was not transparent. During the stormy first years of Georgian independence, the land was offered to powerful local people, who were most generally Georgians and among them, especially the newly arrived Svans. Georgia witnessed a period of turmoil in the years before and after its declaration of independence (9 April 1991). The presidential term of Zviad Gamsakhurdia (1990-1991) and the following years until 1994 were characterised by a nationalist policy of secession and independence from the Soviet Union and Russia in particular (Aves 1996, Gerber 1997, Jones 1993, Suny 1994 [1988]). This policy echoed a strong national impetus under which the non-Georgian minorities suffered a lot. Moreover, at this time the wars for South Ossetia (1991-1992) and Abkhazia (1992- 1993) took place. Regions populated mostly by minorities and especially those close to the border found themselves in the focus of internal migration policies. In order to forestall more secessionist movements, the government sought to increase the Georgian population in these regions (Trier and Turashvili 2007). In this period the state and its administration were generally very weak to almost non-existent. Great influence was exerted by the paramilitary organisation ›Mkhedrioni‹ (Aves 1996, Baev 2003). In collaboration with the National Guard they ousted Gamsakhur- dia and installed a so-called ›state council‹ with the later President Eduard Shevardnadze (1995-2003) as its head. Between 1990 and 1995 Kvemo Kartli saw much paramilitary and bandit activity. Mkhedrioni, so-called ›thieves-in-law‹12 and other local bandits were active. The region was located on the main route for smuggling goods from Azerbaijan and Ar-

12 This term refers to organized crime, whose ideology and hierarchy developed in Soviet and post-Soviet prisons; see for example Koehler 2000, Slade 2007a, 2007b, 2012a, 2012b and the chapter by Janiashvili in this volume.

32 menia to Georgia. These were provided revenues for the criminal organisations (Wheatley 2006). At these times, during and after the war with South Ossetia, which were shaped by political instability and economic hardship, a large part of the Ossetian population abandoned Georgia and especially Kvemo Kartli (Sordia 2009). They left their houses and villages, like Dumanisi near Tetritskaro, for North Ossetia. The Ossetians lived on both sides of the Greater Caucasus. Their extended families are related and seasonal labour migration from the south to the north is frequent. The post-Soviet political and economic developments in Georgia forced the Ossetians to leave. The village of Dumanisi, for example, was resettled by Svans from Zemo Svaneti. Kvemo Kartli is rich in natural resources. In Soviet times the local economy was based on both industrial production and large-scale agriculture on irrigated fields. After the demise of the Soviet Union the agricultural infrastructure fell apart. The complex irrigation system and the ma- chinery of the collective farms were dismantled and sold on the quiet (ISSA 2011, GTZ and CIPDD 2006, Wheatley 2006). Formerly green areas, as around the Svan village of Khaishi, today look like a desert (fig. 10). Today, the main source of income is agriculture, especially the cultivation of potatoes. In 2000, 41.8% of the Georgian potato production and 25.4% of the vegetable crop came from the fields of Kvemo Kartli. Fruits, wheat and corn are raised mainly in the lowland region of Kvemo Kartli, in the municipalities of Gardabani and Marneuli. On higher eleva- tions cattle are raised. Despite the large agricultural production about one third of the population can be categorised as poor. Around 40% of the population state that their main income comes from state pensions and 31% subsist on the sale of their agricultural products. 35% of the families have relatives abroad who support them with money and commodities. Away from the main travel routes to Azerbaijan, Armenia and from Tbili- si to Tsalka, the infrastructure is in a bad condition. The power supply is fairly regular today. The water supply in the rural areas remains irregular

33 and water is often available only for 2-3 hours per day. Problems concerning the irrigation of the arable land, the renovation of the gas supply network and the condition of the public schools are still waiting to be addressed (ISSA 2011). The Greek population of Kvemo Kartli took a pessimistic view on their post-Soviet future in southern Georgia, which led to a massive outmigration (Komakhia 2005). Before the transition many Greeks had worked in stone quarries, all of which were closed down in the early 1990s because of the difficult economic situation. With the base of their livelihood gone the Greeks left their villages, like Teliani or Iraga (near Tetritskaro), for Greece or the western part of the North Caucasus. At that time Greece rediscovered its kinsmen in the Caucasus and initiated programmes to bring parts of the Greek population ›home‹ (on the Greeks see for example Popov 2007, Sideri 2012). During the last twelve years Svans from Zemo Svaneti and the Kodori Gorge have relocated to Teliani. Kvemo Kartli is crossed by a line of yellow sign posts arranged in pairs. It passes the Svan villages of Khaishi and Shashviani and many other settlements. This line is the product of one of the major political chal- lenges in the South Caucasus. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC) delivers crude oil from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan to the Turkish Sea. The pipeline’s special feature is that it does not cross the territory of the Russian Federation (Elkind 2005, Papava 2005, Starr 2005), thus providing an alternative route of oil supply beyond direct Russian control by way of Georgia and Azerbaijan to Western Europe (Cornell et al. 2005). For Georgia, the pipeline supports national economic development. At full load, the 248 kilometres of pipeline in Georgia shall generate a reve- nue of 50-60 million dollars per year (Elkind 2005). Besides, the BTC pipeline was also intended to help develop the local economy. During the construction from 2002 to its official opening in 2005, project leaders and local stakeholders planned numerous events and consultations on the national and regional levels in order to include local actors and affected citizens (Starr 2005).

Fig. 10: Desert area around Khaishi.

35 The BTC pipeline remains one of the largest investments of the Geor- gian state to date and is considered a kind of kick-off for the national economy. But capital was also invested into local projects. The aim was to restructure the regional agriculture, to renovate the infrastructure and to support the economic development of Georgia’s southern areas (Papava 2005). The aim of BTC was to show that it is possible to implement large international projects by including the local economies. Initial euphoria was quickly followed by disappointment, however, because the local population experienced only short-term improvements of their living conditions (Wheatley 2005, ISSA 2011). The labour market improved only briefly and mostly in the low-payment sector. Most workers on the pipeline came from other countries and the number of jobs created locally remained small (Elkind 2005). The situation in Tsalka at the beginnings of the 2000s resembled that in the rest of Kvemo Kartli and Georgia of ten years earlier. Law enforcement was ineffective. Tsalka was off the beaten track, all but cut off from the centre because of the desolate infrastructure and the state was almost non-existent (Wheatley 2006: 12). Only after the Rose Revolution of 2003 (Fairbanks 2004), through the political reforms under President Saakash- vili and the BTC project the state administration and police regained control of the region. Previously life had been difficult. As mentioned above, this region was severely affected by outmigration. In 1979 30,900 Greeks were counted, whereas in 2006 only 1,500 of them remained. In this same period 6,500 Georgians migrated in unorganised fashion to the municipality of Tsalka. Among them were about 1,000 Svans, many of whom came with the expectation of profiting from the planned pipeline (Wheatley 2006). Like ten years before in the southeast of Kvemo Kartli the massive influx of Georgians and especially Svans caused much trouble. Because of unclear property relations concerning the houses and parcels of land left behind by the out-migrants and because of robberies and murders in the time when the state had no control over the situation in Tsalka, numerous fights occurred between the Svans and local Arme- nians and Greeks (Wheatley 2006).

36 Nowadays the region of Tsalka is no longer isolated from the centre. The war with Russia in 2008 showed the Georgian government the necessity to improve the infrastructure of the southern regions of Kvemo Kartli and Samtskhe-Javakheti. The war’s military theatre was located in the Gori region. For some time Russian forces controlled the vital East- West route from Tbilisi to Kutaisi, Poti and Batumi and almost cut the connection between the two parts of Georgia. An alternative corridor had to be opened and the government planned a ›southern axis‹ running through Kvemo Kartli and especially Tsalka (Chkheidze and Metreveli 2010).13 Now a new road links Tsalka with Tbilisi and the other parts of Kvemo Kartli. The war of 2008 also brought new Svan migrants to Kvemo Kartli. Since the 19th century Svans had settled in the Kodori Gorge, which nowadays belongs to Abkhazia. Until the August of 2008 the Kodori Gorge was the last part of Abkhazian territory still controlled by Georgia. During the August War Russian and Abkhazian forces took control of the region and forced the local Svan population to leave. Probably about 2,500 people from Kodori Gorge had to flee (Liklikadze 2008). An un- known number of them went to Kvemo Kartli and moved, with support from the Georgian government, into empty houses, for example in the former Greek villages of Teliani and Iraga.

Theoretical background of our approach

Before discussing the contemporary relevance of traditional law among Svans in Kvemo Kartli in more detail, we need to describe what we understand by ›traditional law‹. Since the 1980s no more substantial efforts have been made in the anthropology of law to find a general definition of

13 The ›Tsalka Road‹ had been designed already in 2005 with the financial aid of the World Bank. Construction started in 2006. In 2008 the work was stopped because of the war and continued later. The new developments, however, added a new dimension to the project.

37 law. Franz von Benda-Beckmann (1974) argues that it was impossible to include all single phenomena characterised as legal into one single concept. The institutions and processes described throughout the world were simply too diverse. Benda-Beckmann states that law is nowadays used as an umbrella term for a multitude of different forms of conflict resolution. Law refers to conceptions of how something is intended to be (Sollvorstel- lungen) which develop out of the continuous engagement with difficult situations in a society. But law can also consist in terms of formal patterns of behaviour which both acknowledge and constrain the autonomy of the individual. Paul Bohannan (1969) understands law in a similar fashion as a se- quence of three typical actions which mark a situation as legal. First comes a ›breach of norm‹ – a law, a custom or, in most general terms, some conception of how people are supposed to act are broken. This is followed by the second stage, the ›counteraction‹, which means that a breach of norm generally triggers some kind of reaction. The third stage consists of the ›correction‹, which implies »means to make somebody perform the original action in accordance with the norm« (Bohannan 1969: 285). This three-stage conception of law invokes Victor Turner’s notion of the ritual process (1969) or the social drama (1974) with its four phases: public breach of a social norm, crisis, redressment and the final phase which is marked by either reintegration or schism. The concept had originated in the anthropology of religion but was later described by Turner as a quasi-universal course of social action. In Turner’s model, the third phase, the ›liminal period‹, precedes Bohannan’s stage of correction. It can be described as a collective performance by which the group in crisis is transformed into what Turner calls communitas, a community of equals without hierarchical structure. In this period the group looks upon itself to understand how the group works and tries to return to the pre-crisis stage. The group may also find, however, that the crisis makes schism unavoidable. This performative dimension of law is, as we will see, also relevant in our context.

38 On this very abstract level, law is hardly discernible from social order or conflict resolution. It is, as Gordon Woodman (1969) notes, not possible to find a one-size-fits-all definition for law. For this reason it is necessary to define law anew in every novel situation. The choice of the definition is based on what is most relevant for the specific task. A general definition of law does not offer such a tool. As anthropologists we like to foreground the emic conception of the people living in the study area. We do not start from an a priori definition of law and investigate its applicability on the ground. In the present context this means that for us law is a phenomenon in the way it is effectively practiced in the given setting. According to Benda-Beckmann (1986), law gives to the people a repertoire of possibilities to justify their actions and interests. Law constitutes the object of social struggle and likewise the medium of addressing political, economic and social disputes. Further- more, it is necessary to consider that law always operates in a plural context (Merry 1988). The terms ›traditional law‹ and ›customary law‹ are often used inter- changeably. What these concepts refer to is a complex question. Anthony Allot notes that »customary law […] was evidently considered to be one of those phenomena which it was impossible to define but which could nevertheless be instantly recognised when seen« (1965: 82). The ›traditional‹ conception of customary law is described by Francis Snyder (1981, referring to Allott 1960, Allott et al. 1969, Hooker 1975, Woodman 1969) in terms of its connection to precolonial legal forms. It is mainly transmitted orally, is based on the social relations of the indigenous group and constitutes a genuine local practice. A historical continuity is presumed by the members of the local group who conceive customary law to be their own indigenous legal framework. Legal anthropologists discussing the African postcolonial practice of customary law have shown, however, that the picture of an ancient, genuine customary law might be an under- standable local view (Snyder 1981), yet customary law in some postcolonial settings in Africa may be very far removed from a genuine form of

39 local legal practice. Customary law was often reinvented and shaped by postcolonial governments (see for example Chanock 1978). When writing on tradition, a reference to Eric Hobsbawm’s ›invented traditions‹ cannot be avoided. His classic definition of tradition is »a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past« (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983: 1). In this sense – and this resonates in the discussions of customary law in the African postcolonial context – ›tradition‹ does not imply continuity from ancient times until today. On the contrary, traditions are modern phenomena and conceived with regard to contemporary interests. The invocation of tradition has an intentional character, that is, by labelling something ›traditional‹ a link to a ›suitable historic past‹ is created and – even if Hobsbawm does not elabo- rate on the possible political dimension of this practice in detail – contemporary political claims are clothed in a narrative that is recently produced but appears old. Hobsbawm would probably call the invented customary laws in the Af- rican postcolonial context ›traditional‹ inasmuch as the newly created indigenous law is presented with a pretended link to the past. Hobsbawm also uses the term ›custom‹, but in a different way than invented tradition. The object and character of the latter is invariance: the newly created codes named customary law are fixed in law books and only give the impression of being ancient. ›Custom‹, by contrast »cannot afford to be invariant, because even in ›traditional‹ societies life is not so. Customary or common law still shows this combination of flexibility in substance and formal adherence to precedent« (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983: 2). In this book, however, we will speak of ›traditional law‹, because on the one hand we acknowledge that tradition in law may be used and manipu- lated for political ends (see for example Benda-Beckmann et al. 2003, for a discussion of this in relation to Svan traditional law see Voell et al. 2014); on the other hand we want to highlight the explicitly performative aspect of tradition, as described by Barry McDonald (1997). As men-

40 tioned above, law cannot be imagined without the people practicing it, and the same is the case for tradition. McDonald refers to the ›virtual existence‹ of tradition. He compares tradition to Anthony Giddens’ (1979) structures – one might also refer to Pierre Bourdieu’s (1972) habi- tus – which only come to life through social practice. Tradition in this sense does not determine social action but refers to first, a ›shared, re- peatable activity‹, second, the creation of some form of ›spiritual/emotional power‹ among those people who are involved in such activity and finally, this activity both activates and is activated by this spiritual involvement (McDonald 1997). The enactment of tradition can be thus understood as performative practice that creates a link between the past and the future. The emotional component in McDonald’s sense is created during performances of tradition; at the same time it is the reason that these enactments of tradition are actually performed.

Dimensions of Svan traditional law

We do not intend to describe ›the‹ Svan traditional law as a whole but rather four specific dimensions of it, based on our research (Voell 2012): first, Svan traditional law has a social dimension. Here we refer to the segmentary family structure, which is extensively discussed in the literature (for example in Kharadze 1939), the social position of elders and mediators (Davitashvili 2002a), assemblies on various kinship and territorial levels of Svan society as the most important institution to administer justice (Davitashvili 2002b). It should be added, however, that it is a male-centred perspective – the role of women as actors in juridical affairs is not well studied (see the chapter by Janiashvili). During our research we heard that women may in rare instances act as mediators or constitute an appeasing factor in conflicts. No specific research has been undertaken on women in Svan traditional law, however. The second dimension of traditional law is its processual, rather than normative, character. There are rules or phrases which concretely pre- scribe what must be done in a certain situation. Of greater importance,

41 however, is the mediation procedure itself which brings the parties together in a joint endeavour; no book of law or other text are relevant here. The conflict resolution represents the performative stage in the mediation process in the sense of Bohannan or Turner, when the conflict parties, mediated and directed by elders, try to find a solution that is acceptable for both sides. The third dimension of Svan traditional law is religion, which plays a key role in many legal processes. The most important religious component is the oath on an icon (khatze dapitseba). This oath represents a kind of con- tract, at once before the village community and before God. For the be- liever, the oath establishes a link between the oath-taking individual and God, who plays the role of witness and supreme guarantor of the oath. In most cases the oath on an icon is taken to discover the truth. When someone has been accused of stealing, the suspect may be asked by the elders to swear on an icon that he or she is not a thief. If the suspect takes the oath he or she is freed from any suspicion. This kind of oath is found not only among the Svans, but has also been described for Greece (Herzfeld 1990b) or Albania (Voell 2004). Such oath can also be taken at the end of a conflict resolution process. All parties are then invited to jointly vow by oath that the mediation will be respected by them. A third kind of oath may be called an ›oath of unity‹ (Voell 2013b), when representatives of a village meet at a church or small sanctuary and take the oath on an icon to vow they will live together with respect for one another, observe their communal obligation and not steal from each other. The fourth dimension refers to a specific form of Svan morality. Follow- ing Jarrett Zigon (2008), we are referring to the ›local sense for morality‹, which is based on honour, respect, belief and the importance of the family. Catherine Wanner (2011) views morality as a ›shared understanding of commitment to certain core values or practices‹. If morality is not observed a feeling of injustice can emerge. Morality, as a person’s commitment to a group’s traditions, canons, histories, values and practices provides a framework for self-motivation and self-policing (see for an example Voell 2015).

42 Fig. 11: Church in a Svan village in Kvemo Kartli.

The Svan village council in Kvemo Kartli

One example for the connection of narratives of traditional law to actual social practice is the informal village council in Teliani. By ›informal‹ we mean that it is not a formal administrative institution. Since 2001 Svans from Zemo Svaneti have resettled in this former Greek village and after the August War of 2008 additional Svan people from the Kodori Gorge arrived. At the time of our research only one Greek individual remained. The village consists of about eighty stone houses and a small Georgian Church from the 13th century, which documents the long Christian and Georgian presence in the area. Today about 45 Svan families live in the area. Many houses are used as dacha (summer house) by Svans living in the nearby capital. With the outmigration of the Greeks in the 1990s the village was apparently ignored for a while by the local administration in Tetritskaro

43 since it was almost deserted. The streets deteriorated significantly, the water tubes were leaking and still remain unrepaired and the school building fell into disrepair and could no longer be used. The numerous children of the Svan newcomers had to cover a great distance to the next primary school and, even more important, a village without a school was not a functioning village in the eyes of the people. In this situation the Svans had no choice but to seek a solution to the problems of the village by themselves. For this purpose the highly motivated early settlers from Zemo Svaneti founded a village council, which was based on similar institutions in Svaneti, to serve as a forum for discussing the problems of the village. Generally, the council consists of five to six people. Each spring the outgoing council members select and ap- point their successors (only men). It is intended that everyone serves only one year on the council; membership has to be limited so that people not to get accustomed to this distinguished position. It must be noted that the village council is solemnly sworn in on an icon each spring at the old Georgian church. The council members thus declare that they will act impartially and responsibly for the whole village. Representatives of the local families, in turn, swear that they will respect the council’s decisions. The members of the village council are in charge of the organisation of village life and serve as intermediaries between the village and the local administration. The village council arranged, for example, for the school to be reopened, thus forty children of Teliani can now spend their first school years in the village. As the council members tell, they even travelled to the capital Tbilisi to negotiate directly with the Ministry for Edu- cation about the reopening of the school. The village council also achieved that the infrastructure of Teliani was slightly improved and small yet important things like moving the cattle to their grazing areas were organised. The local mayor (gamgebeli) of Teliani, who is no Svan and lives in another village, is a little sceptical towards his Svan neighbours but agrees that the village council is important and its members are the ones he approaches first.

44 The village council continues to exist and its members are still sworn in each spring on an icon in the churchyard. After the first years, however, when the strongly motivated newcomers took charge, the council’s importance has decreased somewhat. Some interview partners dismissed it as irrelevant today, another person told that he was a council member only because he had a car and they needed it. The council still meets, but Teliani’s population does not cooperate very closely. Local people come from a variety of regional backgrounds and many of those Svans who only visit their dacha on the weekend do not even know that such council exists. Others complained that there is no solidarity among Svans or – to put it differently – that only being Svan is not enough. But still, the village council serves as an example for the actual legal practice of traditional law in Kvemo Kartli.

Narrating traditional law

We were in many houses of the Svan villages in Kvemo Kartli. The men of the houses invited us and lectured to us from their wooden thrones. In our communications, in which most of our hosts openly spoke about their local tradition, they constantly stressed its importance, even ›here‹ in the south of Georgia. Non-Svan inhabitants of the region, that is, other Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis or Russians, also had a lot to say about the alleged importance of traditional law in Kvemo Kartli. They could even recall precedents. We recorded examples of how conflicts were mediated in old Svaneti and also statements concerning causal connections (›when-then‹) for conflict situations and their mediation. Actual cases, however, when conflicts were in fact mediated by recourse to traditional law, were only rarely mentioned. There may be many reasons for this. At the conferences and workshops we organised or attended one group of people chided us that traditional law could only be found in the highlands and not in Kvemo Kartli. Dur- ing these arguments we got the impression that they meant to say traditional law was a matter of topography and high altitude rather than of

45 people’s practice. As traditional law was such prominent topic in our discussions with Svans in Kvemo Kartli, we could not ignore this. We came to the conclusion that we had to rework our approach to what traditional law actually means for us – and for the Svans, of course. Others argued that, yes indeed, the Svans practice traditional law even in Kvemo Kartli but they would never tell us about it. We were undoubtedly told only a little of what was really going on and maybe the stories we heard not always reflected actual legal practice. Yet after eleven months of research in a Georgian-German team, with an occasional Svan colleague joining our interviews, we have good reason to believe that we do have a clear concept of the practice of traditional law. There may be conceptual reasons for not finding actual cases. Anthro- pologists working in the legal field usually work on the basis of case studies or extended cases studies (Gluckman 1973). This kind of research focuses on documenting ›law in action‹ (Holleman 1986) and ›trouble cases‹ (Llewellyn and Hoebel 1967 [1941]), that is, conflict-driven processes when day-to-day life is literally laid open and a society questions itself what happened and by what rules people are supposed to live. The problem with case studies is, as noted by Arnold Epstein (1969 [1967]), that the researcher may spend a fair amount of time with her or his informants before finding out about a ›case‹ which is important and interesting and on which extensive information is available. In some fieldworks, Epstein continues, no such cases that are relevant for juridical discussions may be found at all: »In these circumstances, of course, there is no alternative but to make the best possible use of one’s informants« (Epstein 1969 [1967]: 211). When there are no case studies available, the quest for ideal type cases (›What would you do in a case of theft?‹) may also turn out to be problematic. Posing such questions is likely to force people to present their processual and non-normative law in legalistic terms (Benda-Beckmann 1989). After a while we discovered we were searching for something that did not exist and that the specificity of Svan legal practice lay already clearly visible before us. We must see traditional law not only in relation to is-

46 sues of social order, conflict resolution or property disputes but also in relation to stories about law, which are clearly important for the Svans’ self-portrayal and self-image. The Svans of Kvemo Kartli live in a socially and culturally diverse environment. The role they imagined for themselves – at least for the first ten years after their resettlement – was to re- establish a Georgian presence in this multi-ethnic region. Because of their strict observance of traditional law, the Svans saw themselves as the ideal vanguard in this endeavour. In other words, traditional law is not only a resource and a means to maintain social order and resolve conflicts. Law is also a ›cultural narration‹ as described by Margaret Somers (1997) and Mark Liechty (2002). Through cultural narratives meanings and values are transposed to the present and guidelines for the future formulated. By means of narrations from the past on issues of law, honour, the role of elders, mediators and precedents the Svans construct their view on the contemporary world. This worldview in turn frames people’s social action. The interferences with McDonald’s concept of performance of tradition are obvious. Cul- tural narrations refer to these traditions. The latter are not only enacted in rituals or other kinds of collective social action but also through narrating them. More concretely, cultural narrations of law reproduce a world of moralities or – as Clifford Geertz (1983: 173) writes – law reflects a ›Weltanschauung‹ and is »part of a distinct manner of imagining the real«. We collected numerous examples of narrations of law. First must be mentioned anecdotal stories of historic precedents. For example, Svans in Kvemo Kartli told us how sacred objects were stolen from the church in Kala in Svaneti (see the chapter by Janiashvili). With the help of oaths on icons, elders, and mediators the thieves were apprehended and the precious object returned to its place of origin. More frequently we collected ideal-type cases. If, for example, two young adults would have a severe dispute in the street that led to a fist- fight, we were told, an elder would be called. He would prompt the boys to follow him into his house and lead them to the corner where the icons

47 of the house were displayed. The view of the icons would usually calm them and after some time reconciliation would be possible. In the case of theft, we were told about the following procedure: when the suspect is a member of the village, the people involved in the mediation process take an icon and visit the suspect. Sometimes it is necessary to go from door to door in order to find him. The elders then knock on the door and ask for the head of the family. He is asked to swear on the icon that he himself is not the perpetrator nor is a member of his family and that he has no knowledge of the perpetrator. Sometimes the elders do not bring along the icon itself – maybe because it is too precious or too large. In this case they pour water on the icon – they ›wash‹ it, as they say – and take the water to the houses where they suspect the culprit to be living. Taking an oath on this water equals taking an oath on the icon. Before the icon no perpetrator would deny his guilt. He then has to pay back twice the stolen object’s worth. In the case of conflict over land, the parties would be called to the piece of land in question. Again an icon may be used. The party who claims ownership of the piece of land is asked to swear on the icon that the land on which they are standing belongs to them and that their claim is true. All such ideal-type conceptions aside, we only rarely found actual cases that showed how people really act with regard to the ideal-type procedure. In cases of severe conflicts the Svans would usually call the police from Tetritskaro and leave legal matters to the courts. However, stories like the aforementioned did circulate. It is interesting to note that the non-Svan population of neighbouring villages or local centres like Tet- ritskaro say that the Svans do not cooperate with the police but resolve their conflicts among themselves. We were even told about cases when Svans from Kvemo Kartli called upon renowned elders from the Svaneti highlands to settle difficult conflicts. Our Svan respondents, however, did not confirm such practice.

Fig. 12: Project workshop in Tbilisi 2009.

49 Traditional law in Georgian ethnography

For many Georgian researchers the history of traditional law constituted an important topic of inquiry (Dolidze 1960). They discussed the use of traditional law since medieval times with regard to traditional legal codes. They intended to show, as Lavrenti Janiashvili (2012) states, that these legal codes were used even under foreign rule in Georgia and that a ›traditional core‹ of law had persisted through centuries (see the chapter by Janiashvili). The most famous example of such legal codes is the law book attributed to King Vakhtang VI of Kartli (1675-1737). Some parts of this text remained important for local Georgian jurisdiction even in the Tsarist Empire (Dolidze 1981). Research on historic traditional law has shown that the written codes were often a compilation of local legal concepts from various Georgian regions. Once these rules were codified, local people adopted elements of the written legal code into their own juridical practice, even if the rules initially originated from other regions. Another example are the ›Laws of King George‹ (›George the Brilliant‹, 1286/89- 1346), which established the local administrative position of khevisberi (Lang 1955, Wardrop 1914). Through the centuries this originally formal office was transformed into the spiritual leader of the community (Dolidze 1957, Janiashvili 2012). In the 19th century, rising interest in compiling data on the traditional law of the Caucasian peoples, the Georgians among them, was fostered by the ›Imperial Russian Geographical Society‹, which was founded in Saint Petersburg in 1845. The Society began to document the peoples and cultures of the Russian Empire. The focus on the study of traditional law in Russian Caucasiology is linked to the names of Maksim Kovalevsky (1886, 1890) and Fyodor Leontovich (1888). Kovalevsky conducted a comparative study of legal systems in the Caucasus, Western Europe and Russia and founded the new scientific approach of ›comparative jurisprudence‹ in 19th-century Russian science. His new historical approach combined traditional descriptive comparative analysis with ethnographic

50 methods. In 1852, the Imperial Russian Geographical Society established a branch office for the Caucasus in Tbilisi.14 Much material on Georgian traditional law refers to the 19th and 20th centuries. Ilia Chavchavadze (1837-1907) was one of the masterminds of the campaign for collecting folktales, legends, songs and other samples of traditional cultural heritage (Bakradse 1993, Hauptmann 1990). In his paper ›On the Problem of the Study of Popular Customs‹ (1887) he justified the necessity of investigating traditional Georgian culture and encouraged volunteers and non-specialists to record material from local traditional economic and legal culture and other customs. A lawyer by profession, Chavchavadze emphasised the importance of traditional law and focused on its practice in the Georgian highlands under Russian rule. He believed that the state’s legal system can only be successful if it is ›fed‹ by traditional law. State law would be enriched and made more acceptable by recognizing and incorporating local legal conceptions. Chavachavdze (1955) always saw traditional law not as static but as a dynamic phenomenon. The poet Rapiel Eristavi (1824-1902) was the first Georgian to describe the traditional law of the mountaineers of Eastern Georgia in the 19th century, including practices such as blood feuds, oaths and legal rules concerning the family. Furthermore, the ethnographer Ivane Tsiskarish- vili (1821-1903) must be mentioned, who published ethnographic studies on Tusheti (Eastern Georgia), focusing on legal issues like crime, punishment, court organisation, legal evidence, family and marital legal norms. Nikoloz Khizanishvili (alias Urbneli) (1861-1906) was the first Georgian lawyer to investigate traditional law. He provided a detailed

14 For Turner (2005) the Caucasus was one of the ›hotspots‹ of research on traditional law. A plethora of travellers or researchers could be mentioned who wrote extensively on traditional law or dedicated at least a few paragraphs to the subject. These descriptions are rich resources for historians of traditional law (see for example Radde 1887, Hahn 1896, Dirr 1925, Ladyshenskij 1930, Günther 1931, Luzbetak 1951, Gardanov 1960).

51 description and paid particular attention to criminal law, court organisation and trial, murder, bodily injury, mutilation, theft, punishment, and compensation. He also studied the process of reconciliation with the help of mediators and witnesses. Svan traditional law has been studied by many Georgian researchers. In his book ›Svaneti‹ (1864) the historian Dimitri Bakradze (1828-1890) describes Svan social structure and aspects of traditional law like the mediator’s court and forms of oath-taking. These topics were also treated by Egnate Gabliani in ›Old and New Svaneti‹ (1925, on Gabliani see Aghabegovi 1990) and Rusudan Kharadze in ›Survival of Extended Fami- lies in Svaneti‹ (1939).15 Of special importance is Besarion Nizharadze (1852-1911), an ethnographer who began collecting material on Svan traditional law at the request of Ilia Chavchavadze, who told him one day: »Besarion, if you love your homeland at least a little, you must go to Svaneti and support us from there!« Soon thereafter Nizharadze left the city of Kutaisi and travelled to his native Svaneti »to study the basic problems of society«. Besides a vast amount of ethnographic material on the life of Svans he published articles on issues of local rule and traditional law, judicial practices, case studies and types of legal evidence, among which different kinds of oaths play an important role (Nizharadze 1962). He addresses the family and property relations, the composition and the rules of the mediator’s courts, crime and punishment, etc. Nizharadze sought to analyse each topic with reference to concrete facts and provided interpretations of some Svan terms from the sphere of traditional law. Since the 1930s the study of Georgian traditional law expanded. The expansion of research was spearheaded by the founders of the Georgian ethnological school, Giorgi Chitaia (1925, 1933, 1935, see also National Scientific Library 2010), Vera Bardavelidze (1939, 1957) and the above- mentioned Rusudan Kharadze (on Kharadze see Merabishvili 1990). This generation of Georgian ethnologists not only undertook fieldwork, col-

15 See also Kharadze 1951, 1953, 1963. Reference to Svan traditional law can also be found in Charkviani 1967, Gegeshidze 1975, Ingorokva 1941, Oniani 1976.

52 lected and analysed ethnographic material themselves but also involved the mountaineers’ intelligentsia in their ethnographic activities. As a result of these efforts, unique ethnographic material was collected by Aleksi Ochiauri (1941, 1954a), Natela Baliauri (1991, 1995), Sergi Makalatia (1934a, 1934b, 1935 [1933]) and Ali Davitiani (1939, 1963). The material gathered by the field researchers partly reflected the contemporary situation, but according to the Soviet period’s political situation, little attention was paid to traditional law. Specific aspects of Georgian traditional law were studied by Georgian ethnologists of the following generation like Tinatin Ochiauri (1954b), Valerian Itonishvili (1960) and Marina Kan- delaki (1975). In the second half of the 20th century, Georgian legal scholars also engaged in the study of traditional law: Alexandre Vacheishvili (1946, 1948, see also Chalvaneli 1990b), Isidore Dolidze (1957, 1960, 1981, on Dolidze see also Chalvaneli 1990a), Giorgi Nadareishvili (1990, 1979) and Mikhako Kekelia (1970, 1981, 1988a, 1990). The scholarly interest in this field has increased since the 1980s. In 1986, Robakidze established a ›La- boratory for the Study of Georgian Customary Law‹ at the Georgian Academy of Sciences. The Georgian legal scholars Mikhako Kekelia or Giorgi Davitashvili began to study traditional law throughout Georgia. The four-volume collection ›Georgian Customary Law‹ is based on the data of expeditions that were organised by the Laboratory from 1988 to 1993. Davitashvili later published several seminal studies on traditional law in Svaneti (2002a, 2002b, 2007). In the post-communist era the number of studies on traditional law has decreased again. Since 1990 funding of research on this topic was stopped in Georgia, it lost its scholarly value and the number of scholars involved in the study of traditional law dwindled, whereas, due to the weakening of the state and various kinds of political turmoil, the actual importance of traditional norms in the regulation of social relationships gained even more in importance. In the years of perestroika since 1985 and after the collapse of the Soviet Union research on traditional law was no longer popular, but still some

53 studies were undertaken by Georgian ethnologists Natia Jalabadze (1990), Khatuna Ioseliani (2005) and Rozeta Gujejiani (2003, 2010). These researchers focused on different issues of traditional law among the Geor- gian highlanders (both eastern and western) and the remaining traces of the traditional legal system and reflected on the reasons for its preservation. In Georgian historical sources and folklore different terms are used to denote traditional law. In sources from the feudal period terms like ›unwritten rights‹ (tsesi utserelad), ›unwritten law‹ (utsereli sjuli), ›rights of the country‹ (kveqnis tsesi), ›right of the place and lineage‹ (alagisa da gvaris tsesi) and ›natural law‹ (bunebiti sjuli) can be found. Moreover, the term ›custom‹ (chveuleba) has been in use since early historic times to describe the morals and behaviour of the individual and of a specific community as well (12th century). The term ›behaviour‹ (ktseva) was used in the same sense in the 17th century. The Arabic-Turkic-Persian term adat appears later. It probably entered the Georgian vocabulary either from Turkish-Persian or through contact with the peoples of the northern and north-eastern Cau- casus. In the 19th century, when the first attempts were made to collect the norms of traditional law, the term ›customary law‹ (chveulebiti rjuli or sjuli) was used (Dolidze 1960). According to Ivane Javakhishvili, the words rjuli or sjuli originate from the verb sja (discussion, debate) and were historically used to denote ›law‹. Initially rjuli was supposed to mean the concluding solution or decision. Chavchavadze calls this ›popular law‹ (khalkhuri samartali) or ›self-law‹ (tvitrjuli). He does not use the term ›traditional law‹ but rather ›custom‹ (chveuleba), self-law (tvitrjuli), the truth recognised (accepted) by our ancestors (mama-papata aghiarebuli simartle), law of the people (sakhalkho samartali), adat or rules and adat (adat-tsesebi). For Chavchavadze (1956), rjuli means the legal norms that are sanctioned by the government. He states that for the nation custom is the same as rjuli, only in unwritten form. Georgians can be often heard to state that ›custom is stronger than law‹ (chveuleba rjulze umtkitsesia). Here rjuli refers to the written state law. In this popular proverb custom, understood in the sense of traditional law, is

54 opposed to the official law, and the former regarded as more durable, stable, and persistent. Although in different historical times and regions of Georgia different terms were used for traditional law, all of them stress its local, independent, hereditary, and national character.

Research on tradition in Soviet times

Research on tradition was a complicated political endeavour in Soviet times. It is first of all necessary to understand what ›tradition‹ meant to the researchers and the Soviet policy makers. There were ›good‹ and ›bad‹ traditions, that is, traditions supporting Soviet ideas and others that were supposedly opposed to them. The term ›tradition‹ probably entered the vocabulary of Georgian scholars in the second half of the 20th century from the Russian word traditsiya. The term cannot be found in the Geor- gian literature either in the 19th or in the first half of the 20th century, not even in the studies of Georgian ethnologists on religious or legal issues. At that time, the terms ›rules and customs‹ (tses-chveuleba) or simply ›custom‹ (chveuleba) were used in both oral and written sources. Later, the Russian term obychay (custom) was used in the same sense. Initially ›tradition‹ was a foreign term with a similar meaning. In official documents concerning nationalities in the USSR, the terms ›custom‹ and ›tradition‹ were later always used side by side as two different concepts. This was the case, for example, in the resolution of the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party ›On Measures to Increase the Struggle against Harmful Customs and Traditions‹ (1975).16 Soviet-era specialists tried to differentiate between the two terms for scientific reasons. It was generally accepted that the distinction between custom and tradition was based on the different spheres of activities con- nected to them. The field of tradition was considered to be broader than

16 The resolution is partly reproduced in German in Gerber (1997) and was published initially on 25 November 1975 in the journal ›Zarja Vostoka‹ (see also Kekelia 1982).

55 that of custom, or, as Kekelia puts it: »tradition relates to the whole society, whereas custom to the family and everyday life« (1982: 7). They are also considered to differ in terms of their historical depth, which is greater for custom and smaller for tradition. According to this view, traditions have more ›internationalist features‹ than customs, which means that the traditions of different peoples have more in common than their customs. The latter are considered to be older than traditions. Because of people’s conservatism, customs were assumed to be more difficult to change than traditions. However, many authors fail to distinguish between custom and tradition (Kekelia 1982). Possibly such debates, which were dominated by communist ideological reasoning, laid the groundwork for the idea that custom is conservative and ancient whereas tradition is flexible and social. From this perspective, there cannot be new customs, but it is possible to create new traditions. And indeed, during the Soviet-era struggle against old customs, new traditions were created simultaneously by the Soviet regime.17 In the early years of Soviet rule, concrete measures were taken to overcome the ›obstacles‹ created by local Georgian culture, that is, by the so- called ›harmful traditions‹. The Soviet ideology implied that all Soviet people must observe a genuine, so-called Communist morality and values. All kinds of traditional norms that were considered inconsistent with Marxist-Leninist ideology were declared to be ›harmful relics‹ which had to be eradicated. From the very beginning Soviet legislation fought these ancient customs, which were described as anachronisms that irreconcila- bly contradicted socialist values and the norms of Communist morality and caused material damage to Soviet society as a whole.

17 During the 1970s the authorities in Soviet Georgia organised numerous public celebrations which were intended to gradually replace ›traditional‹ celebrations (Pelkmans 2006). Such new cultural festivals were for example Shotaoba (referring to Shota Rustaveli, a famous Georgian poet of the Golden Age), Vazhaoba (celebrating the writer Vazha Pshavela) or Tbilisoba.

56 In 1928 unprecedented changes were introduced in the Criminal Code of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. According to the new article 10 ›On Crimes Representing the Remnants of the Tribal System‹, several social practices in the Caucasus – especially the blood feud, but even respect for elders – were officially declared as ›harmful‹ (Nadareishvili and Khetsuriani 1979). It was forbidden to demand the payment of blood money and to seize the property of a kinsman of the perpetrator to force his family to pay the penalty. The state law of the revolutionary period thus tried to destroy the norms of traditional law, identifying the crime of blood feud as a serious criminal offence. In rural areas of the North Cau- casus, for example, where the revolution and the civil wars were accompanied by rampant violence, societies like ›Down with the Blood Feud!‹ (Doloj krovnuyu mect!) were founded. Moreover, commissions were established at the regional executive committees with the participation of elders for the reconciliation of feuding families and the prevention of further blood feuds (Neflyasheva 2011). A similar policy was implemented in Georgia. In 1928, seven articles on ›The Crimes Related to the Tribal System‹ were attached to the Criminal Code of the Georgian Socialist Soviet Republic. Traditional norms of Georgian social life were declared absolutely unacceptable by the Com- munist government. In reality, however, such measures caused local legal practices to be transformed or concealed rather than to disappear. Such norms met the demands of a feudal society, where the weak royal government had been unable to enforce the dominance of state law. Struggles to eliminate local traditions predate the Communist period. Already in the second half of the 19th century a campaign against ›harmful customs‹ was initiated by some members of the Georgian intelligentsia and the ›Society for the Restoration of Orthodoxy in the Caucasus‹ established by the Georgian government (Chikovani 1979, Jersild 2002). Some members of the Georgian intelligentsia (Sergei Meskhi 1845-1883, Petre Umikashvili 1838-1904, Aleksandre Kazbegi 1848–1893 and others) opposed those customs, since they had become an economic burden on the people (like the huge funereal banquets). Such public figures, however,

57 only echoed sentiments that were already widespread among the Geor- gian population (Chikovani 1979). The Society’s activities, by contrast, were carried out in different regions in the name of the purification of the Christian faith and often caused discontent among the local population. Its representatives organised trips to the countryside in order to convince people of the pernicious nature of traditional law. Such propaganda was often accompanied by the destruction of local shrines and administrative measures against disobedi- ent servants of the cult (Chikovani 1979: 84). The struggle against harmful traditions did not stop with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Similar activities have been pursued until today with the Georgian Orthodox Church as a major actor. Florian Mühlfried (2011) describes how Orthodox priests arrived in the eastern Georgian region of Tusheti in 2006 and 2007 during the period in which a folk religious festival took place in order to hold church services. The Church intended to ›remind‹ the people from Tusheti that their true religious heritage was the Orthodox Church, and not some folk practices. In 2006 a replica of the icon of the Virgin Mary of Mount Athos (Greece) was sent to the border regions of Georgia by the Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church. With this powerful icon the church wanted to strengthen its claim on the borderlands where many non-Orthodox people live. In Tusheti, the purpose of displaying the icon was different. Like in Svaneti or Khevsureti the people of this region practice some form of folk religion, often at little shrines with ceremonies lead by elders and without any involvement of the official church. The people of Tusheti, however, claim to be truly Orthodox. Apparently the Church authorities disagree. Mühlfried describes how a priest held a service at a Tusheti shrine which usually served for folk religious practices. Usually no women are allowed at the shrines, but the ›official‹ priest invited women to approach the sanctuary in order to demonstrate the superiority of the Georgian Orthodox Church and impose its rights.

58 Research on tradition in Georgia

Research on local traditions in Georgia was initiated by Soviet policy in order to combat them. In 1975 the Georgian Central Committee of the Communist Party passed the above-mentioned resolution on the intensi- fication of the struggle against ›harmful customs‹. In the resolution it was stated that »the Communist Party recognises that it is necessary to be selective in the approach to the traditions of the past and cautions against nihilistic and false haste in administrative decisions to reject something. The Communist Party strongly supports progressive national traditions« (Kekelia 1982). In order to prepare the ideological foundation for implementing this resolution it was decided to involve scientists. Thus, local Georgian researchers began research on tradition with the aim to help eradicating their research topic. Many studies were undertaken in the 1970s and 1980s in an effort to identify such supposedly ›harmful traditions‹ and propose measures to eradicate them (see for example Akhvlediani 1984, Chikovani 1979, Nadareishvili and Khetsuriani 1979, Sokhadze 1985) As a first step, the researchers had to define the ›usefulness‹ of any given tradition and determine whether it was ›harmful‹ or not. The main criterion to identify inoffensive and useful traditions was that they served progress: »There are positive and negative traditions. The former support society’s development and progress and the latter are like a nightmare, like a heavy burden on the lives of the people of today« (Akhvlediani 1984: 3). In the officially atheist Georgian state, religious customs were most easily identified as harmful. Field data show how the Communist Party officials organised various events in their effort to eradicate religious traditions. It was, for example, common to arrange subbotniks (›voluntary‹ un- paid labour) on the Easter holidays. The idea behind such practice was that the population would have no more time for religious celebrations, because they were too busy with the so-called voluntary work. Other measures included the prohibition of wearing a cross around the neck

59 openly. Young people were prohibited from entering the church and attending religious ceremonies, especially when they were members of the Young Communists’ League or the Communist Party. The goal of eradicating harmful traditions proved ultimately unattaina- ble, however. Kekelia notes that ›tradition‹ and ›custom‹ have always played an important role in everyday-life social relations among Geor- gians until today. How to eliminate traditions when they have been indis- solubly intertwined with day-to-day life through centuries? Traditions would determine the individual’s responsibilities and duties to his or her society. The attitude towards people who violated traditional norms continued to be censorious despite the official struggle against ›harmful‹ practices. Kekelia (1988b) argues that due to sociocultural and ›psychological‹ factors people in Georgia remained faithful to their ethnic traditions (in terms of respect for elders, hospitality, the word of honour, family relations, property relations or specific gender relations). While the above-mentioned scholars tried to identify harmful traditions that were suspected of impeding progress, Georgian researchers also document that such practices continued to be observed. M. Gegeshidze (1975) describes that in the 1960s traditional relationships were still per- petuated in Svaneti. He stresses that kinspeople went through ›good and the bad together‹. This could be observed at large family feasts: in the case of a funeral, for example, not only the nuclear family but all lineage members joined in mourning the deceased. The extended family continued to be omnipresent in day-to-day life in Svaneti in the 1960s. Gege- shidze also notes that in the same period only very few cases of internal family conflicts were brought to court, which illustrates the functioning of family and lineage as a moral unity. From 1964 to 1979 no case of divorce or other family conflict was reported. The head of the people’s court confirmed that such cases were not brought before state courts, as the decision made by local elders and wise men was considered to be final. Gegeshidze (1975) states that the head of the court was officially satisfied with the situation, because such dispute resolutions always led to a correct decision.

60 For Georgians, tradition has always been linked to ethnic identity. This was another reason why the Soviet policy of combating harmful traditions met with huge obstacles. The link between tradition and identity is well illustrated by the writings of Chavchavadze who stresses the relationship of national customs and Georgian self-identity (Hauptmann 1990). From this perspective the highlands constituted a kind of ›living museum‹ of the conserved past in contemporary times (Manning 2007). Rural Georgia in general was described as the ›repository of the nation’s cultural heritage‹ (Parsons 1982). Today, tradition is still widely regarded in Georgia as the means of pre- serving collective identity. The same is true for the Svan migrants of Kvemo Kartli. The eco-migrants from Svaneti tried to recreate their familiar social and material environment in the new locality. They began to build shrines, fortified towers (koshki), and also established a village council in some villages (as described above for Teliani). The council was to ensure that social relations were based upon traditional norms and to resolve conflicts. Social relations among these migrants were mainly regulated by traditional law. Georgian scholars have often stressed the persistence of tradition. Con- cerning Svaneti, Rozeta Gujejiani (2008) describes how the refugees from Abkhazia, whose ancestors had lived in Svaneti, returned to the villages of their forefathers after the Georgian-Abkhazian War (1992-1993). They were given shelter by their relatives and since then many families have regained their ancestral lands and have been able to support themselves. A few refugees were Jehovah’s Witnesses, who tried to proselytise in the region. Their complete rejection of traditional Georgian religious values – not unlike the anti-traditional campaigns of Soviet times – shocked the local population. Such efforts to change religious traditions had the opposite effect: in the community of Etseri (Zemo Svaneti), for example, just at that time a long forgotten folk practice of community prayer, the so called lalkhora mishladegh (prayer of Lalkhori) was revitalised. In historic times such Lalkhori prayers had been held in all communities of Svaneti. The prayer ritual was performed for the peace of the whole community in

61 the central meeting-place, where the main church usually stands. This tradition was revived in Etseri and since then every year on the last Sun- day of October the lalkhora mishladegh is performed at the Church of the Archangels in the village of Pkhotreri with the participation of the whole community. A bull is sacrificed on behalf of the community on that day. People of Etseri origin living in other parts of Georgia, who are unable to travel to Svaneti, send donations. As illustrated by this ritual, the role of tradition exceeds the mere preservation of a collective identity. When challenged by outside influences, Georgian ethnologists claim, tradition tended to be reinforced or recreated. Non-traditional, alien religious beliefs never found support among the local population despite numerous attempts to convert them (Gujejiani 2008). To the contrary, such attempts would only strengthen local beliefs and have even led to the revitalisation of a Christian ritual that had not been practiced for a long time.

Conclusion

At the beginning of this chapter we mentioned Kakha who received us in a Svan village in Kvemo Kartli on his wooden chair (sakurtskhili). This kind of chair was not brought to Kvemo Kartli during the resettlement of the late 1980s. Rather, such chairs were reproduced in the new villages by the heads of the local families. Apparently, a household was not considered complete without a wooden throne. The chairs were carved anew in Kvemo Kartli with new elements added that not always resembled the historic originals. These changes were not made because of people’s igno- rance but represent deliberate individual interpretations. The carvers created their own image of the Svan tradition. The chairs must not be considered simple souvenirs. The carving process would be too time-con- suming just for that purpose and furthermore the chair is used in the social life of the village. The elder is – at least to the public eye – still the only person of the house allowed to sit on it. The chair represents, on the one hand, a material link to Svan origins, an, as it were, individually

62 carved commemoration of a person’s attachment to Svaneti. On the other hand, the Svan sakurtskhili is an object of representation to guests and the outside world in general, a materialised self-portrayal of the owners as Svans in Kvemo Kartli. With this book we intend to show that traditional law is used in Kvemo Kartli in similar fashion. The book’s aim is not to discuss why traditional law is not practiced in Svaneti, that is, why traditional law is only rarely used in negotiations concerning conflict and social order. The Georgian state and its administration are, especially since the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, per- manently present and in southern Georgia informal legal procedures are not acceptable to the official authorities. Moreover, the Svans generally accept the role of the police. Moreover, the structure of the Svan lineages is fragmented, especially so in Kvemo Kartli. Even if a large majority of Svans live in a village, the villages are of a very heterogeneous composition. Traditional law can only ›function‹ with difficulty in such setting. In addition, young people tend to ignore the elders’ advice and decisions today. Many of them leave the villages to work or study in the nearby capital. In this book we argue that it is more promising to understand traditional law among the Svan of southern Georgia as a ›cultural narrative‹, that is, a narrative transmission from the (sometimes invented) past as an aid for orientation in the present and future. Following Brubaker and Cooper (2000), we have elsewhere described the recourse to traditional law as a permanent process of social localisation (Voell et al. 2014). Such use of tradition is not predominantly politically motivated but rather a non- instrumental form of self-portrayal of people’s identity. It entails a self- conception of what one is or wants to be and what one feels attached to. This conception of traditional law could also be called a ›legal imaginary‹, a cognitive image of specific perceptions of how the people conceive their living together or of a conception of what social life ideally should look like. Thus traditional law is, on the one hand, a repertoire of procedures concerning social order and conflict resolution; on the other, it is also a

63 repertoire for social localization, for the self-image of to whom and to what one feels attached to. In his chapter, Lavrenti Janiashvili addresses the historical relevance of traditional law. First he reviews the work of Georgian legal historians. To them the genuine traditional law from the highlands was crucial for the development of Georgian legal culture since feudal times. Many law codes in feudal Georgia were based on local legal concepts and elements of the latter were preserved as part of the former. In a reciprocal process, traditional law influenced feudal legal codes while simultaneously aspects of formal law entered into traditional law and thus became ›traditional‹ over time. Janiashvili’s review of the practice of traditional law in Soviet times shows that while the Soviet regime took special measures to ban its practice in the highlands, this practice persisted through Svan kin structure and its reflection in inheritance rules and property relations. Knowledge of traditional law is also inscribed in the local landscape. The ancient places for the assemblies of elders, which are so important for traditional law, are still known and used. Even those Svans who worked in Soviet public administration remained part of their local social structure at home and were not opposed to the practice of traditional law. Janiashvili also describes the process of conflict resolution with the help of mediators and the taking of an oath on an icon in its various forms. Natia Jalabadze treats the topic of blood feuding in the lowlands. For Georgian ethnography, this is a novel approach, because the blood feud has so far only been investigated in the mountain areas. The first part of Jalabadze’s chapter consists of a review of Russian and Georgian sources on traditional law and feuds in the Caucasus. The survey begins with the earliest studies of legal culture in the Caucasus from the end of the 19th century, when research in the late Russian Empire discovered the noble savage from the mountains. In the Soviet period research on blood feuds was difficult, as they were considered a ›harmful tradition‹ and research on them was discouraged. Georgian ethnologists, however, gave detailed descriptions of blood feuds. Based on those sources Jalabadze describes

64 the course of blood feuds and their mediation. In late Soviet times more studies were published in which the persistence of blood feud was openly addressed. In the second part of her chapter Jalabadze explores blood feuding in Kvemo Kartli on the basis of her own fieldwork. Research on this topic was not easy, because Svans were not eager to speak about it. Jalabadze found, however, elements of blood feuding in the lowlands both in practice and in narrations. On the one hand, blood feuds that started in the highlands before the Svans’ resettlement may continue in Kvemo Kartli. Fear of witnessing the beginning of a new feud is also ever-present in Kvemo Kartli, for example in the aftermath of a car accident. On the other hand, stories of blood feuding are part of the Svans’ self-portrayal and through such stories a legal imaginary is displayed. This introduction began with our meeting with Kakha, a Svan from Kvemo Svaneti, who proudly told us about Svan traditions while sitting on his wooden chair. At one point during this interview we asked him if bride kidnapping still happens in this Svan village in Kvemo Kartli. Kakha and his mother laughed and told us these were old traditions and not practiced anymore. They appeared very amused by our question. In another room of the house, however, Elke Kamm sat with her field assis- tant and talked to the woman of the house, Kakha’s wife. Kamm asked her the same question if bride kidnapping was still practiced. Kakha’s wife answered that she had in fact been kidnapped by Kakha … Bride kidnapping and concepts of honour in gender relations were Elke Kamm’s individual research project. In her chapter she distinguishes between practices of involuntary and voluntary bride kidnapping in the region of Tetritskaro in Georgia. Such practices are considered a violation of traditional marriage rules and cause disorder and conflict between the individuals involved and their families. Perceptions of norms of social behaviour like honour and shame are relevant in the process of bride kidnapping and in the resulting reconciliation process. Such norms are gender-specific and have different meanings and consequences for wom-

65 en and men. In particular the concept of virginity, which is considered as a woman’s honour, is discussed. The final chapter by Stéphane Voell explores Svan resettlement and traditional legal practice from an alternative angle. He argues that the dimension of space is important in the memory of tradition. Voell studies the Svans’ resettlement inscription into a contested space. He presents narratives of a clash of Greeks and Svans in Kvemo Kartli at the beginning of the 1990s, shortly after the Georgian declaration of independence. The exact date remains unclear. After numerous crimes had been committed by the Svans in the municipality of Tetritskaro, the local Greeks – so the story goes – one day had enough of the Svan newcomers and laid siege to the Svan village of Shashviani. Although Voell’s Svan respondents never explicitly said so, the conflict at Shashviani was described in the same terms as the above-mentioned Battle of Didgori. In order to explicate the narratives of inscription Voell takes recourse to the concept of the social production of space with its three dimensions of constitution, construction and controversy. This approach highlights how Svan social practice, and along with it the practice of traditional law, and self-portrayal can only be fully understood when linked to Svan spatial practice, that is, their resettlement in this specific multi-ethnic space as the outcome of a nationalist policy.

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80 Vacheishvili, Aleksandre 1946. Narkvevebi kartuli samartlis istoriidan [Essays on Georgian Legal History], Vol. 1. Tbilisi: Tbilisis Sakhelmtsipo Universitetis Gamomtsemloba. Vacheishvili, Aleksandre 1948. Narkvevebi kartuli samartlis istoriidan [Essays on Georgian Legal History], Vol. 2. Tbilisi: Tbilisis Sakhelmtsipo Universitetis Gamomtsemloba. Voell, Stéphane 2004. Das nordalbanische Gewohnheitsrecht und seine mündliche Dimension (Reihe Curupira, 17). Marburg: Curupira. Voell, Stéphane 2012. Local Legal Conceptions in Svan Villages in the Lowlands. In: Caucasus Analytical Digest 42: 2-4. Voell, Stéphane 2013a. Going Beyond Essentialism: Introduction. In: Stéphane Voell and Ketevan Khutsishvili (eds.) Caucasus, Conflict, Culture: Anthropological Perspectives on Times of Crisis. Marburg: Curupira: 13-36. Voell, Stéphane 2013b. Oath of Memory: the Taking of Oaths on Icons in Svan Villages of Southern Georgia. In: Iran & the Caucasus 17, 2: 29-45. Voell, Stéphane 2015. Moral Breakdown among the Georgian Svans: a Car Accident between Traditional and State Law. In: Stéphane Voell and Iwona Kaliszewska (ed.) State and Legal Practice in the Caucasus: Anthropological Perspectives on Law and Politics. Farnham: Ashgate: 95-111. Voell, Stéphane, Natia Jalabadze, Lavrenti Janiashvili and Elke Kamm 2014. Identity and Traditional Law: Local Legal Conceptions in Svan Villages (Georgia). In: Anthropological Journal of European Cultures 23, 2: 98-118. Voell, Stéphane and Iwona Kaliszewska (eds.) 2015. State and Legal Practice in the Caucasus: Anthropological Perspectives on Law and Politics (Cultural Diversity and Law). Farnham: Ashgate. Wanner, Catherine 2011. Multiple Moralities, Multiple Secularisms. In: Jarett Zigon (ed.) Multiple Moralities and Religions in Post-Soviet Russia. New York and Oxford: Berghahn: 214-225.

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82 Lavrenti Janiashvili

Traditional Legal Practice in Soviet Times

Social relationships are for the most part regulated by norms based on customs and traditions. This is not only the case in areas that are little influenced by state law but sometimes even where the presence of formal law can be expected. The popularity of traditional law in Georgia can be explained with reference to history. The historical background of the contemporary use of traditional law is the main focus of the present chapter.1 The genesis of Georgian legal culture was influenced by local traditional, state and canon law, legal systems imposed by conquerors and colonis- ers from the South Caucasus and by the legal systems (adat, sharia) of neighbouring republics of the North Caucasus like Ingushetia or Dage- stan. For centuries different legal systems co-existed, sometimes in competition with one another, in the various regions of Georgia. In the Georgian highlands social relations were mainly regulated by traditional law, while in the lowlands state and canon law were more important.

The medieval law codes of Georgia

Among Georgian legal scholars (like for example Dolidze 1957, 1960, 1981) it is widely accepted that the main source of the legal systems of the

1 Parts of this chapter were published previously in Janiashvili 2010, 2012a, 2012b, 2013, Voell et al. 2014, Jalabadze and Janiashvili 2015.

83 ancient kingdoms of the South Caucasus was an orally transmitted traditional law. Later, in feudal times, written law gained in importance at the expense of other sources. Since those times, the state has constantly struggled against the ›lex talionis‹ principle of traditional law. State legislative institutions battled local law that was practiced independently from the official administration. Until today the state does not accept alternative legal concepts and enforces the exclusive legal control by state institutions. The first formal legal systems were introduced at the time of the first kingdoms in the South Caucasus (Nadareishvili 1990).2 After the introduction of Christianity as state religion in the early 4th century by King of Iberia Mirian III (306-337), the legislation of Georgia was influenced by the laws of the Christian churches. Nadareishvili discovered that even by the 10th century such complex legal terms as ›guilt‹ and ›offender‹ were known in Georgian jurisprudence through the writings of St Ekvtime Mtatsmindeli (955-1028), a monk from the Georgian monastery of Mount Athos in Greece who was an expert on legal theory. Most researchers (Dolidze 1960, for an overview see Feldbrugge 2009) agree that since the 12th or early 13th century (Golden Age) the legislation of the Georgian kingdom extended to every part of the territory. Parts of this legislation have been preserved in the final section of the ›Law Code of Beka and Aghbuga‹ (14th-15th century) entitled the law of ›Bagrat Kurapalat‹.3 No other legal documents from this epoch have survived, but their existence has been established beyond doubt.

2 Each legislator built upon both local legal traditions and those of neighbouring countries. One example of such practice is the ›Syro-Roman Law Book‹ (late 5th century, see Monnickendam 2012), which became influential across the South Caucasus. 3 The oldest legal document after Bagrat Kurapalat is the ›Law Book of Beka Mandaturtukhutsesi‹ (late 13th or early 14th century). Beka’s grandson Aghbuga later added several laws to the collection. The whole collection was called ›The Book of Law Concerning All Human Wrongs‹, better known as ›Law Code of

84 Already in the 10th century the Georgian kings began to establish a system of legislation. It was fully developed by the 12th to 13th century and the penal code was ›humanised‹ during the reign of Queen Tamar (1184- 1213) in the Georgian Golden Age. In this period the death penalty and crippling punishments were abolished except for robbers. As the historical record shows, the death penalty was only executed in the case of robbery, which since ›ancient times‹ has been considered an especially severe crime (Dolidze 1960). No other crimes – even a murder that was not committed in connection with a robbery – were punished by death. An example of the high level of legal culture in the South Caucasus is the Armenian ›Mkhitar Gosh’s Law Book‹ from the 12th century (Feldbrugge 2009), written and compiled in 1184 by the scholar and priest Mkhitar Gosh (1130-1213). It is noteworthy that this law book does not acknowledge ordeals (›judgement of God‹) and other ›primitive‹ methods of ascertaining the truth that were widespread in Europe at that time, as is stated in the law book’s introduction. It gained great popularity and was used in Armenia and other countries, especially among the fol- lowers of the Armenian Apostolic Church.4 The Mongols and other invaders since the 13th century put an end to the Georgian Golden Age (Suny 1994), which had a negative impact on legal development. The death penalty, crippling and inhuman punishments, however, were still applied only on rare occasions. The resurgence of state power in Georgia later changed the situation again. The authorities strove to revive the legal system. Attempts to propagate the law among the mountain population were made in the 14th century during the reign of George V the Brilliant (1286/89-1346). His ›Laws of King George‹ can be named as one example (Lang 1955, Wardrop 1914). The

Beka and Aghbuga‹. The law code originated in the princely state of Samtskhe- Saatabago but was widely used beyond it (Dolidze 1960, Feldbrugge 2009). 4 Like the law codes mentioned earlier the main sources of Mkhitar Gosh’s Law Book were biblical laws that were adapted to Armenian reality, canon law and laws of other origin like Georgian legal practice (Dolidze 1960).

85 propagation of these laws was constrained by the difficult situation in the Georgian mountains (for example in the region of Mtiuleti). The relationship between the mountain population and the king’s representatives often became so aggravated that the latter were assaulted and murdered. In some cases entire villages joined in committing such acts. Refusal of the obligatory military service was frequent and individual assaults for vengeance, which besides the avenger often involved third parties and even women, became increasingly common. The situation became so difficult that the king was compelled to investigate and search for measures to calm the rebellious population and quell the disturbance. The king ordered the drafting of a special law code for the mountain population, because no formal collection of laws had existed for the mountains of Georgia before. Had no law code existed for the whole Georgian kingdom, George V would have commissioned a collection of laws not only for the highland people from Mtiuleti but for the entire country. The legislation of the lowlands obviously did not work in the mountains, where legal relations between people were regulated by traditional law. The ›Laws of King George‹ are an example of a criminal code where only few articles are dedicated to civil-law matters (Dolidze 1957). The law code incorporated many traditional legal norms such as the right to revenge, to claim blood money or exile. The legislators tried to restrict the scope of blood feuds, but several articles directly acknowledge the right to blood revenge. Although many traditional norms were incorporated into the Laws of King George, not all of them became laws. Blood feuding, for example, was not included in the law code. The Laws of King George contain the custom of blood money, however. If vengeance ›traditionally‹ required the death of the perpetrator, in the law code the payment of blood money to the injured party in terms of cash or property was required as compensation for the crime. The amount of payment was determined by the gravity of the offence and the social and legal position of the victim. The criteria of how to establish that amount were also based on traditional law (Dolidze 1957).

86 Fig. 13: Mkhitar Gosh, front of the Matenadaran (Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts), Yerevan, Armenia.

87 In the Laws of King George the local position of khevisberi was created – a feudal officer whose duty was to lead the military troops of the different valleys (Dolidze 1957). Later, due to the weakening of the royal power and the disintegration of legal control in the mountains, the khevisberi changed from royal official to spiritual leader of the community that is elected by local people. The ›Book of Laws of Vakhtang VI‹ (Dolidze 1981, Karst 1934) occu- pies a special place in the history of Georgian legal thought. It includes significant parts of the Law Code of Beka and Aghbugha, the Laws of King George and canon law.5 Vakhtang’s collection also includes norms from other legal collections like the Syro-Roman or Mkhitar Gosh’s Law Book. It covers both civil and criminal law. The legal norms of the Book of Laws of Vakhtang VI determine the rights and obligations of both Georgian and other ethnic groups in the region (Dolidze 1981). As the nomadic population had difficulties in adapting to the unfamiliar Georgian economic and fiscal system, King Vakhtang VI of Kartli (1675-1737) tried to establish a legal framework for their integration into the Georgian kingdom. Vakhtang’s law book was so viable that some of its norms were used even after the annexation of Georgia by the Russian Empire in 1801. Later, Vakhtang’s law book was included in the collection of laws of the Russian Empire.6 Formal law as codified in the Law Code of Beka and Aghbuga, in Mkhitar Gosh’s Law Book, the Laws of King George or in the Book of

5 Canon law had an important influence in feudal Georgia (Dolidze 1960). It not only regulated religious affairs but also the relationship of the authorities with their subordinates. Canon law also had an impact on traditional law. Canon law books regulated many issues of everyday life for centuries (especially in family law). Islam also played a role in South Caucasian legal practice. Islamic law constitutes a separate legal system which unites religious and legal norms. Sharia regulates social life, family and matrimonial relations. 6 The Act No 2007 ›On the Establishment of the Internal Administration in Georgia‹ by Alexander I stated that the civil courts in Georgia should follow the Book of Laws of Vakhtang VI.

88 Laws of Vakhtang VI thus incorporated elements from traditional law, but simultaneously formal law had an important impact on traditional law. Moreover, many traditional legal norms continued to co-exist with the written law. The difference between formal and informal law was always substantial, however. Surguladze (2000) notes that traditional legal norms were not established on the basis of abstract reasoning but in response to a specific situation. Such kind of law was created from necessity, which makes traditional so different from formal law. The general pattern of the historical relationship between traditional and formal law was established in 19th century Russian scientific literature and adopted more or less unchanged by Georgian legal scholars in the 20th century (see the chapter by Jalabadze). According to this reasoning law consisted almost entirely of traditional norms. Later the state collected legal customs, rejected many of them and accepted others, which were used as the legal foundation. This was the period of the co- functioning of tradition and law. The third and final period is character- ized by the dominance of formal law, when state authorities manifested their power through law without paying attention to traditional law (Vacheishvili 1948). In feudal Georgia a conflict between the state and traditional legal systems arose. The state did not try to settle a conflict through an agreement between the parties involved, but rather enforced the public punishment of criminals (Kekelia 1990b). This stood in contrast to the principles of traditional law. The assertion of state power in the mountainous regions was difficult, however. Even the administration of the Russian Empire paid little attention to the highlands. According to Egnate Gabliani (1925), judges visited Svaneti only in the summer and heard all the cases that had accumulated during the previous months. These summer trials tended to be perfunctory and the Svans continued to settle their disputes according to traditional law. This situation changed in Soviet times. The totalitarian communist regime sought to penetrate all fields of life, also the field of traditional law, and rearrange them according to its interests.

89 The relationship between the state and traditional law in Soviet times

The communist period is a unique phase in the long legal history of the Georgian people. The Soviet authorities tried to integrate the entire population of Georgia into one unified legal system, which proved to be fairly difficult. The norms of Soviet law, designed according to Marxist-Leninist ideology, and Georgian state law, but also canon and traditional law clashed in many respects. The analysis of the contemporary press and scholarly literature shows that from the very beginning the Soviet authorities tried to revise the legal landscape in Georgia. They issued a decree regarding the abolishment of old courts and the establishment of new Soviet legal institutions. Moreo- ver, special courts like the revolutionary tribunal were set up.7 Studies from 1920 to 1940 show that the old legal system disintegrated in the 1920s and the population faced increasing difficulties in regulating legal issues (Moambe 1921). The implementation of Soviet law pro- gressed in the 1930s in step with collectivisation and industrialisation. The proprietary and ideological interests of the communist state were accorded first priority and justice became oriented towards this goal. Political and socio-economic changes also impacted the legal literature. Legal studies published in the Georgian language were now full of Marx- ist-Leninist jargon and did not address the concrete legal situation of the time. The authors avoided voicing their individual opinion and were severely restricted by the ideological framework (Japaridze 1930). Any opinion that differed from the official version was ruthlessly persecuted. The publication of legal periodicals in the Georgian language ceased during

7 Since 1923 a system of common courts was established which consisted of a Supreme Court, two Provincial Courts (one in western and the other in eastern Georgia), 73 People’s District Courts and a Red Cross Military Tribunal. By 1926, 91 judges worked in the 73 districts (Kacharava 1926).

90 this period. Publications in the field of law were mainly concerned with the persecution of so-called ›enemies of the people‹. Different opinions were expressed, however, in the special literature on the role of traditional law in communist times. Some authors believe that despite all pressure from the state, Soviet justice failed to replace traditional legal procedures completely and the period between 1950 and 1980 can be described as a dual legal system. On the local level, traditional institutions continued to treat cases according their own rules (Babich 2000). Vladimir Bobrovnikov (2000), by contrast, claims that as a result of the legal unification in the Soviet period traditional law and the plural- ist legal situation in the Northern Caucasus were transformed completely. The Soviet legal literature acknowledged the role of ›socialist customs and traditions‹ in the establishment of new legal norms. Traditional legal norms were officially ignored in Soviet times. An opposite trend was also apparent, however: the Soviet legislators combated traditional norms by punishing specific offences harder when they had been committed in the name of tradition. For example, capital punishment was introduced for murder in the course of a blood feud. The perpetrator had to be executed by firing squad (§ 104, Criminal Code of Soviet Georgia). This legal situation sometimes produced strange verdicts: a murder in Tbilisi in revenge for the killing of the perpetrator’s son was not considered to be connect- ed to blood feuding, whereas in Svaneti or Khevsureti the same act would have been treated as part of a blood feud (Kekelia 1990a). Especially in the North Caucasus Soviet legal reforms were not con- sistent (Babich 2000). In the beginning some Soviet representatives advo- cated the preservation of traditional legal institutions, whereas others categorically demanded the abolishment of traditional law and sharia in favour of the new Soviet system. Initially traditional norms and mediatory courts were preserved in some regions, even if under the strict control of the Soviet institutions. Moreover, a legal ideology was enforced that called for the abolishment of the mediatory courts. Already in 1925 sharia and adat disappeared in the North Caucasus and all forms of traditional justice were suppressed.

91 Such attitude was obviously caused by the attempt to promote Soviet ethical values. The communist ideologues did not believe in the existence of traditional or ancient ethical principles. Moral conceptions had to change along with the change of the social formation. By this reasoning, the moral norms of feudalism are incompatible with capitalism and capitalist moral principles incompatible with socialist ideology. Moreover, different classes within the same social formation are supposedly characterised by completely different norms (Purtskhvanidze 1949). According to this official concept, there can be no disagreement between public opinion and the state. When punishing a criminal who violated the socialist legal regulations and stripping him/her of their civil rights, the state expressed the will of the whole society. This was not how the Georgian population usually thought, however. The perpetrator of a crime which the Soviet state portrayed as a crime against society might in fact be respected by society (Purtskhvanidze 1949). One reason for the enduring relevance of tradition among the Svans was the persistence of the local kinship structure through Soviet times. A Svan lineage (gvari) consists of relatives by the father’s line (Kharadze 1939). As even the communist leader Philipp Makharadze (1868-1941) notes, »in the first period of the establishment of the communist regime in Svaneti large families with many generations were abundantly present« (Makharadze 1925). Traditionally Svan gvari are divided into brotherhoods, so-called samkhub or lamkhub. Members of such groups were considered as brothers. Such brotherhoods were often called communities (temi).8 They were named after the grandfather. The gvari were the owners of pastures, meadows and arable land, which is illustrated by names that have been preserved to this day like ›Tamzasha Tskhek‹, ›Kuchesha

8 Community (temi) has two meanings in Svaneti (Charkviani 1967): first, it refers to the village community (for example Mestia or Latali) and territory (territorial unit); second, it designates family branches of the same surname: samkhub (brotherhood, parental unity).

92 Dabar‹, ›Kaldansa Latchmal‹, ›Gogochusha Lamvariel‹ etc.9 Svan kinship structure is thus inscribed in the land and in various forms of material property. Traditional concepts of inheritance and the division of property continued to be relevant in Soviet times.10 Due to the natural increase of a community, the size of a family’s land plots dwindled. As a rule, one or two brothers would stay at the home site, while the others migrated elsewhere (Nizharadze 1999). According to my field data, the division of family property was executed by individuals who were respected in the gvari for their authority and wisdom. Repre- sentatives of other gvari were not involved. The division of a family’s property was assigned to fellow villagers who were selected by the family itself and who would gather at an appointed time to fulfil their obligation. These individuals acted according to traditional norms (Oniani 1976). Ali Davitiani’s material implies that all real and movable property inherited from an ancestor (father, grandfather) was subject to division. Real property included the house, yard, arable land, meadows, etc. In large families the property was jointly owned by mother, father, brothers and uncles, who initially belonged to the same family. Real property was divided between these co-owners. Each brother was entitled to his share, even if he did not have a family and was not about to marry. The head of the family was accorded certain privilege; he received the ›head share‹, which usually meant the best arable land. The head share was inherited

9 In order to document this complexity I refer to Davitiani: »The village of Lakhamula is divided into brotherhoods, or communities, which comprise the population of a lineage. The following live in Lakhamula: Tchkaduol (Tchkadu- as), Kvantchianis, Sabani and Kobalielis. Tchkaduas are the most abundant in comparison with the other gvari. They are divided into community-brotherhoods (tem-samkhub). These community-brotherhoods are, on their part, divided into laskar« (Davitiani 1939). 10 A similar explanation is given by Nebi Bardoshi (2013) for the persistence of traditional law in northern Albania in communist times. The knowledge of kinship and marriage rules is inscribed in social space through inheritance practices and property relations in general. Space thus becomes the storehouse of the social memory of traditional law.

93 only through the father’s line and could not fall to a woman. Women never disputed this rule. A different attitude existed toward individual property that was not included in the family property like a woman’s livestock and, on rare occasions, the land which had belonged to a woman prior to the division.11 This Svan conception of property relations was preserved through So- viet times. The state collectivized all farmland. In the 1970s each family owned small housing plots, the majority of which did not exceed 0.5 hectares. However, each Svan remembered the exact boundaries of his former land. Many families preserved the maps of their plots and the land purchase documentation, which was widely acknowledged throughout the local population.12 For this reason, the communist administration was compelled to consider the local specificities of property regimes. As a result, traditional law continued to function as a social phenomenon that adapted to time and situation. During the first years of the Soviet regime the practice of traditional law was not restricted very severely. Many local conflicts (especially family disputes) were solved according to traditions and people only rarely turned to the official authorities.

11 When an elderly parent lived with the family at the time they would also receive a share in order to provide for them. After their death the co-owners divided this property as well, if they had jointly covered the funeral expenses. If a co- owner paid for the funeral alone, then the property fell to him. Fruit trees were the subject of division as well. If the trees could not be divided equally, then the harvest was divided between the co-owning families according to the proportion of the share they had received at the division of property. 12 When collective farms were abolished in 1990, conflicts over land use and ownership proliferated. The situation was relieved when each family identified the arable land once owned by them on the basis of traditional legal norms. The majority had never officially registered their land, because they were convinced that their rights were protected by tradition. Since the arrival of foreign investors in Svaneti these plots have recently become once again the cause of conflict (see Voell et al. 2014).

94 Fig. 14: Mestia in 1890.

The situation regarding penal law was entirely different. It was completely taken over by the state (Beselia 1928). However, a significant area of penal law was still covered by traditional norms, namely, the regulation of so-called ›private crimes‹. »Any act or inaction threatening the Soviet order or the rule of law established by the authorities of workers and peasants for the transitional period to the communist rule of order was considered a crime« (Erkomaishvili 1928: 531). A private crime was an act that was not prosecuted by the state on its own accord. The state transferred this right to the injured party. This practice with regard to private crimes was justified by the overload of the courts, although such attitude was not unanimously accepted. Surguladze (1928) mentions several cases that were labelled private crimes simply because the injured party did not appeal to the state court. Traditional norms played a significant role in social relations and everyday life in Soviet times and determined an individual’s rights and obligations towards his or her family and village. Traditional law considered

95 some acts as punishable crimes, some as the subject of condemnation or derision and others, by contrast, as deserving of approval and praise. Although traditional law’s power to administer punishment was restricted, the attitude of the majority of society towards the violators of traditional norms remained negative. Due to sociocultural and psychological factors people remained loyal to their traditions concerning spiritual life, the respect of elders, hospitality, the word of honour, family relationships, property relations, exogamy, gender relations and the like (Kekelia 1990a). My Svan interlocutors in Svaneti and Kvemo Kartli claim that according to their experience civil cases between Svans were almost entirely settled by traditional law. The latter’s influence on penal law cases was also substantial. My interlocutors stated that traditional law norms remained important among the Svans through the 1970s and 1980s until today. This view is supported by scholarly studies. According to Gegeshi- dze (1975), traditional relations prevailed in Svaneti in the 1960s. The gvari remained the most important social unit. All gvari members joined in mourning the deceased, for example. Gegeshidze believes that the limited number of internal family cases that were brought before the courts, to which he was assigned, in the 1960s document the moral unity of the family and gvari. Between 1964 and 1979 there were no cases of divorce or other family conflicts. The head of the people’s court confirmed that such cases were not brought before state courts, since the decision of the elders and mediators of the gvari was considered final by all parties involved. Gegeshidze notes that the head of the court was content with the situation, because such dispute resolution always resulted in a correct decision. Still a certain amount of frustration about the dispute resolution through traditional law was also evident at that time. The above- mentioned head of the court in Mestia believed that the dominance of traditional law would not last much longer, because the young generation started to ignore some of the elders’ decisions (especially if the latter were

96 not family members) and the claim for responsibility regarding all cases of the gvari was questioned by the elders themselves (Gegeshidze 1975).

Assemblies in Svan traditional law

The main institutions for the implementation of traditional law in Svaneti were the people’s assembly and the mediatory court. The crimes that were heard by these bodies can be divided into two categories: first, crimes against the society at large, like the betrayal of the community or the icon or the violation of the rule of exogamy concerning the gvari or families related through godparenthood; second, crimes against individuals, like murder, assault, the causing of damage to property or the inflic- tion of moral harm. The general assembly of all villages was called lukhor. It convened when specific cases had to be decided. Decisions were made by majority vote. General assemblies heard cases of the violation of community interests by individuals and imposed a fine on the perpetrator. It also discussed issues of general interest like ›military‹ campaigns, the building of roads and bridges, the repair of churches, communication with neighbouring villages (even with villages in the North Caucasus), the selection of en- voys on the behalf of the village, the imposition of punishment on traitors, violators of ancestral traditions or people who committed moral crimes (Davitashvili 2002b). Such general assemblies have been widely described in the scholarly literature – especially one held in Upper Bali Svaneti in 1875 (Gabliani 1925). At that time the Svan population suspected that the Tsarist authorities planned to levy new taxes. People gathered in the community of Mulakhi and appealed to all communities of ›Free Svaneti‹ (see Introduction to this volume) to protest against that attempt. Then the representatives of Free Svaneti met in the Church of St Kvirike in Kala and swore an ›oath of unity‹ among themselves. Such general assemblies facilitated the unity of villages and communities and had a social function as well (regarding the oath, see below).

97 Fig. 15: Mestia in 2009.

Davitashvili analyses one specific meeting (Davitashvili 2002a, already described in Gabliani 1925) that was held in connection with the attempt by Balkarians from the North Caucasus to rob Svan sacred sites. A Balka- rian man named Devetgeri and his uncle tried to steal objects from the churches of Ushguli and Kala. Devetgeri broke down the doors of the Church of St Barbara in Ushguli and took the sacred items kept there, whereas his uncle was unsuccessful in trying to rob the Church of St Kvirike in Kala. People from Ushguli chased Devetgeri but failed to catch him. However, they managed to capture his uncle with his retinue as they returned from Kala. The Svans sent one of the captives to Devetgeri and demanded the return of the stolen items or else they would kill his uncle and his retinue. Devetgeri himself returned the stolen items except for a bead that he had already given to his lover. The Svans killed Devitgeri at the walls of the church because of that missing item. According to anoth-

98 er version, the robbers failed to escape from Ushguli and were immediately captured by the locals. The general assembly convened and decided to stone the robbers to death. Both versions tell that after the robbers’ punishment by the Svans an equal number of mediators (morvar) from both parties settled the matter between the community of Ushguli and the Balkarians. The mediatory court imposed a blood money payment of two hundred head of livestock on Ushguli (because they killed Devetgeri) and deducted half of the amount for the robbing of the church. Davitashvili (2002b) analyses the case as follows: the robbery of the church was a crime against the communal interest and for this reason was discussed at the general assembly which imposed the death penalty on the perpetrators. For the Balkarians, the punishment of one of theirs was simply murder because other Caucasian groups recognized the principle of objective guilt. For this reason the Balkarians demanded an appropriate compensation for the loss of one of their people. The killing of a Balkarian man by the Svan people of Ushguli created a new private legal relationship between the community of Ushguli and the Balkarians, which could be mediated by representatives from both parties. Had the robber been a member of the Ushguli community, no compensation could have been demanded. In Soviet times another similar case occurred in Kala in the 1930s. Sev- eral people (one of them was a descendent of a Kala family) stole sacred items from the Church of St Kvirike. The robbers tried to hide in the mountains but got lost and finally returned to the village. The villagers captured them and called the general assembly which decided that the perpetrators were to be stoned to death. The robber originating from Kala, however, was not executed along with the others, but his lineage was banned from the village and forbidden to enter the Church of St Kvirike anymore. Interestingly enough, the village of Kala has reconciled with the banned gvari only recently as members of that gvari told us during our research in Kvemo Kartli. The other gvari of Kala wanted to deny the perpetrator’s gvari entry to the church for eighty years. The decision of reconciliation was made by the entire community, that is, by representa-

99 tives of all gvari from Kala. This was not decided in a general assembly, however. Nowadays it has become fairly difficult to organise such assemblies, because the majority of the population of Kala has resettled to various other regions of Georgia. Members of the banned gvari compiled a list of all families that formerly belonged to Kala, visited them in various places across Georgia and made them sign an agreement to the reconciliation. Then they went to Kala, called for a meeting with representatives of the remaining gvari, sacrificed a bull, apologised to the people and prayed to St Kvirike for forgiveness. To sum up, the general assembly was the highest institution of Svan justice. It was presided by a makhvshi (elder). The assembly could ban a family or gvari from the community, burn down the house of a perpetrator and even impose capital punishment. The death penalty was imposed on traitors of the community. The assembly was not responsible to any other body. It was entitled to discuss and settle both internal and external issues. The village headman was elected by a general assembly of all men and women of the community above twenty years of age (Charkviani 1967, Nizharadze 1962). Based on the case from Kala described above and my own field data, I assume that the importance of general assemblies weakened during Soviet times, because the communist regime claimed the exclusive right to decide upon all social and economic issues. Still the assembly did not completely lose its function.13 Minor issues like fixing the time of ploughing, the allocation of wheat or maize fields or meadows, the time of taking the livestock to the mountains, the start of mowing or the fencing of fields were still decided by the assembly. Sometimes assemblies also tried crimes against private individuals.

13 Charkviani describes another specific form of assembly or cooperation, the so- called svimra. Men from the village joined in a large-scale construction work like the building of churches or towers. They passed construction materials from hand to hand. The saying goes that at svimra everyone joined in working for a common cause (Charkviani 1967).

100 In old Svaneti there existed the institution of the kherstavi, who had certain administrative and judicial functions. Based on the material recorded by Kharadze (1953) in the village of Lashkheti, the kherstavi dealt with crimes that were committed in the village. Whenever necessary, all kherstavi of Zemo Svaneti gathered and elected a council of five (morual) to hear cases from the entire Kvemo Svaneti region. Descriptions of numerous cases can be found in the literature (Davitiani 1939). Each case that is heard by the village assembly must have the advance consent of the village. Each villager acknowledged that the representatives of his/her village in the assembly spoke for the entire community and that the assembly’s decision would be accepted. Any individual’s refusal would thus be an insult to the whole village. Anybody could raise an issue. A lively discussion ensued that ended with a general accord. Every village – no matter how small – has its own village square for assemblies called svip (Davitiani 1939). Such traditions were still present to some extent in the life of those Svans who relocated to Kvemo Kartli. New arrivals usually called for an assembly and swore on an icon (see below) that they would not allow any crime or deviation from traditional norms in their village (for a discussion of this see for example Voell 2013). The prominent Svan Avtandil Mar- giani – a former vice-president of Georgia (1992-1995) – told us that in the relocated villages of Kvemo Svaneti »we had a council of seven men, the council of elders, which was established by us, the community. The council was authorised to maintain order in the village, to decide on organisational issues, etc. For example, a young man made a mistake: he put on a mask and assaulted a woman with the intention to rob her. The woman recognised the attacker and hit him. The young man ran away. On hearing the woman’s screams neighbours came, chased the robber, caught and tied him up. The council of elders assembled the next day and banned the perpetrator and his family from the village« (field material). Another interlocutor, who now lives in Dmanisi (Kvemo Kartli) but hails from the village of Latali in Zemo Svaneti, told me that »during the turmoil of the 1990s many bad things happened in Latali. The young men

101 took up arms, murders and thefts were frequent. Seven murders occurred in Latali. Just imagine, there are 18 gvari in Latali and all became enemies of one another«. The local social fabric faced the threat of disintegration and people had to find a way out: »Representatives of Latali who had something to say assembled and made the entire community swear an oath. We reconciled the hostile gvari with each other, settled the issues concerning theft and robbery, and if you would now throw some dollars in the street, nobody would take them. We gather on 5 October each year and celebrate the day of Latali [the holiday of Latali]. We created a committee of 24 men to eliminate crime. It gathers the day before the celebration and hears cases. We used the old method too: any member of the community who witnesses a crime must try to stop the perpetrator. If he fails, he is required to inform our commission. We also introduced the institution of informant« (field material). The social relations described above are based on traditional law and clearly indicate that people still remember old institutions and act according to them if necessary. Many similar stories are mentioned in historical sources. A 15th-century document states that to all crimes committed in the community of Kala the people would respond jointly (Ingorokva 1941). All village business usually was discussed at the meeting place (svip). A Svan from the village of Tamarisi in Kvemo Kartli told us: »I remember a svip in our village, Chola [a section of the community of Mulakhi, Zemo Svaneti]. A church was there, too, but the communists destroyed it. We had two churches. People sat at the svip when they were not working. I remember from my childhood how they sat and talked.« Another term for meeting place is lalkhor, which is also used among migrants from Kvemo Svaneti (for example in Shashviani, municipality of Tetritskaro). My interlocutor stated: »This gathering place was called lalkhor. It means a gathering place in Georgian and svip in Zemo Svaneti«. He recalled that people gathered in the yard of the collective farm. A collective farm was established early in Zemo Svaneti and the meeting place was moved close to the new administration building. As my interlocutor recalled, people

102 had met in the churchyard before, because »if an oath was taken, the sarosta [the elder who led the religious ceremonies in Kvemo Svaneti, see introduction] would make them swear gartsam [a type of oath, see below] in the church. The collective farm’s yard, where people met, was called lalkhor. Now [in Kvemo Kartli] they gather in a school room in Shash- viani. Lalkhor is mainly attended by men – one from each family. If there is no man in the family, a woman may go. Women often spoke at such gatherings and their proposals were frequently accepted. As far as I remember, women were never without rights in Svaneti. Of course, their share of work is larger and therefore they have less time, but there were always women who spoke at the assembly. When we arrived here [in Shashviani], the formal local representative was in Dumanisi [a neighbouring, former Ossetian village], but he had no influence here. So we, the migrants, gathered and elected our own leader. Of course, this was an unofficial leader, but the village council could do nothing without him and decided everything together with him. The village still has as makhvshi, a young man who has great authority in the village. If he wanted, he could easily win the election, but he doesn’t want to. I have no idea why. Anyway, the administration and members of parliament ask him about everything« (field material).

Mediatory courts and mediators

Disputes between individuals (both penal and civil) were heard by mediatory courts (limorev) in Svaneti. As already mentioned, these courts were not concerned with crimes against the community; those issues were tried by the general assembly of the community. Mediatory courts had various functions (see for example Davitiani 1939, Gabliani 1925). Their goal was not only to identify a perpetrator and impose punishment but also the reconciliation of the parties. Media- tors from this court tried to conciliate the injured party by proposing financial compensation in order to prevent the start of a blood feud. Me- diators addressed the following issues: property relations (such as land

103 ownership or the violation of agreements), murder, assault, rape, personal injury and theft. Severe criminal acts resulted in immediate bloody retaliation. If the perpetrator managed to escape and tried to reconcile with the injured party, the case could be heard at the mediatory court. The perpetrator would pay a fine that substantially exceeded the amount paid for property issues. The proceedings of Svan mediatory court are described in detail in the Georgian scholarly literature (for example in Davitiani 1939, 1963, Nizharadze 1962). My field data show that the mediatory court was very popular in Soviet times. People did not trust the state institutions and tried to avoid their involvement in legal relations. Even those individuals who worked for the state or the party still remained loyal to the old traditions. When a thief was punished by the state courts, the injured party would not be content and also demand a fine. When the perpetrator refused to admit to the theft, the injured party made him swear an oath on an icon. When a murderer was sent to prison – or even executed – by order of a state court the victim’s family victim would still seek blood revenge. Punishment by the state was considered to be less significant, although in such cases the mediators might consider the fact that the perpetrator had ›partially paid for his crime‹. Mediators were selected for each individual case. Their number depended on the complexity of the case. According to Davitiani, »a judge was selected for different cases at different periods. Each case was heard by individual judges, whose number varied according to the difficulty of the case. Minor offences were considered easy, that is, the stealing of cattle, theft or other disputes. Such cases would be heard by two men [judges]. The disputing parties would each choose one mediator and both then agreed upon a third who would be the head or the petitioner. The petitioner acted with the consent of both parties. Sometimes four were elected and the fifth would be the head as well as seven, nine or thirteen (the thirteenth would be the head). Up to six people were called as mediators and even more« (Davitiani 1963: 634).

104

Fig. 16: Mulakhi in 2009.

105 One of my Svan interlocutors from Kvemo Kartli told an anecdotal story from Soviet times, when a suspect publicly expressed his resent- ment in the court of Mestia. His case had already been mediated in the traditional way. Therefore he asked the official court: »How can this be? We have already decided on the case.« The judge, who originated from Svaneti, was astonished why such case had been brought before him at all as he was the only judge in the district. In theory, anybody could be selected as mediator (I was told that in some cases even women were chosen), but as a rule the community selected people of exceptional honesty and authority. Impartiality, piety and intelligence were of great importance. In Soviet times such people could be common members of the Svan community as well as members of the Communist Party, state officials or legal authorities, the so-called ›thieves- in-law‹ (see below). I have even recorded cases when members of the Communist party were involved in mediatory courts. This happened in secret, because the traditional law was officially unacceptable to the state authorities. Moreo- ver, mediators had to take an oath to affirm their impartiality. ›Going to an icon‹ (that is, swearing an oath upon an icon) was strictly forbidden in Soviet times. One interlocutor remembers that people often came to ask his father to become a mediator, saying »just come along, say what you think and we will not take you to the icon.« Although mediators were greatly respected by the people, many refused this appointment. The Svans value an oath highly and are afraid to incur the divine wrath if they swore a false oath. According to my field data, the participation of the state officials in traditional legal proceedings was quite common in the 1980s. The involvement of members of the Communist Party in mediatory courts had been kept secret until the 1960s. Later such cases became more and more common. The mediators were no longer reluctant to take an oath that affirmed their impartiality (Nizharadze 1962). The participation of state officials in local legal proceedings has become more common in recent decades, especially after the eco-migration to

106 Kvemo Kartli. In some areas the resettlement was led by Soviet party officials who later felt some moral responsibility to maintain the local order. My interlocutors remember cases in which mediation took place not only within the community of the eco-migrants but also in conflicts with other communities. Only state functionaries would have been able to make a final decision in such conflicts. My interlocutors remember some cases when their authority was the key factor in the reconciliation. According to my field data and the scholarly literature, mediators were quite rare. When somebody knew in advance that people wanted to select him as mediator, he would try to avoid such appointment. For this reason the Svans obtained some item from the church, possibly even a church key, and made the selected person touch it with his hand. Then this person could not refuse to become a mediator. A mediator should be intelligent, pious, honest and fair in order to make an impartial decision. According to my interlocutors, mediators could be distinguished from other people by those character traits and even by their appearance. »I remember a mediator walking steadily with a cane on the village streets when I was a child. You could easily tell that they were different from other people,« said a Svan woman from Kvemo Kartli. My interlocutors remember some individuals who were selected as mediators many times due to their personal qualities.

The position of women in traditional law

The specific rights of women and men were strictly regulated in Svaneti. For example, the seating arrangement at the table for men and women was transmitted through tradition. The eastern side of the hearth belonged to men, while the central and back sides were the women’s place. Luara Nizharadze suggests that such seating arrangement among the Svan reflects the inequality between the sexes (Nizharadze 1999). Women’s rights in marriage were judged even worse by researchers. Besarion Nizharadze states: »The number of women in Svaneti is less than that of men. Ten or more complaints concerning the kidnapping of women are

107 made every day. A Svan comes and demands the return of his wife. If his wife does not return voluntarily the husband will kill or injure his oppo- nent. Such cases occur every day in Svaneti. Of course, over time the Svans will understand that a woman has the right to be with whoever she likes before she is married. When the number of women will equal that of men, every man will have a bride. The administration should eliminate the shameful tradition of assigning a bride or groom to a baby in the cradle« (Nizharadze 1962: 51). The communist government tried to implement the official principle of gender equality. In 1926 a new law on marriage, family and economy took effect. It insisted on civil instead of church marriages. The regulations concerning divorce were simplified: it was sufficient to express such wish in the civil registry office. Moreover, the property status of spouses was regulated. Traditional law, however, has continued to dominate people’s lives up to the present. As one of the rare documented family disputes, Gegeshidze (1975) describes a case from Zemo Svaneti. The male claimant asked for divorce. He worked in Samegrelo (West Georgia) for years and had a second family there. His Svan relatives made him sign a promise that he would not leave his former family. Since the man could not fulfil that promise, the state court granted his claim for divorce. The case clearly shows that in Soviet times some individuals disregarded traditional norms, although traditional relations persisted in general. Svan justice did not exclude women from participation in litigation. When a case involved women the latter were also heard and might even act as mediators. Such cases were considered less important; they were treated and decided by two to three women. Female mediators could not swear an oath because they could not ›go to the icon‹ according to Svan tradition; they were not allowed to touch an icon. Only elderly unmarried or widowed women, who had not committed any wrong or had sexual intercourse, were allowed to approach the icon.

108 Fig. 17: Icon of Shaliani, a Byzantine repoussé icon, kept in the Church of St Kvirike

109 The community often turned to respected women for the resolution of family disputes, because their advice was considered to be better than that of men. An interlocutor who had relocated to Kvemo Kartli from Mu- lakhi (Zemo Svaneti) told me that cases with female mediators were very rare in Svaneti but did happen sometimes. One specific case was heard by mediators but the parties could not agree. The mediators called to a woman named Janbek: »Dear lady, please come and tell us your opinion, we cannot agree«. Janbek told them her opinion, which turned out to be acceptable for all (field material 2009). Davitiani remembers a case when a woman settled a very complicated case of blood feuding: »The reconciliation between Etseri and Pari after a blood feud was arranged by a woman named Kvari. She went to the noblemen of Pari-Murzakan along with other women and told them force- fully: ›Murzakan, as there are no men to reconcile you and Etseri, we women have come here for the last time seeking reconciliation. If you do not reconcile, then kill and drink one another’s blood until God descends from heaven.‹ Murzakan brooded over these words and consented to reconciliation« (Davitiani 1963: 694).

Oaths in Svan traditional law

The oath on an icon played a crucial role in the evidence system of Svan traditional law. It was the most important tool of defence. »When an oath was taken according to Svan law you could not even favour your own children, it was impossible. When an oath was taken on the icon, the violator of such oath was never happy again. I know of only two cases when a man broke the oath and in both cases they were dead after a year«, a middle-aged Svan living in Tbilisi told us. The use of the oath as evidence was widespread in feudal society. In Georgia and especially in Svaneti, some kinds of oath have been preserved to the present day without losing their importance. The oath was used if a person was blamed of a crime like the theft of livestock, deceit, murder, or having an affair with another man’s wife

110 (Davitiani 1939). The accused would be pointed out by the accuser or by the mediators. He would swear an oath on an icon in the presence of the accuser inside a church. The suspect held the icon and proclaims that ›he had not even as much to do with the crime he was accused of as could be lifted by the wing of a fly‹. By means of this oath the accusation was dis- proved. In less important cases the oath must not necessarily be taken inside a church. Touching the corner or the door lock of a church building was sufficient and the accused was considered innocent afterwards. The most highly respected church of Svaneti is the Church of St Kviri- ke in Kala where the icon of Shaliani is kept. According to Gabliani (1925), this icon dates back to the 12th century. As it is too sacred to be transported to other places in Svaneti, it may be used in an indirect manner for oath-taking. The icon is ›washed‹ with water, which becomes sacred through the contact with the icon. The water can then be used like an icon, as it now carries the power of the icon of Shaliani. The story how the Shaliani icon ended up in Svaneti goes as follows: »Once the king of Imereti [a region in western Georgia] called for several men from various provinces, took them to the plains of Geguti [near Kutaisi] and said: if anybody can mow the whole meadow in one day, he will receive a gift. A peasant from Mulakhi [Zemo Svaneti] called Sharshkhlan claimed he could perform the task. As the story goes, Sharshkhlan’s child found a strange stone on a pasture (mekhis pitkhni). The child threw the stone at a cow. It entered the cow on its left side and came out on the right side. The cow died. Sharshkhlan took the stone home and asked a blacksmith to insert the stone into his scythe. After this, the scythe did not require any sharpening and the mower never tired when using it. Sharshkhlan mowed the meadow in Geguti with his scythe in one day and then asked the King for the precious icon as a gift. That is why the icon is called Shaliani which means ›of Sharshkhlan‹. Sharshkhlan met a man named Ioseliani, a resident of Kala, on his way home. This Ioseliani told his wife that if Sharshkhlan visited her, she should serve him vodka and then lie with him. Ioseliani made Sharshkhlan swear that he would visit his house in Kala and go to his wife. Sharshkhlan visited

111 the man’s house. The host’s wife obeyed her husband’s wish. Ioseliani returned home at night, found Sharshkhlan with his wife and threatened to kill him. In order to save his life Sharshkhlan gave him the precious icon. Later, the Dadeshkelianis [noblemen] took the icon from Ioseliani, but he managed to recover it. The icon was placed in the Church of St Kvirike in Kala and protected by an armed guard. Svans paid 25 roubles to take a vow on this icon. The gvari of Shervashidzes were exempt from that payment, because the icon was brought to Svaneti by their ancestor Sharshkhlan. The same rule applies to the Ioselianis, because it was their merit that the icon remained in Kala« (Gabliani 1925: 115-116). It must be noted that according to traditional law both parties and the mediators as well must take the oath. The conflict parties swear to the mediators that they truthfully agree to reconcile and will not change their minds. They also take the ›oath of loyalty‹, that is, they swear to obey the mediators’ decision without delay. They also swear to be loyal to each other and that there will be no more hostility between them. The mediators take the oath of equality, which implies that they treat both parties equally and impartially during their decision-making. They furthermore swear to each other to keep their decision secret before its announcement and that the decision will be final and cannot be changed (Kekelia 1979). The ›oath of equality‹ and the ›oath of loyalty‹ are the most important kinds of oath in traditional law; they guarantee impartiality and the success of the mediation process. The oath of equality was the most important instrument in the reconciliation process. First the injured party would ask the mediators to treat both parties equally. A Svan from the village of Teliani (Kvemo Kartli) told us: »A man wanted to marry my sister. He never contacted the girl. We did not like to give the girl to him either. He did not leave us alone and finally made us swear the oath of equality: ›If you were me, would you not be offended?‹ Then the men gathered at Kvirike’s icon [Shaliani], many prominent people of Svaneti among them. My father swore that he would not give a girl away in the same situation and he would not be offended and the parties reconciled.«

112 In my opinion the oath of equality (tanastsorobis pitsi) to some extent reflects the social life of Free Svaneti. Social differentiation was less developed at that time. A hierarchy among the gvari did exist, but their privileges were only symbolic. The people of Free Svaneti fiercely defended all attributes of their equality, which was also apparent in traditional law. The oath of loyalty was equally important. The parties swore this oath to each other to facilitate the fulfilment of the decision. The oath of loyalty provided the basis for the implementation of the decision. Scholarly sources agree that in other parts of Georgia the decision of the mediatory court was facultative and its execution depended on the parties. In Svaneti, however, the obligatory nature of the decision of the mediatory court is conspicuous and was supported by the oath of loyalty. The great respect and fear of the icon among the Svans made the breaking of an oath unthinkable. Everyone believed that if they took a false oath, their family would perish and all the misfortune named in gartsam would befall them. Such conditions supported a court’s decision much more effectively than the power of a state apparatus (Davitashvili 2002a). In certain cases another kind of oath (gartsam) must be noted. Accord- ing to my field data, during reconciliation the injured party demands from the offender to present certain guarantees before swearing on the icon. A selected man announces gartsam and tells the representatives of the offending party to put themselves in the injured party’s place and act well and justly or else he would ask the icon to punish them. Kharadze describes an example of gartsam from the community of Latali: »The maker of gartsam from the injured party would address the mediators: ›Good people, good young people, I feel so bad today because of my misfortune. If you view this case impartially, then mercy shall be on you. You must put yourself in my place today or else I will call the wrath of all powers from below until Totana and from above until the end of Ushguli on you and on those who would give bread to you and bear the same family name. If you consider my case impartially, mercy shall be with you‹« (Kharadze 1939: 26).

113 Gartsam was pronounced before the oath and was considered the guarantee of the fulfilment of the actual oath. After the injured party made the mediators agree to impartiality, the latter would swear to make a correct and impartial decision. Gartsam was directed at the mediators by the offender’s party and the mediators would again swear that they would decide in an unbiased manner. A mandatory part of gartsam is the curse formula, which is directed at the participants of the oath-taking process in case they fail to fulfil the oath. The gartsam curse at an unjust mediator reads as follows: ›If you put me below yourself, may you fall from grace from now until Judgement Day!‹ or ›May the church be angry with you and your descendants. Perish them if you do not spare my property. Then may you be punished. If you do not swear the oath truthfully, may you and your descendants fall from grace and perish!« (Kharadze 1939: 27-28). In Georgia, people were so scared of swearing on an icon that gartsam was a rather widespread tool to make the offender confess. The injured party would announce that the accused would be called to the icon and the offender would be so scared that he confessed. On the basis of data from the 1980s Davitashvili states that people were very scared to even pass by an icon in western Georgia (Davitashvili 2002a). To sum up, both the injured party and the defendant received the guarantee of fair treatment by the mediators through gartsam. Women never took the oath. They could not swear an oath inside of a church (because they are not allowed to enter shrines), nor were they allowed to hear the formula. Men had to take the oath in place of women. Women could swear an oath at the doors of the church to each other with no men present (Davitiani 1939: 52-64).

Thieves-in-law

When discussing the legal situation in Georgia in Soviet times, the so- called ›thieves-in-law‹ must be mentioned. That institution played an important role in everyday life and was often regarded as an alternative legal

114 system beside state law.14 The formation of this criminal subculture with its own rules and morality dates back to the Russian Empire. In Soviet times the so-called ›thieves‹ dominated the criminal world. Some researchers consider them simply a criminal organisation; the term ›thieves- in-law‹ was introduced to distinguish them from the political prisoners and to stress that the ›thieves‹ were not a political group acting against the state (Dyshev 2008). The institution of ›thieves-in-law‹ is regarded as a phenomenon of Sovi- et times. Their informal ›thieves’ code‹ was created in the tradition of the ›Gulag criminal underworld‹, which regulated the conduct of the members of the criminal world. The thieves’ code reflected the realities of the social system of the Gulag. The title of ›thief-in-law‹ indicated that a person belonged to the highest caste of the Soviet criminal hierarchy. Other criminals of lower standing also followed the thieves’ code. From the 1960s to the 1980s, ›criminal reasoning‹ (kurduli gageba) per- meated nearly all sectors of the Soviet society. It became especially popular in the republics of the South Caucasus. The younger generation got carried away by criminal romanticism and underworld songs, folklore and jargon became fashionable. Myths about the thieves’ generosity and honour circulated in society. Thieves-in-law became reliable mediators for conflict resolution and the recovery of stolen property. Some elements of the younger generation even publicly declared their desire to pursue a criminal career. According to Russian researchers, the Caucasus provided a favourable social environment for the popularity of a ›criminal mentality‹ (Anzhirov 2010), because the Caucasians supposedly »had always been distinguished by their specific mentality: radicalism, strict conservatism, androcentrism, collectivism and traditionalism« (Soldatova 1998: 224). The thief mentality’s popularity in 1970s Georgia was caused by several factors. According to researchers, the Soviet state was unable to control the illegal capitalist relations that developed during the period. Thus the

14 See for example Anzhirov 2010, Koehler 2000, Slade 2007, 2014, Soldatova 1998. On thieves-in-law in contemporary urban Georgia see Zakharova 2015.

115 establishment of alternative mechanism for conflict resolution became necessary. During the 1970s and 1980s the thieves-in-law fulfilled these functions (Slade 2007). It must be noted that the informal norms that regulated relationships in the criminal world partially resembled norms from traditional law, such as respect for parents and elders, the ban on spying, taking property without reason, blaming someone without proof, obscene talk, stealing, and the like. As mentioned above, the resolution of conflicts with the help of thieves-in-law was common since the 1960s. The same was true among the Svans. My interlocutors recall how some local conflicts were mediated by such criminal authorities. The goal of such mediation was the termina- tion of a dispute in ways that resembled traditional mediation. People stressed, however, that the mediation according to the thieves’ law was less effective. The conflicts might still continue, whereas the decision of the traditional Svan mediators was obligatory. The Svan mediators’ greater effectiveness was explained by the fact that their decision was sustained by the parties’ oath.

Summary

The genesis of Georgian legal culture was influenced by traditional law, state, and canon law. For centuries different legal systems co-existed. Research on the medieval traditional law has shown two things: first, the law books of the ancient Georgian kingdoms document a long history of sophisticated legal regulations; second, despite political turbulences traditional law as the core element of legal codes has persisted for centuries. The same was true for Svan traditional law in Soviet times. Traditional legal norms exerted a strong influence on the life of Svans in Soviet times and, to some extent, they still do in the present. From the beginning the Soviet authorities sought to integrate the entire Georgian population in a unified Soviet legal framework. Still they could not avoid paying attention to local specificities. As a result, traditional law remained functional and continuously adapted to changing conditions. Most local

116 conflicts (especially family disputes) were resolved according to traditional law, and people rarely turned to the official authorities. The situation was different, however, with regard to criminal law, which was completely taken over by state courts. However, so-called private crimes were still regulated by traditional law. Disputes between individuals (both penal and civil) were resolved in Svaneti by mediators or mediatory courts. Crimes against society at large were tried by a community assembly. The same traditional practices prevailed among the Svans who resettled in Kvemo Kartli. New arrivals would call a communal assembly and swore on the icon that they would allow no crime or deviation from traditional norms in their village. In some villages a council of elders was established (see introduction). Soviet authorities continued to rely on some traditional institutions. Svip, the meeting place of the people in Svaneti is even present in the name of some villages. Those villages are located close to sacred places and represent the centre of certain communities. The state administration relied on this tradition to organise local administrative bodies and hold village councils in such places. The state also used the authority of the traditional leaders (makhvshi) for conflict resolution. Mediatory courts remained popular in Soviet times. People mistrusted state institutions and tried to avoid their interference in legal matters. Even those individuals, who worked for the state or the party remained faithful to the old traditions and were sometimes elected as mediators. This could only happen in secret, however, because the required oath was prohibited by state law. The involvement of state officials in people’s lives became more frequent after the eco-migration to Kvemo Kartli. The resettlement was led by Soviet officials who then felt a moral responsibility to preserve order in the region. The Soviet state collectivised the land and sought to introduce state civil and family law among the population, but with limited success. Alt- hough the social environment in Svaneti changed to some degree through the past century, old forms of family and kin relations and of land use

117 and ownership were preserved and have recently been the cause for conflict. To sum up, many traditional norms which have been reactivated recently are based on ancient historical traditions that have persisted through Soviet times.

Literature

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123

Natia Jalabadze

The Blood Feud in the Georgian Lowlands

Monday: I am sad. Tuesday: I am sad. Wednesday: Jokola came and killed my father. Thursday: I went and killed Jokola. Friday: Jokola’s son came and killed my brother. Saturday: I went and killed Jokola’s son. Sunday: I am sad … (Blood feud in Khevsureti, popular anecdote)

In recent years the blood feud has become a popular topic in Georgian media and internet forums. Certain homicide cases are rumoured to be motivated by blood feuding. Even Georgian filmmakers have become interested in the topic.1 Obviously, the topic of blood feud still has public relevance. In popular opinion a person who kills either a Khevsur or a Svan inevitably becomes the target of a blood feud, Svans never forgive the murder of a kinsman and they kill an equal number of men from the family of the offender until the scales are even. Incidents of blood feuding are indeed known mostly among Svans and Khevsurs. For this reason, people in Georgia see both groups as violent and are cautious when dealing with them.

1 For example ›Svani‹ (2007), directors: Ioseb Jachvliani, Badri Jachvliani, 95 min.

125 The blood feud has always aroused the special interest of Georgian historians and legal scholars.2 Their research, however, focused on the highlands of eastern and western Georgia. Ethnographic data from Georgian archives concern only the blood feud in the highlands, especially in Khevsureti and Svaneti. Information on the lowland regions is lacking. Georgian ethnologists agree that due to their social, economic and political specificities traces of traditional culture are more difficult to find among lowland communities. Traditional law has not been well preserved in the lowlands and has all but disappeared in the cities. However, blood feud was not only a phenomenon of the remote Geor- gian highlands; it was also practiced in the lowland regions in historic times. Incidents of blood feuding occur there sometimes even today. What actions lead to a blood feud and who practices it in the lowlands? What does the fact that a custom that is regarded as ›barbarian‹ still persists tell about society? Those questions guided my individual research within the general framework of the project on the practice of traditional law. Hence my research focused on the blood feud in Kvemo Kartli. I have investigated its traces, the reasons for its persistence, differences and similarities with regard to its practice between the lowland and highland regions, the mediation of blood feuds and the responses of the state, civil society, the church and the local people in Kvemo Kartli. Kvemo Kartli, whose population – except for some ethnic minorities – consists of the historic Georgian population and recent Georgian migrants from various regions, is well suited for such study. Here, the tradition’s development in the lowland region can be studied among Svans, Adjarians, Khevsurs, Rachvelians and Imeretians. One can investigate how the change of social environment influences the transformation or revitalisation of tradition. Most interesting for me was the perspective on the recent migrants from the highlands of Svaneti, Khevsureti, and Adja-

2 Parts of this text have been published in Jalabadze 2010, 2012, 2013, Jalabadze and Janiashvili 2015.

126 ra, who had preserved the custom of blood feuding in their home regions.

Definition and scope of the blood feud

The blood feud is generally viewed as a custom that developed in ›primitive society‹ (Kosven 1925) as a means to protect life, honour, property and kin. The practice of feuding between two kin groups has its roots in a society where the lineage is the dominant social unit. The need for revenge was caused by the lack of strong and impartial institutions that could uphold the basic rules of social behaviour. The emergence of the law of retribution was historically related to the development of a sense of equality and justice. Initially, it was manifested in the formula ›an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth‹. A lineage took revenge on another for the murder or scornful behaviour toward a kinsman. This custom saved society from anarchy, lawlessness and chaos by upholding a degree of public order, social justice and equality (Zukov 2009). The tradition of retaliatory punishment regulated social relations and deterred wrongdoers. Later the state assumed the role of the elders and the feudal rulers. Due to the state’s weakness and the corruption among its judicial bodies, however, the custom remained in force for a long time. The custom existed in various forms: some people considered it sufficient to kill one individual of the offending lineage and for others a feud was to continue until the number of casualties on both sides was equal. In early states the blood feud was not eradicated but limited in scope: the circle of people involved was narrowed and the amount of damage, the sex, age, and social position of the person to be revenged were taken into account. Moreover, a system of material compensation was introduced. Blood feuding has been practised in many places throughout the world for many centuries. From its ancient roots the custom of blood feud has survived to the present. Homicides motivated by blood feuding have been documented in Albania (Voell 2004), Montenegro (Boehm 1987),

127 Corsica (Knudsen 1985) or Sardinia (Moss 1979). It also persists in the post-Soviet states of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and especially in the North Caucasus in Adygea, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, North Ossetia and Chechnya (Zukov 2009).3 ›Vendetta‹ has also been observed among the Adjarians in Georgia (Diasamidze 1974). According to the ethnographic record, blood feuding in the Caucasus was intense at the end of the 19th and during the first quarter of the 20th century. It occurred not only within ethnic groups but also between neighbouring Caucasian peoples (Chechens, Ingushians, Dagestanis, Ka- bardians, Balkars, and Karachays). Blood feuds were especially frequent in the first years of Soviet rule. A report of the Soviet Criminal Investiga- tion Department mentioned that lynchings and killings were almost everyday occurrences. In the times of revolutionary disturbances, conflicts, and disputes between communities reached almost mass proportions (Neflyasheva 2011). In the early years of Soviet rule blood feuds were suppressed as ›harmful‹ along with many other cultural practices, even respect for elders.4 Such policies were not without impact. According to official statistics, blood feuding declined since the 1950s (Neflyasheva 2011). In the period of Stalinist repression those involved in blood feuds were sent to prison camps, often under false accusations and because of denunciation by the affected families. The migration of highlanders to the lowlands in the 1960s added a new dimension to the tradition of blood feuding. For centuries, blood feuding was one of the core issues of the state’s legal policy in Georgia. Aside from the above-mentioned measures by the Soviet state, in the 1970s a campaign against harmful traditions was start-

3 See also the general discussions by Otterbein and Otterbein 1965, Black- Michaud 1980 [1975]. 4 In 1928 the article ›On Crimes Representing the Remnants of the Tribal Sys- tem‹ was added to the Soviet Criminal Code (see Introduction, Nadareishvili and Khetsuriani 1979, Neflyasheva 2011).

128 ed. It failed however, to stop the practice of blood revenge. It remained unclear, what the reasons for blood feuding were: the lack of fairness of the judiciary, the survival of a historical relic or an ›ethnic mentality‹.

The blood feud in the Russian sources

In pre-Soviet and Soviet times, the scientific study of the blood feud in the Caucasus was closely linked with the study of traditional law. The first attempts to compile data on the traditional law of the Caucasian peoples date from the 19th century. The ›Imperial Russian Geographical Society‹ played an important role in the documentation of the peoples and cultures of the Russian Empire (see Introduction). By the end of the 19th century a substantial body of empirical material on traditional law had been accumulated. The study of traditional law in Russian Caucasiology is linked to the names of Maksim Kovalevsky (1886) and Fyodor Leonto- vich (1888). Their work played an important role in the development of Soviet legal ethnology, which has laid the groundwork for the contemporary study of traditional law. Kovalevsky studied the evolution of the concept of ›crime‹, created a classification of various types of crime, examined the kinds of judicial evidence and punishment, and also described legal proceedings. He conducted a comparative study of legal systems in the Caucasus, Western Europe and Russia, and added the field of ›comparative jurisprudence‹ to 19th-century Russian science. Other important works of Russian ethnologists date from the second half of 19th and the early 20th century,5 when they studied various aspects of the traditional law of the peoples of the Russian Empire. Legal ethnology developed in the 1920s on the basis of the collection, interpre- tation, and comparative historical study of traditional law among various Caucasian peoples.

5 See for example Chursin 1903, Dalgat 1967, Miller 1902, Teslenko 1893.

129 Although the first half of the 20th century saw a certain decline in the scholarly interest in traditional law, several ethnographic studies from that period laid the groundwork for further theoretical development. Ethnog- raphers and legal scholars of the Dagestani, North Ossetian and Regional North-Caucasian scientific research institutes studied the traditional law of the Caucasian highlanders, while the All-Union and All-Ukrainian Association of Orientalists studied the traditional law of the Soviet East (Babich 2003). At that time the ethnographer and Caucasiologist Mark Kosven began his study of the history of primitive political and legal institutions and published his monograph ›Crime and Punishment in Primitive Society‹ (1925). Of special importance is the work of Alexander Ladyzhensky, a student of Kosven, who was the first to devote a special interest in the genesis and formation of traditional law in the whole North Caucasus. His monograph ›The Adats of the North Caucasian Highlanders‹ (2003) which represents a multilateral study of traditional law, remains perhaps the only comparative study of the institutions of traditional law in the region. Aside from legal issues related to the blood feud (see below), Ladyzhen- sky studied the formation of the court system and judiciary in traditional law. As a mediator he observed the transformation of the court as a legal institution. Ladyzhensky distinguished between adat and mediatory courts as different stages in the formation of the judiciary. His monograph was written in the 1940s but published only in 2003; it has lost nothing of its relevance for today’s ethnographers, historians and legal scholars. Since the 1970s scholarly interest in this area of research has increased. Various aspects of the traditional law of different peoples were studied at the Institute of State and Law and the Institute of Ethnology and An- thropology of the Academy of Sciences of Russia.6 The study of legal ethnology became highly popular after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Contemporary studies mostly focus on the per-

6 Of special importance are here the works of Gardanov 1960, Dalgat 1967, Aleksandrov 1984, Khashaev 1965.

130 sistence of traditional law within the state system. Important ethnographic studies on the blood feud were undertaken by Pliyev (1969) on the Chechens, and Ivanova (1989) on the Caucasus and the Balkans (see also Babich 1997). Scholarly opinion on the blood feud in the Caucasus was dominated by the above-mentioned experts on traditional law. Several articles addressed various aspects of the blood feud, but many issues remain understudied, such as the reasons for its persistence. Several researchers have dealt with the genesis of blood feuding. Malinowski (1908) considered revenge as manifestation of an ›animal instinct‹ inherent to humans and animals alike. He stated: »Irritation makes the savage to instinctively attack the offender and, in revenge for an insult, beat or kill him. The repetition of individual cases of revenge gradually causes the emergence of a belief on probability and necessity of taking revenge. The fact of retaliation becomes the right and duty for revenge. Revenge – is no longer the animal instinct, but the right, sanctioned by legal norms. And as in ancient times law, morality and religion were merged, it is not only a right, but also a moral obligation and religious duty; execution of vengeance is the valiant feat, its evasion – a shameful act. This is evident from the earliest monuments on the history of different peoples« (Malinowski 1908: 8). Kosven claims that the existence of the blood feud was proven not only for primitive societies but also at higher levels of societal development at which the latter »continues to exist in the most sustainable way« (Kosven 1925: 19). When describing the blood feud among the Osse- tians, Kabardins, Mountain Tatars and Georgians, Kovalevsky speaks of retaliatory killing and the responsibility of the victim’s relatives who are considered dishonoured unless the insult is ›washed off by blood‹ (Kovalevsky 1886). Leontovich considered blood feuding as a kind of restraining factor. He regards the blood feud as the only means to »curb the wild passion for stabbing people and being ready for anything« (Leontovich in Zukov 2009: 36). In his monograph, Ladyzhensky (2003) pays special attention to the blood feud. When studying the customs of the ›tribal system‹, he focused

131 on the causes for retaliation in the initial conflict. Concerning the genesis of the blood feud he notes that it initially arose instinctively as a desire to cover one’s losses and intimidate the enemy. The blood feud emerged from a struggle between lineages and aimed not only at retaliation but also at terror. Ladyzhensky refers to the ›principle of equivalence‹ popular among scholars of the 19th (Pashukanis 1924) and the first half of the 20th century (Günther 1931). He argues that this principle does not work for the North Caucasian peoples: »The study of adat of the Caucasian highlanders gave no reason to think that all criminal acts arose from the idea of ›an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth‹, which appeared, like all legal concepts, in an era of turmoil, and, like every law, is based on the idea of equivalent exchange. Among the mountaineers of the North Cau- casus the blood feud initially never ended with the retaliatory killing but continued from generation to generation until peace was made between the warring clans« (Ladyshenskij 2003: 15-16). Later, under the influence of sharia, the Russian judicial system limited blood feuding according to the new principle of ›blood cannot be washed off by blood‹, which meant that no retaliation was required for a murder committed for revenge. However, at the beginning there stood the rule that ›the offender and the injured were equal at the meeting‹, that is, that revenge was a response among equals. It continued to infinity. In contrast to the retaliatory killing, in cases of blood feuding the offender is guided not so much by a feeling of personal enmity towards his victim but by the desire to follow the custom in order not to bring shame upon himself and his kin: »Ladyzhensky insisted that punishment among primitive peoples was not at all based on the principle of equivalence. They sought a general protection and the satisfaction of their sense of revenge« (Babich 2003: 39). As his book documents, revenge between lineages became a necessity and was closely intertwined with social retribution. Ladyzhensky attempts to identify all stages in the development of the institution of the blood feud in North Caucasian society and its gradual replacement by the payment of blood money and legal punishment.

132

Fig. 18: Ushguli, Svaneti, in 2009.

133

In contemporary scholarly discourse the theory of equivalence has been further developed by Yuri Semenov (1997) who claims that the basis for blood feuding was the principle of retributive justice, that is, the ›lex talionis‹.

The blood feud in Georgian sources

In Soviet times the blood feud was studied by some Georgian historians and legal scholars (Javakhishvili 1919, Dolidze 1960, Kekelia 1988). They studied the origin of legal customs their relationship with contemporary practice and legal pluralism. According to the historian Ivane Javakhish- vili’s study ›The History of Georgian Law‹ (Javakhishvili 1984)1984), homicide was always considered a very serious crime, but criminal law did not always consider each act of killing a crime. Killing in war, for example, is not considered a crime but an honourable deed whereas political murder is severely punished. Similarly, in historic times, the killing of a kinsman was considered an unforgivable sin, whereas killing someone from another lineage was seen as a show of courage. Concerning the Georgian term mesiskhleoba (›responsibility for blood‹) for blood vengeance Javakhishvili notes its occurrence in Georgian sources since ancient times. It is not used in a direct sense but it refers to the payment of blood money in terms of property as compensation for murder or injury. The terms siskhlis dzieba or siskhlis patroni (both ›owner of blood‹) were once used in a direct sense, because law was then true ›blood law‹ based on the idea of lineage vengeance. Thus blood in its direct sense meant revenge by blood – killing either the perpetrator or some of his relatives, the ›lex talionis‹ per se – ›an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth‹ (Javakhishvili 1919). For many years, especially in Soviet times, the blood feud was almost a forbidden topic in Georgian ethnology. Although some of its aspects were objects of scientific and public discourse, only few ethnologists (Kharadze 1939, 1947, Makalatia 1935 [1933]) studied it, particularly in

134 connection with traditional law. Their studies were based mainly on ethnographic data from Khevsureti and Svaneti, where the practice of blood feuding was better preserved. Theoretical reflections were based on the rich ethnographic material collected during the second half of the 19th and the early 20th century (Bakradze 1864, Gabliani 1925, Khizanashvili 1982, Nizharadze 1962, Ochiauri 1941, 1954). A unique collection of – still unedited – ethnographic material on the blood feud is kept in the archives of the Institute of History and Ethnology in Tbilisi. Rusudan Kharadze (1947) was the first Georgian ethnologist to study the blood feud and related legal norms in Khevsureti. She focused on various kinds of punishment, compensation, and reconciliation. She noted that in the traditional legal system of the highland communities the various kinds of penalties were determined by the region’s economic conditions. Mikhako Kekelia (1990) was one of the first legal ethnologist to investigate the reasons for the persistence of blood feuding, He focused on the motives of blood feuding and asked how it could be eliminated. Despite the ideological pressure of the time his considerations are important. On the basis of historical and ethnographic data collected over twenty years he identified several objective and subjective causes that either promoted the persistence of the blood feud or contributed to its disappearance. As the main reason for the persistence of the blood feud Kekelia (1990) identified the blurry concept of the phenomenon itself. The blood feud had never been scientifically studied in pre-Soviet Georgia, only some works of a descriptive character were published. He argued for the study of the Georgians’ ›ethnic psychology‹, since the vitality of blood feuding could be explained by the ›mental specificities‹ of those who practiced it. Kekelia pointed to parent-child and sibling relationships which are almost objects of worship in Georgia. Their study could provide important clues to the question of the blood feud’s persistence. Of equal importance was the public opinion regarding blood feuding as a courageous and honourable act, which was a common source of poetic

135 inspiration and is amply manifested in the folklore of the Georgian highlanders. Kekelia (1990) also focused on the influence of the geographic environment on people’s mentality. He pointed to the necessity of considering the topographic specificities of those regions where the blood feud had been practiced. The features of the mountains and the lowlands were reflected in the character of their inhabitants, he claimed, and by exten- sion affected their cultural traditions, cultural development, and level of education. The mountaineer was allegedly more proud, mentally stable and traditional. Kekelia also addressed the economic side of those factors that promoted the blood feud’s persistence. The healthy and able-bodied individual was highly regarded in the mountain communities and for that reason became the target of revenge rather than women, children, or old and sick individuals. The loss of a family’s bread-winner meant the loss of the means of subsistence which then provoked the aspiration for revenge. For this reason traditional law required the payment of a substantial amount of blood money. Kekelia (1990) noticed that in Soviet times the practice of blood feuding was conditioned by the period’s specific historical circumstances. The weakness of legal bureaucracy and sentences that were considered too weak motivated the injured party to take revenge into their own hands. Kekelia considered the highest form of punishment – ›the sentence of execution‹ – as a kind of public revenge that sustained the practice of blood feuding. Kekelia makes interesting observations on the transformation of certain norms and the appearance of new trends in the practice of blood feuding (1990). Thus he notes a tendency in the community of Latali in Svaneti to refuse to accept blood money and end a feud with the ›oath of equality‹ (tanastsorobis pitsi, see the chapter by Janiashvili). The avenging party is called mutsvri khaka in Svaneti and much attention was paid to what kind of mutsvri khaka the victim had. Aside from specific individuals there were

136 families who were considered difficult to persuade to agree to reconciliation. This factor also contributed to the custom’s viability. In the 1990s I studied blood feuding in the east Georgian mountain communities of Pshavi and Khevsureti (Jalabadze 1990, 2004, 2006). I observed the custom’s interrelationship with the system of values and its impact on public life. A comprehensive anthropological study of the blood feud in Georgia has never been undertaken, however, nor has it ever been studied among the lowland population.

The blood feud in the Georgian highlands

As mentioned above, the blood feud has persisted for a long time among the Georgian highlanders and research on the topic was conducted mostly in the highland regions of eastern and western Georgia. For this reason, any study of the blood feud in the lowlands must be preceded by a review of the phenomenon in the mountain communities. Since the migrant population of Kvemo Kartli is composed mostly of Svan, Adjarian and Khevsur highlanders, my research has focused especially on them. As the mountain communities were not strongly integrated into state administrative structures in Tsarist and even early Soviet times, the local people had to regulate their affairs among themselves. Frequent enemy attacks posed a threat not only of physical destruction but also to national self-determination and liberty. For this reason the highlanders were feared and respected throughout Georgia for their bellicosity and internal unity. In the mountain communities conflicts were unavoidable since individuals and groups constantly fought for their existence. Infringe- ments upon established rules and traditional behavioural norms easily triggered conflicts between community members that frequently ended in homicide. As the blood feud was an important aspect of traditional norms that had been in force among the highlanders for centuries, homicide was almost always (with very rare exceptions) followed by retaliation. Even when started by a minor incident, it often developed into a vicious cycle of further killings. In Svaneti and Khevsureti no distinction was

137 made between murder and manslaughter: »Accidental and purposeful killings were considered the same« (Nizharadze 1962: 162). The initial killing (the first homicide not motivated by the feud) was considered evil, but the retaliatory homicides that followed were considered normal. In Svaneti blood feuding could occur between families, lineages, communities, and villages. The male representatives of a victim’s family were obliged to take revenge either on the perpetrator himself or a male relative. The highlanders used to say that ›blood cannot be washed off by water; it must be washed off by blood‹. Thus an endless cycle of blood feuding was started that caused destruction among the scanty population of the mountain communities if it could not be stopped. Initially the blood feud concerned the whole lineage; at a later time, the circle was narrowed to the immediate families of the perpetrator and the victim. The responsibility to take revenge usually fell on the closest male relative of the victim, that is, his father, brother or son, but other members of the family might also become involved. Revenge was directed against the perpetrator himself or his father, brother, son, and then against other relatives. Vengeance on old men, the sick, women and children was considered dishonourable. Although he was bound by obligation to kill, the retaliator also aimed for glory. In the highlanders’ social imaginary the blood feud was an occasion when a man could realise the community’s highest moral values – bravery and courage. Since blood feuding required a man to overcome difficulties and obstacles, it offered him an opportunity to demonstrate those virtues. The situation among the eastern Georgian highlanders of Khevsureti was the same. According to Khizanashvili, in Khevsureti the blood feud was a social obligation that could not be disregarded. He notes that »in Khevsureti a man who has not taken revenge by blood feuding is disgraced before his community and the spirit of the murdered man becomes angry in the netherworld; it can harm members of his family until they have taken up the blood feud. Therefore the Khevsurs seek to kill the most eminent and famous man of the hostile family which is regarded as a glorious act« (Khizanashvili 1982: 250).

138 Fig. 19: Mutso, Khevsureti, in 2010.

When a man was killed, it was the duty of his kin to avenge him. While that violent act was inspired by tradition, it was also strongly tied to the notion of honour. According to Gabliani (1925), the killing of a Svan is an insult to his whole lineage and his relatives must stay out of the public eye until they have washed off the shame. Someone might be called ›the son of a man that has not been avenged‹, which is a great insult. When the son has been unable to take revenge, the obligation passes to the grandson and thus may be passed on for generations. When a wife was pregnant at the time of her husband’s killing, her son may even ›take blood‹ for his murdered father when he was grown up (Gabliani 1925). As noted by Gabliani, the intensity of feuding in Svaneti gave a new connotation to the word ›Svan‹, which in some regions became identified

139 with backwardness, quaintness, strong character, retaliation, and blood feud. Gabliani notes: »The fanaticism of retaliation in Svaneti reached such proportions that I myself was an eyewitness when one Svan was hunting another for revenge because the mule of that man’s father kicked his grandfather forty years ago« (Gabliani 1925: 134-135). Blood feuding was also obligatory in Adjara. According to Sakhokia, »retaliation and blood feuds have existed in Adjara for a long time. If an Adjarian kills a man (sometimes even accidentally) he is well aware that he will take revenge upon for it« (Sakhokia 1950: 159). In Adjara the blood feud was carried out by the whole nogro, the patronymic family. Over time, however, the disintegration of the nogro led to the differentiation of the retaliatory obligations. Blood avenge became the responsibility not of the whole nogro but of a close relative of the victim. If there was none the responsibility passed to a relative of the next descent group (Mgeladze 1984).

The course of blood feuds

The blood feud among the Georgian highlanders had three stages: killing, vengeance and reconciliation. Each of these stages encompassed different legal and behavioural norms and restrictions for both sides. They differed to a certain degree across regions and communities. In Khevsureti, the killing of a family member or relative did not cause a blood feud. Only if a man killed his wife, compensation was given to her father’s family. If a Svan killed a relative accidentally, he would carry three little stones under his armpit for three years as a compensation for his sin (Gabliani 1925). When a person was killed, somebody from the offended family had to take the responsibility of revenge. The Georgian highlanders had a tradition of firing a gun in token of revenge. In Khevsureti, for example, first a gun was fired by the deceased’s brother or, when there was no brother, by his father or some other relative who had been handed the dead man’s gun.

140 A similar custom was known in Svaneti: at the funeral a close relative of the deceased stood next to the coffin bare-headed; after the burial he fired a gun, which meant that he took upon himself the obligation of blood revenge (Kharadze 1939). When the killing had occurred in the same village, the family involved in a blood feud moved to another area. According to 19th century data on Khevsureti, the perpetrator had to leave the village and move to another place with his family and kin. Nobody must look after his abandoned house or farmstead. Sometimes the aggrieved family took possession of the perpetrator’s belongings. This practice was called ›loss of blood‹ (siskhlis dakargva). It means that until blood has been shed in revenge, the aggrieved family took possession of the perpetrator’s house (Ochiauri 1954). The killer had no right to reconcile with the aggrieved family for at least one year. During this period he was forbidden to return to his village and had to let his hair and beard grow. He had to behave modestly all the time, because defiant behaviour on his part might incur various fines or irritate the offended party and interfere with the reconciliation process. The relocation of the killer’s family after the incident was also typical for other Georgian highlanders. Although mediators were trying to reconcile the parties from the beginning, the usual duration of the procedure made migration unavoidable. The killer’s family sometimes changed their name and stayed in their new home, especially when the reconciliation failed. In Adjara several factors may have caused a changing of lineages (nogro) in connection with a blood feud. The perpetrator possibly placed himself under the protection of another lineage and even took the latter’s name. This made them so-called, ›brothers through land‹ (mitsit modzme) or ›cousins through land‹ (mitsit bidzashvili). In Khevsureti this custom is called ›unification by blood and cauldron‹ (khar-kvabit sheyra) or ›oath with a bull‹ (kharit gapitsva). By shifting his belonging to another lineage the perpetrator could be absolved of his responsibilities.

141 Many families in Svaneti have changed their names because of a blood feud. The community provided free plots of land for such migrant families. When the feuding parties were reconciled, the perpetrator’s family could return to their village of origin but sometimes stayed with the new community. Some customs of avoiding bloodshed have been described in case the aggrieved family did not want the feud to continue. One such custom that was observed in Khevsureti is called ›to sit in the barn‹ (sabdzelshi shajdoma). If the aggrieved party did not want to shed further blood, it would order the perpetrator to ›sit in the barn‹. The latter stayed there for three to five years according to the opposing party’s demand and must not come out except at midnight. He let his hair and beard grow and stayed in darkness day and night. Only some members of his family were allowed to bring him food. While he was staying in the barn, the members of his family were allowed to walk freely in the village, they just must not come close to the aggrieved party (Ochiauri 1954). This custom apparently symbolises death in terms of staying in the dark, not seeing the light and having no contact with people. Another way avoiding bloodshed in Khevsureti was to take possession of the perpetrator’s house as described above. In Svaneti there were rules for temporarily suspending vengeance: when the perpetrator managed to enter the victim’s house and touch the hearth or the chain that was hanging over the hearth as a sign of begging for mercy, the avenging party must stop hunting him. The same was true when he entered a church or churchyard (Nizharadze 1962). This custom illustrates the sacredness of the hearth, which is documented in religious rituals all over Georgia. As mentioned above, the perpetrator and his family were obliged to behave humbly and not visit places where the aggrieved party was likely to be present. In Khevsureti the families were believed to be even with each other at the end of a feud and only that family who was responsible for the final killing had to pay the so-called fine for ›the final murder‹ (saukenmamkvdro). The idea of obligation in terms of blood feuding mani-

142 fests itself in various aspects of Svan tradition: when a Svan has taken revenge, he goes to the victim’s grave, thrusts a stick into the ground and shouts: ›I have taken revenge!‹ Afterwards the whole lineage gathers to celebrate (Gabliani 1925). Through time the tradition of the blood feud was replaced by the payment of blood money, that is, a compensation paid by those responsible for a wrongful death. This payment must be made to the victim’s kin and in case it was either not offered or refused by the aggrieved party, a blood feud would ensue. However, since blood feuding was considered an honourable act in the Georgian highlands and the acceptance of blood money as shameful, the aggrieved family’s consent was difficult to achieve. In the various regions of Georgia the nature of the blood money was determined by the local economy. In Khevsureti, where cattle-breeding prevailed, blood money was paid with cattle. In Svaneti, where agriculture and cattle-breeding were equally important, the main form of blood money was a plot of land, although for some individuals of the kin group it was measured in cattle (Kharadze 1947). In Svaneti the amount of blood money for a woman was half of that for a man. The same distinction was made across the eastern Georgian highlands. In Khevsureti the blood money for a man was sixty cows and thirty cows for a woman. The figure was reduced over time but the relation remained the same. Traditional law apparently made a distinction by gender rather than by social status. Later, blood money was paid in cash in both Svaneti and Khevsureti. Although ›not taking blood‹ was considered dishonourable among the Georgian highlanders, the elders were required to start negotiations over reconciliation with the aggrieved family immediately. Reconciliation is an important and complex aspect of the blood feud. As it concerns two lineages, both parties were involved in the process. Two aspects had to be considered, namely, the material compensation given by the perpetrator to the victim’s kin and the moral compensation that implied the constant expression of deference and subservience towards the aggrieved family. Besides the payment of blood money, reconciliation also meant payment of a compulsory fine.

143 Fig. 20: Shatili, Khevsureti, in 2010.

Reconciliation was arranged with the aid of mediators – morval in Svan, bche in Khevsureti, sakmis katsebi in Adjara. They were chosen by the perpetrator’s relatives to start negotiations with the victim’s family. When the opposing parties could not agree on the selection of mediators, intermediaries – katsshuakatsi (Khevsureti), motsikuli (Svaneti) – had to intercede. The number of mediators increased with the severity of the crime. In the case of homicide, their number ranged from twelve to twenty-four in Svaneti (Gabliani 1925). In Khevsureti, the usual number of mediators (three to six) was increased substantially; in Adjara it was three to six or even more. Unlike in Svaneti and Khevsureti, however, in Adjaria mediators were family elders and each mediator was remunerated for his job.

144 There was no special site for negotiations. In Khevsureti, for example, the mediators selected a place that was equidistant from the families of perpetrator and the victim. Sometimes mediation took place at the scene of the crime. Negotiations could go on for years. The aggrieved side might refuse to accept the blood money and gaining its consent could prove very difficult. In Svaneti some lineages, like the Naveriani, were known to refuse blood money and reconciliation. When a Naverieni was killed, the perpetrator’s lineage had to leave the region immediately. Apparently, a meeting of the accused and the plaintiff was not intended by Georgian traditional law and each was questioned separately. Media- tors made their decision without hearing witnesses. Their decision was announced to the conflict parties either by the mediators themselves or through intermediaries. If necessary, the mediators demanded additional procedures like the taking of an oath to prove the innocence of the accused party. In Svaneti tradition demanded that after the mediators announced their verdict, one of them buried a small stone (bacha lilzheni). This act equalled a written verdict and also meant that until the sentence was officially announced it must remain confidential; otherwise the dissat- isfied party might not agree to it (Nizharadze 1962). In late 19th- and early 20th-century Svaneti a big banquet (supra) was organised at the perpetrator’s house after the victim’s relatives had agreed to reconciliation, where all relatives from both lineages were present. Only the murderer, his brothers and close relatives stayed in hiding. Be- fore the banquet a relative of the victim went into the house of the perpetrator, took away the hearth chain and poured water over the fire. This was a symbolic imitation of the family’s ruin (Kharadze 1939). Three toasts must be drunk at the supra – first to the mediators, second to the Archangel Michael and third to St George. The killer and his relatives had no right to join the supra. After the toasts were drunk, he entered on his knees with his little fingers crossed as a sign of obedience. The men from both sides would exchange their drinking vessels and were then consid-

145 ered reconciled. After reconciliation the former enemies became relatives or adopted brothers (Kharadze 1939). When a homicide occurred in Khevsureti, mediators began negotiations with the injured party. In order to get the permission for mediation they had to offer a sheep as sacrifice to the murdered man’s family on behalf of the perpetrator. Another sheep was to be killed for the victim before his burial. If the mediators were late, they had to pay a fine of five cows. The family of the victim’s mother also received some compensation from the perpetrator’s family. The day for that ceremony was fixed when the injured party agreed on the mediation process. This happened at a shrine. For this purpose beer was prepared. The ceremony was led by the priests of the shrine (khutsesi). The mediators, the families’ representatives, the elders and the villagers gathered at the shrine – the perpetrator’s family on one bended knee, the others standing. A bull was sacrificed for the aggrieved family. The khutsesi and the people blessed both families. The men of the aggrieved family made the men of the opposite party rise and sit on chairs. Then they handed them bowls with beer. Both parties promised to one another that they would be enemies no more. Then they went to the dead man’s house, conducted certain rituals and returned to the shrine. The ritual was repeated and then the compensation payment was fixed. During reconciliation the mediators tied a bundle of hay in a knot. The victim’s patron took it in his hands and said: »Hear me and let God hear me, too. I am now tying the knot, I forgive him, [he put the knot on the ground] let all mediators hear me, I am tying a knot with this man; if I kill him now, let him kill me, if I beat him, let him beat me, if I sacrifice, let him sacrifice, only if he dares to gossip about my dead relatives, I will start things again. Here I put my foot on the knot« (Kharadze 1947). In this old formula of the oath the idea of retributional justice at the base of the blood feud is clearly expressed: »If I kill him – let him kill me, if I beat him – let him beat me, if I sacrifice – let him sacrifice« (Semyenov 1997: 16).

146 In Adjara, the reconciliation process was led by elders. One of them put a rope around the perpetrator’s neck and ordered him to walk around the victim’s house three times. This act symbolised a sacrifice for the victim. In another version the perpetrator was taken to the victim’s family with a rope around his neck. The offender bowed his head before the dead man’s kin and fell on his knees. The aggrieved man kicked and insulted him. Then reconciliation was possible. When the offended party refused reconciliation, the elders took the perpetrator’s close male relatives with ropes around their necks to the offended family without warning (Shamiladze 1961). This made them agree to reconciliation. The kneeling of the offender’s party during the reconciliation process was typical for traditional legal practices across the Georgian highlands. In Khevi, for example, the reconciliation ceremony was held at the victim’s grave. The representatives of both families gathered at the grave site and the perpetrator’s relatives fell on their knees. Sometimes they stayed there for 24 hours, until reconciliation was agreed upon. After an agreement was reached, the proceedings were continued in the aggrieved party’s house. The final ceremony represented the perpetrator’s adoption by the victim’s mother. The perpetrator put his mouth to her breast three times (Makalatia 1934). The perpetrator’s adoption by the victim’s mother is documented for various peoples of the Caucasus (Ossetians, Abkhazians, North Cauca- sian peoples) and also among the Adjarians, but only in stories. Those stories tell how a perpetrator came to the aggrieved family and obligated the victims’ mother to let him put his mouth to her breast; the victim’s brothers, who were not at home at the time, were thus forced to agree to reconciliation (Mgeladze 1984). Churches and shrines (Khevsureti) played an important role in the reconciliation process of blood feuds. In the highland communities of Georgia, where religion affected all spheres of social life, religion and law were generally inseparable. The term rjuli is used for both religion and law. Therefore the final act of reconciliation took place at a sacred site.

147 The opposed parties swore an oath upon the icon which was a firm guarantee that peace would be made. The institution of oath was a widespread element of traditional legal practice. Neither reconciliation nor the payment of blood money happened without taking an oath as a guarantee for an impartial decision (Kekelia 1988). During a blood feud oaths were taken mostly on the victim’s grave and occasionally in Svaneti in a church or at a shrine. The oath was taken by the perpetrator’s relatives or neighbours. There also were so-called nominated oath-takers (dasakhelebuli mopitsari) who were selected among strangers (not relatives) for the purpose. Sometimes the difficulty of telling the truth required the involvement of neutral individuals. They should be innocent, principled and have no ties with the perpetrator. The number of oath-takers depended on the seriousness of the case. In Khevsureti, for example, an oath concerning the perpetrator’s identity must be taken on the victim’s grave. Eight oath-takers (mostly relatives) were required to prove the accused’s innocence. In Khevsureti a mediator thrust a thorn into each oath-taker’s earlobe so that blood drib- bled on the grave. Simultaneously the aggrieved family’s representative said that if they swore a false oath the perpetrator would be the victim’s slave in the netherworld (Khizanashvili 1982). The norms and rules concerning the blood feud have changed through time. The circle of those who are bound by revenge has narrowed to the perpetrator’s direct male relatives, reconciliation has become the best way out in most cases, compensation payment has changed from cattle and land to money and the formerly ostentatious celebrations have become more moderate.

The blood feud in the lowlands

As mentioned in the introduction, the region of Kvemo Kartli is charac- terized by a high degree of ethnic and religious diversity. Aside from Georgians – mostly migrants from Imereti, Lechkhumi, Svaneti, Khevsureti, Ratcha and Adjara – Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Greeks and

148 others live there. Except for the municipalities of Tetritskaro and Gar- dabani, however, Georgians represent the second largest population after Azerbaijanis in Kvemo Kartli. The Georgian migrant groups from the highlands have mostly settled in close proximity to each other and have no intensive contacts with any other group. There were several migration waves from the highlands throughout the 20th century, mostly caused by natural disasters that occurred in Imereti, Ratcha, Svaneti and Adjara between the 1950s and the 1990s. As a result, Georgian highlanders had to adapt to a different climatic-geographical and social environment. The earlier migrants (Georgians from Imereti, Lechkhumi, Khevsureti and Ratcha) are now better adapted to the multi-ethnic and multicultural environment. Relations between the various national minority groups and the later Georgian migrants (from Adjara and Svaneti) are often difficult. Integra- tion was more complicated because of the political and social upheaval caused by the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In those areas where different ethnic groups live side by side the likelihood of confrontation is higher. The appearance of Georgians in the region was seen by the local non-Georgian population as a strategy of Georgian nationalist policy to increase the Georgian population (see also the chapter by Voell). The locals were aware of their advantages, as they were in the majority and enjoyed certain privileges. They were hostile towards the Georgian migrants who might infringe upon their privileges. Such conflict of interests caused friction between the two populations. Initially, those frictions were framed in ethnic terms. Generally, the conflict was not only the result of ethnic competition but also of a lack of communication (Melikishvili 2011). The non-Georgian population saw the Svans mainly as criminals. Me- dea Turashvili and Tom Trier suggest that this perception was related to the breakdown of the Soviet administration at that time: »With the fall of the Soviet Union and the ensuing chaos and absence of rule of law, the crime rate skyrocketed all over the former Soviet Union. In Kvemo Kartli, where the influx of Svans approximately coincided with the de-

149 mise of Soviet power, the local population perceived that the crime rate was increasing because of the arrival of the Svans« (Trier and Turashvili 2007: 41). With this in mind I planned to observe the practice of blood feuding not only within and between the Georgian groups but also between the Georgians and other ethnic groups. The violent conflicts between the Svans and other ethnic groups were perceived by the former in terms of something like a feud. Fieldwork was not always easy. My interlocutors, especially Svans, were reluctant to speak to a stranger about that delicate issue. They avoided mentioning present-day cases but rather talked about historic incidents. Often even members of the same family told different stories about the same case. The father, for example, denied and the mother confirmed the existence of the blood feud among the Svans. Local officials denied the existence of blood feuding completely. Information was comparatively easier to obtain from older interlocutors. Some interlocutors were cautious when asked and reluctant to give interviews, especially when these were recorded. Apparently, the Georgian women, even of the younger generation, have sufficient knowledge of the topic. During my field research it became clear to me that the blood feud continued to be a relevant issue among the Svan and Khevsur migrants. In general, cases of blood feud are rare in the lowland region; among the Svans they happen more often than among the Khevsurs. No other migrant group practices it. When a killing occurs, it occasionally provokes some retaliatory action, which is not, however, inspired by the custom of blood feud. Killings that involved Georgian migrants and other ethnic groups happened in all municipalities of Kvemo Kartli, but mostly between Azerbai- janis and Svans in Marneuli, Gardabani, Bolnisi and Dmanisi and among Armenians and Adjarians in Tsalka. My research has yielded information about bloody confrontations of Svans and locals (Azerbaijanis, Armeni- ans, and other Georgians) at the time of the Svans’ arrival in Kvemo Kartli in the early 1990s. My interlocutors told about a confrontation

150 between groups of Azerbaijanis and Svans in the villages of Tamarisi (municipality of Gardabani), Bolnisi, Lemshvaniera (Marneuli) and Tsal- ka, between Adjarians and Armenians in Kvemo Kharaba, and between Svans and Armenians in Tsalka. My Svan interlocutors from Gardabani admit that there were some conflicts between Azerbaijanis and Svans. In Gardabani a Svan was killed by an Azerbaijani. The Svans killed the perpetrator and one of his relatives: »One Azerbaijani man killed a Svan from Lemshvaniera. The Svans killed not only the murderer but also his protector. The Azerbaijanis were afraid and did not retaliate« (field material). None of the murder cases between Svan and non-Svan individuals es- calated to a blood feud, although retaliatory action was taken. The Svans interpret the situation as follows: »The Azerbaijanis also practiced blood feud in ancient times. They rarely practice it now. They are afraid of the Svans. They know that the Svans will never let the Azerbaijanis dominate them« (field material). Svans from Dmanisi told me about the change of situation in the region after their arrival. The Azerbaijanis had been privileged because of their status as ethnic majority: »They oppressed the local Georgian population, they kidnapped Georgian women, the local Georgians were treated like slaves; but after the Svan’s arrival they dared no longer to act like masters. A Svan will kill an Azerbaijani not only in case of murder but even for an insult. Azerbaijanis are clever. They are not as hot-tempered as we are. We want to do everything quickly. Azerbaijanis are cunning« (field material). Kvemo Kartli has seen many clashes between ethnic groups, which illustrates the tense relations among the local groups like Azerbaijanis, Armenians and Greeks, but also with the Svan newcomers. In 2004 a football match in the village of Kvemo Kharaba (municipality of Tsalka) between Adjarian children and Armenians from the village of Kizilkilisa turned into a brawl that left ten people injured. On December 3 of 2004 about 300 Azerbaijani inhabitants of the village of Kutliari in the municipality of Marneuli attacked the Georgian

151 owner of a horse farm and his guards. The farmer leases the biggest part of the village’s land and the local Azerbaijanis demanded the redistribu- tion of 320 hectares. In the attack an old Azerbaijani woman was killed and several people were injured (Trier and Turashvili 2007). In 2006 a brawl between drunken groups of Svans and Armenians outside a restaurant in Tsalka turned into a knife-fight. A 24-year-old Arme- nian was stabbed to death and another 25-year-old man wounded. The police arrested some Svans as murder suspects. The local Armenians held a protest rally outside the Tsalka police station and demanded the lynch- ing of the suspects. A Svan interlocutor told me: »About five years ago, there was an incident between Svans and Azerbaijanis in the village of Lemshvaniera. The Svans from the village employed some young Azerbaijani herders who stayed near the village. One day a bad young Svan from Tskaltubo (western Georgia) arrived in Lemshvaniera. One day he took some schoolboys with him and went to the herders. He borrowed a mobile phone from one of the Azerbaijani boys but did not return it. They started to quarrel and one of the Svan boys shot the herder with a gun. All the Azerbaijanis from the nearby villages united and wanted to attack the killer’s family. However, they encountered three boys and did not know exactly which one of them was the killer. The police arrived in time and the Azerbaija- nis retreated. Shavlokhashvili was the police chief at that time and he said, ›I will not let Azerbaijanis kill a Georgian‹. A special police unit was called in to diffuse the tension« (field material). My interlocutors told me about a homicide in Dmanisi, when an Azer- baijani man ran a Svan over with his car, but no retaliation ensued. The two cases demonstrate that killings between members of Georgian and non-Georgian groups do not provoke a blood feud. Retaliatory action may be taken, but it does not trigger a feud. The cases are handled by the legal institutions. The Svans admit that blood feuding was practiced but deny its occurrence in the lowlands when it comes to conflicts between the Svans and other ethnic groups.

152 Aside from interethnic conflicts there were also clashes between local and migrant Georgians, mostly in the early years of resettlement. A serious incident between Svans and local Georgians occurred in the village of Gantiadi in the municipality of Dmanisi in 1992. Seven Svan families had arrived in the municipality in 1991 but had to leave again soon due to a terrible accident. In 1992 a group of drunken Svan youths killed a local Georgian youth and the villagers took revenge by killing an innocent Svan migrant. As quickly as possible the Svan migrants of the village either abandoned their houses (which were later occupied by local families) or exchanged houses in order to get away from the village (Trier and Turashvili 2007). A resident of Dmanisi told us about a Svan who was run over by a car. The perpetrator was a local resident of the village of Javakhi. The Svans caught the man and he was stoned to death by the whole village; the incident did not develop into a blood feud, however. Whereas homicide between different ethnic groups never causes a blood feud, in cases that involve local Georgians it is likely to do so; at least it is followed by some retaliatory act. The local Georgian population prefers to appeal to the law enforcement agencies, which Svans and Khevsurs have practically never done. They try to settle the issue by themselves according to their ›old tradition‹ with the aid of elders. As a Svan interlocutor said: »A Svan would never go to the police to report a crime. Svans handle the case as they did in old times. Only when the matter becomes extremely complicated they may turn to the state« (field notes). I was able to identify only one ›classical‹ case of blood feud among the Khevsurs (village of Gamarjveba, municipality of Gardabani) that occurred some years ago. The Khevsurs had migrated from the Khevsureti highland communities to the municipality of Gardabani in Kvemo Kartli in Stalin’s time. A male interlocutor told me: »In 1993 one of our villagers [family O.] had a blood feud with the son of a man he killed several years ago. In Khevsureti murder calls for blood revenge. When the victim’s son was grown up he decided to take revenge, so he killed this man. The lat-

153 ter had two sons – one of them hanged himself soon after his father’s death and the other lost his mind and was put in the hospital« (field material). Later in Tbilisi I learned further details about this case from relatives of O.: in the 1960s two men grazed their sheep in the Arkhoti Gorge in Khevsureti and decided to go hunting. It was night and they lay in wait close to the border of Ingushetia. When they saw something moving, they thought it was a bear and a relative of O. shot it. As it turned out the strange object was a man from the neighbouring village of Amgha who had planned to steal a sheep. He was covered with a coat and in the dark it was impossible to see that it was a man. Even if the killing was accidental O.’s relative became the target of a blood feud. He left his village and moved to Kvemo Kartli. At that time the victim’s children were still small. As a matter of fact, the perpetrator had been banned from his lineage, because he had married his cousin, which was strictly forbidden. For this reason his male relatives could not be held responsible for the killing. About 25 years later, when the victim’s son was grown up, he took revenge on his father’s killer. After the perpetrator from the family O. had been killed, his son repeatedly asked his relatives to help him retaliate. My field material shows that the blood feud is practiced among the Svans mostly in cases that involve other Svans. Feuds that had started in Svaneti were continued in the lowlands. A Svan migrant told me about a blood feud in the municipality of Dmanisi: »A Svan man killed another Svan. He was arrested. The aggrieved party first burned down his house and then killed his innocent cousin. Those people are now in the prison, but imprisonment means nothing. They are still responsible for his blood. I can’t predict what will happen, but as there are an equal number of deaths on both sides, negotiations for reconciliation could start. During those negotiations everything will be taken into consideration, including the burning of his house« (field material). Another Svan told me about a feud in which a woman took the blame for killing a man in order to protect the real perpetrator and his male relatives from a blood feud. In general, women were exempt from retalia-

154 tion; recently, however, they too may become involved in blood feuding in case there are no men left in the family. I was told about a Svan woman who took revenge for her husband. Today she lives in a village near Mtskheta. In 2009 a 16-year-old girl was accidentally killed in Gardabani in the Svan village of Lamshvaniera. Young villagers were on their way to the school graduation banquet. Three girls were waiting for their friends, and the boys decided to pick them up by car. The day was rainy and the roads were wet. There were three boys in the car, two neighbours and the brother of one of the girls. When they approached the gate, the driver could not slow down and crashed into one of the girls. This was a terrible tragedy for the village. During the forty days of mourning after the young girl’s death that are prescribed by the Orthodox Church, I happened to be in Lamshvaniera. The whole village was grieving. It was especially tragic that the families of the girl and the driver were neighbours and had been on very good terms. By Svan tradition, the accidental nature of the killing would not have been taken into consideration in the old days, but among the lowland Svans the mediation process makes allowance for such cases. The mediator decided to reconcile the families. The male members of the girl’s family did not oppose such decision, but the women did - they were especially aggressive and spread the rumour that the perpetrator’s family did not behave appropriately. The girl’s family demanded that they leave the village and move elsewhere as required by tradition. However, the boy’s family had no place to go; they had migrated from Svaneti and started a new life in Gardabani. They would have to leave their homestead and everything they had acquired during the years they had lived in the lowlands. The case is not yet decided and the mediation process goes on. The family still lives in the same village today, but nobody knows what will happen in the end.7

7 For another accident in a Svan village in which traditional law was also a frame of reference see Voell 2015.

155 I know about another case in Dmanisi where the house of a perpetrator was burned down by the aggrieved family. Traditionally such act had no relevance in the mediation; it was not considered as a mitigating factor. Nowadays, as my interlocutors told me, such circumstances are taken into consideration. Neither does the perpetrator’s imprisonment influence the aggrieved party’s demand for revenge, since he is still considered responsible before the victim’s family. An interlocutor from Dmanisi told me: »During the Abkhazian-Georgian conflict a powerful man, a driver from Chuberi, who was highly respected among the Svans, was killed. I don’t know the exact reason. He had three brothers. I wonder why they haven’t avenged him yet. Such cases are not rare among Svan migrants. But it is dishonourable when someone kills your relative and you do not take blood in revenge. Different men have different tactics, some do it on the sly, some do it immediately, and others wait for several years. It is dishonourable to hire someone for that purpose.« This condition is called siskhlis sherchena in Georgian, which means ›the blood remains unsought‹ or ›the blood is not forgiven‹ and is considered shameful among the Svans. The same interlocutor remembered a case of revenge from Kutaisi. A Svan youth was killed by a student from Kutaisi. The latter was the son of a well-known physician, who declared that he would never allow his son to be imprisoned for the killing of a Svan. One day a parcel was delivered to the physician; his whole family was at home and also a neighbour’s little girl. When the parcel was opened, it exploded and everyone was killed. The case was widely publicized and even a phrase coined – ›I wish a Svan’s parcel to be delivered to your house‹. The victim’s father spent twenty years in prison; he later lived in the village of Tandzia in the municipality of Bolnisi where he recently died. My interviews with Svan interlocutors from Dmanisi showed that blood feuding is still practiced in the new environment. No Svan would blame a man who takes revenge for the killing of his father’s killer, even many years later, and kills one of the perpetrator’s descendants. People told me that sometimes a feud stops after one killing on either side. No traditional reconciliation procedures are then required. The rules of blood

156 feuding have changed among the Svan migrants insofar as to narrow the circle of those responsible for blood to the closest relatives. An interlocutor from Dmanisi told me: »When the victim has brothers, I must keep an eye on them. I must watch what they intend to do; if they remain pas- sive, I will also be quiet.« The feud may be discontinued when the victim has no male relative, who are usually the ones to take revenge. Some Svans voice a certain discontent regarding the killing of a perpetrator’s innocent relative, although they are not opposed to the blood feuding tradition per se: »I myself don’t like it when an innocent family member is killed. When the killer is hiding, the avenger may kill his brother, who is completely innocent. I would prefer the guilty man to be killed« (field material). As the stories from the Kvemo Kartli region have shown, cases of blood feud in the lowlands occur mostly among the Svans. One reason may be the persistent importance of family and kinship ties. For the Svans the blood feud represents a customary norm which all men are obliged to observe. The local Svan authorities are aware of the traditional norms concerning the feud. They are involved in the reconciliation process. Today the responsibility for revenge rests on the male family members and close relatives. The traditional ostentatious ceremony that used to be part of the reconciliation process is no longer practiced. Moreover, the kinds of penalty have changed; blood money is now paid in cash. Mediation between Svans generally takes place within the local Svan communities, but the conflict may also be settled in Svaneti, depending on the circumstances and the mediators’ demands. A Svan from Dmanisi told me: »For us, the shrine is the most sacred thing. Shrines are very important in the reconciliation process. When we arrived here, we had no churches of our own, but later we built them at the sites of former shrines or built new ones. But if the mediators decide so, Svans may go to Svaneti to take an oath on the icon there. Sometimes mediators from Svaneti are invited to settle the conflict. But generally cases of blood feud are rare in the lowlands« (field material).

157 Although blood feuds are rare in Kvemo Kartli, the Svans approve the custom. According to most of my Svan male interlocutors and even some women, »blood feud is a good tradition, because it regulates human relations and makes a man control his behaviour in order to avoid conflict« (field material). Such attitude towards the blood feud became apparent in my interviews with Svan people in Kvemo Kartli. According to a Svan interlocutor in Dmanisi, »the Svans have the tradition of blood feuding and practice it, although in Dmanisi I have never heard of an actual case. But if it occurred no Svan would forgive it« (field material). »I have heard about cases when vengeance was not taken, but I wonder how one cannot avenge the murder of a kinsman. The blood feud exists everywhere in the world, not only in Svaneti. Just imagine that someone kills your sibling! What would you do? And you talk as if only the Svans practice it! Why only the Svans?« (field material) Apparently the younger generation of Svans who are not brought up in Svaneti also know Svan traditions and try to observe them: »We listen to our parents and learn from them, we always try to follow the rules of behaviour, the relations between the old and the young. We attend family meetings when all the members of our lineage from different parts of Georgia gather. We listen to their talk and decisions and try to follow them« (field material). When talking to Khevsurs in the village of Gamarjveba, it became clear that the ideology of the blood feud still persists among the migrant population. My interlocutors spoke freely about the tradition that was still practiced in Khevsureti and among the Khevsurs in the lowlands: »This is our forefathers’ tradition. It was observed in Khevsureti and is preserved here too. The blood feud also exists among the Svans, not only among us. It was a custom that made people behave properly. The times have changed; young people do not care for the elders’ advice any more. But we try to preserve our traditions and maintain ties with our home region. Our relatives even travel to Shatili [a highland village in Khevsureti] for our celebration at the shrine and observe all the rules« (field material).

158 My field material shows that although the ideology of blood feuding persists among the migrants, actual cases of blood feuding are rare. I tried to find out the reason for the decline of blood feuding and the transformation of the corresponding norms among the Svans of Kvemo Kartli. The most important reason may be the aftermath of the migration. The Svan population now lives in compact settlements (Tamarisi, Sioni, Lemshvaniera etc.) rather than dispersed across the region. Their first migration to Kvemo Kartli was unexpected and unplanned due to the natural disasters that happened in Svaneti since the 1980s. People were forced to resettle and the process was rather painful for them. They now live close to various other ethnic groups like Azerbaijanis, Armenians, non-Svan Georgians, and Greeks who have their own identity, name, language, religion, and cultural traditions. The Svans found themselves among alien ethnic groups with different religions. These circumstances favoured the establishment of a joint identity among the Svans and the strict preservation of cultural traditions. The necessity to survive in the alien surroundings triggered the group’s self-defence mechanism. In the alien environment of the lowlands, the Svan migrants consolidated into a ›we-group‹ in contrast to the local population. This constellation provoked conflicts between the Svans and the locals and their aggressive impulses were now directed outward. Historically and traditionally the Svans have not practiced blood feuding with other ethnic groups like Azerbaijanis, Armenians or Greeks, except in the North Caucasus. The other ethnic groups do not practice blood feuding at present in Kvemo Kartli. Hence, it is not practiced between the Svan migrants and the other ethnic groups in Kvemo Kartli. Thus, the blood feud’s decline may be linked to the need to survive in the new environment. People from Dmanisi told me that the blood feud is easier to maintain in Svaneti than in some other places, since they know every inch of their home region and it is impossible for the perpetrator to hide. Outside of Svaneti it is much more difficult to track down a perpetrator and for that reason retaliation often fails.

159 Almost all Svans living in Kvemo Kartli maintain close ties with their home region. Some have relatives there, some have built new houses or repaired the old ones and some have started businesses there, so they stay in contact with the traditional Svan environment. Those ties support the preservation of tradition even under changed conditions. Although the tradition has undergone certain transformations, it is still not radically different from that of their place of origin.

Conclusion

As mentioned above, the blood feud is preserved in modified form in Georgia’s highland communities. The topic has never been studied in the lowland regions, because it is generally believed that it only exists in the highlands. However, sometimes cases of blood feuding do happen in the lowlands. The environment of Kvemo Kartli was well suited for research on the blood feuding tradition in the lowlands, for showing the degree of the custom’s preservation among various groups and for investigating the reasons for its perseverance or decline. The region’s ethnic diversity made it possible to study the issue from different angles. My fieldwork has shown that the blood feud is practiced neither among the ethnic minority groups nor among the local Georgians. Among the migrant groups the custom is preserved by the Svans and Khevsurs. My study of Kvemo Kartli has shown that most cases of blood feud in the lowlands occur among the Svans. One reason for this can be found in the strong family and kinship ties. Each Svan community has its authorities who are familiar with the traditional norms concerning the feud. They are also involved in the process of reconciliation. Today the responsibility for revenge rests with male family members and close relatives. The traditional ostentatious ceremony is no longer practiced as part of the reconciliation process, neither are penalties of the same kind as in the old days demanded. Blood money is paid in cash. Almost all the Svans living in Kvemo Kartli maintain close ties to their

160 home region and the traditional Svan environment. These circumstances play an important role for the preservation of the blood feud in the new environment. Although the tradition has undergone certain transformations, its practice does not differ substantially from the home region.

Literature

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164 Neflyasheva, Naima 2011. Mest i Zakon: Kak eto bylo v SSSR [Revenge and the Law: How it was in the USSR]. In: http://www.kavkaz- uzel.ru/blogs/1927/posts/6572, accessed 14.02.2015. Nizharadze, Besarion 1962. Istoriul-etnograpiuli tserilebi [Historical- ethnographical Writings], Vol. 1. Tbilisi: Tbilisi Universitetis Gamomtsemloba. Ochiauri, Aleksi 1941. Tush-Pshav-Khevsurta urtiertoba da kistebtan damokidebuleba [Interrelation between Tush-Pshav-Khevsurs and their Neighbouring Kists] [Archival Materials at the Institute of History and Ethnology]. Tbilisi. Ochiauri, Aleksi 1954. Siskhlis agheba khevsuretshi [Blood Feud in Khevsureti]. Tbilisi. Otterbein, Keith F. and Charlotte Otterbein 1965. An Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth: a Cross-Cultural Study of Feuding. In: American Anthropologist 67: 1470-1482. Pashukanis, Evgenij 1924. Obshchaya teoriya prava i marksizm: Opyt kritiki osnovnykh yuridicheskikh ponyatij [General Theory of Law and Marxism: Experience of Criticism of Basic Legal Concepts]. Moscow: Soc. Akad. Press. Pliev, Aleksandr Ms. [1969]. Krovnaya mect u Chechentsev i Ingushej i protsess eë izzhivaniya v gody Sovetskoj vlasti [Vendetta of Chechens and Ingush and the Process of Its Eradication in the Soviet Years]. Moscow. Sakhokia, Tedo 1950. Mogzaurobani [Travels]. Tbilisi: Sak. SSR. Poligrap Mrestv. Semyenov, Yuri 1997. Formy obshchestvennoj voli v doklassovom obshchestve: Tabuitet, moral i obychnoe pravo [Forms of Public Will in the Pre-class Society: Taboo, Morality and Common Law]. In: Etnograficheskoe Obozrenie 4, 16: 3-24. Shamiladze, Vakhtang 1961. Gvarovnuli tskobilebis erti gadmonashtis shesakheb [On One Relic of the Clan System]. In: Literaturuli Achara 5: 82-84.

165 Teslenko, Nikolaj 1893. Sudoustroistvo po obychnomu pravu Belorusov [The Judicial System under Customary Law of the Belarusians]. In: Etnograficheskoe Obozrenie 3: 37-52. Trier, Tom and Medea Turashvili 2007. Resettlement of Ecologically Displaced Persons Solution of a Problem or Creation of a New? Eco- Migration in Georgia 1981 – 2006 (ECMI Monograph, 6). Flensburg: European Centre for Minority Issues. Voell, Stéphane 2004. Das nordalbanische Gewohnheitsrecht und seine mündliche Dimension (Reihe Curupira, 17). Marburg: Curupira. Voell, Stéphane 2015. Moral Breakdown among the Georgian Svans: a Car Accident Mediated between Traditional and State Law. In: Stéphane Voell and Iwona Kaliszewska (eds.) State and Legal Practice in the Caucasus: Anthropological Perspectives on Law and Politics. Farnham: Ashgate: Zyukov, Andrej 2009. Krovnaya mest’: vnepravovoj obychaj i gosudarstvenno-pravovaya politika [Blood Feud: Extra-legal Practice and State Policy]. Vladimir: IP Zhurableva.

166 Elke Kamm

Restoring Order Bride Kidnapping between Social Disintegration and Concepts of Honour and Shame

German wedding agencies offer packages for the celebration of a perfect wedding party on their websites, making suggestions for food and drinks, dress-code, music, dancing, decoration and games. One of the games which are suggested is called ›bride kidnapping‹. It is especially popular in the south of Germany. The website tells exactly how to play this game (Maibaum [n. d.]). I was surprised to find the same ›game‹ in Georgia. During my interviews in Tetritskaro (Kvemo Kartli) I realised, however, that these are very different ›games‹. Whereas in southern Germany bride kidnapping is played for entertainment, bride kidnapping in Georgia is ›for real‹ and involves the kidnapping of a woman for marriage. In Germany the wedding agency ›Hochzeitsflüsterer‹ (›wedding whis- perer‹), for example, advises friends of the groom to act as kidnappers and dress in medieval garb or even as bank robbers. The groom must not witness the kidnapping itself, but should recognize quickly that his be- loved wife had been kidnapped. He then collects relatives and friends from the wedding party to help him search for his captured wife. Usually the group checks surrounding restaurants and the captured bride is found quickly. Now the groom is forced to ›release‹ her from the hands of the kidnappers by paying the bill for the drinks. After about an hour or two the group returns to the party. The game is over and the bride happily back at her husband’s side.

167 The German wedding agency explains the meaning of the game with reference to the alleged medieval custom of kidnapping women for marriage (Maibaum [n. d.]). The game of bride kidnapping is as popular in Germany as the real bride kidnapping appears to be in Georgia. In this chapter I focus on Georgian bride kidnapping and introduce the distinction between involuntary and voluntary capture. In order to explain the role of bride kidnapping in the context of the traditional wedding I use historical data from Georgia and other countries to compare them with the information gained through my interviews. My main focus is the influence of behavioural norms concerning honour and reputation on the act of capture. Kidnapping expresses disrespect not only for the head of the family but also for local tradition and culture. For this reason, order must be restored in the process of reconciliation, for example by swearing an oath on an icon (see the chapter by Lavrenti Janiashvili) or by paying a compensation fee. The perception of honour, reputation and behaviour plays an important role here. I will especially address the girl’s honour, symbolised by her virginity, in order to illustrate the importance of these moral norms. Finally I will address the role of state and traditional law. Although officially illegal, bride kidnapping is considered a trivial offense in public opinion and is rarely persecuted. The question why the state’s authority fails in the context of bride kidnapping will discussed below.

Ethnographic data on bride kidnapping in Georgian history

Georgian ethnologists like Ilia Chkonia (1955), Mzia Bekaia (1974), Vale- rian Itonishvili (1960b) and Lia Melikishvili (1986) have studied marriage customs in various Georgian regions and pointed out that bride kidnapping was widely practiced but never accepted as a ›tradition‹ in ›traditional marriage rules‹. However, voluntary and/or involuntary bride kidnapping used to be a daily occurrence in the mountain region of Khevsureti. Me- likishvili (1986) notes that three varieties were considered acceptable in Khevsureti:

168

Fig. 21: Ipove shenshi dzala. Dadzlie dzaladoba ojakhshi. [Find the Power in Yourself. Overcome Violence in the Family]. Campaign of UNFPA (United Na- tions Population Fund) against domestic violence in Georgia. The poster indicates hotline numbers to encourage women to call to seek help. Tbilisi, 2010.

169

1. elopement: women who were unhappily married 2. elopement: couples who were in love but faced resistance from their families 3. capture: after the death of their husbands widows would be captured when they returned to their nuclear family.

Nevertheless, bride kidnapping was considered disrespectful towards the state authorities (see Chkonia 1955, Bekaia 1974, Itonishvili 1960b). It brought shame for the entire family (Chkonia 1955) and had to be com- pensated by a payment in cash or cattle. Melikishvili (1986) describes a reconciliation process which included an oath on an icon in Tusheti. The reconciliation took place in the house of the captured girl’s family. The family and the kidnappers were present and the kidnapper made a sacrifice to the icon. By this act reconciliation was accepted, whether the girl married her kidnapper or not. Disregarding this rule could cause dispute and conflict up to the point of a blood feud. The chaos that had been created by disregarding traditional marriage rules had to be returned to order. Georgian traditional marriage rules demanded that the future groom asked the bride’s father for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Another possibility was the arrangement of a marriage by both families. It depended on the region which form was preferred (see Chkonia 1955, Ivelashvili 1999, Itonishvili 1960b). The costs of a wedding were substantial. Already the ritual of asking for the bride’s hand was expensive. A traditional wedding lasted for several days and could ruin a family financially. Those high costs are one reason, as my interlocutors pointed out, for bride kidnapping (see Bekaia 1974, Kedeladze in Chkonia 1955, Melikishvili 1986). Only couples who married according to traditional rules (an arranged marriage) could hold a large formal celebration. A marriage which resulted from elopement or kidnapping would not be celebrated this way.

170 As Chkonia (1955) notes with reference to Khedeladze, in some Geor- gian regions the kidnapper had to offer compensation. He had to accept punishment from the girl’s family. According to the traditional rules of modesty and chastity the captured girl had to refuse the compensation payment. Subsequently she had to return to her father’s house or a blood feud would ensue. After the girl’s return the kidnapper could ask for her hand with the help of an intermediary (shuakatsi). The kidnapper was thus offered a second chance to compensate the girl’s family and at the same time restore the girl’s and her family’s reputation. In case the capturer was unwilling to follow the rules of reconciliation or even raped the girl, in the region of Mtiuleti the only way to compensate for his act was the blood feud. According to the above-mentioned sources, bride kidnapping was not seen as traditional. It was the last resort to marry a woman. Age, passion, a man’s handsomeness, wealth and reputation all played a role in the marriage process. If a man was not wealthy and his reputation bad he might consider kidnapping the easiest way to marry. Another possible explanation for bride kidnapping can be seen in the ›ius primae noctis‹, the alleged right of a nobleman to take the virginity of his serfs’ daughters in medieval times (see also Ivelashvili 1999, Nadareishvili 1959). Medieval Georgia was divided into several principalities and the land and its people belonged to local nobles. Nadareishvili (1959) disputes the existence of the custom of ›ius primae noctis‹ in Georgia, because the moral rules and honour code of that time forbade such custom. In the 18th century, under the rule of Vakhtang VI (1675-1737), marriage was especially protected by law. A law declared that the killing of a nobleman was not to be punished by blood feud if the killer had taken revenge for the rape of his wife by the nobleman, who had claimed the ›ius primae noctis‹. Nadareishvili points out that even if there was no official law that legitimised the right of the first night, it is still possible that noblemen did in fact rape their serfs’ daughters (Nadareishvili 1959,

171 1965). For these reasons a man may have been forced to capture his wife in order to save her from the nobleman’s claim. In the region of Khevi bride kidnapping happened because of the drawn- out negotiations over an arranged marriage (Itonishvili 1960a). A mediator spent much time in persuading a family to accept a future groom; many men were not willing to wait that long and rather kidnapped the girl with the support of their family and neighbours. The act of kidnapping was well planned and the girl spied upon for a while. The capture took place prefer- ably during a moonless night. The kidnappers, who were mostly relatives from the girl’s village, could not be punished, because they pleaded their right to support their kin. The kidnapper, however, had to atone for his deed and plead for reconciliation. He had to visit the house of the bride’s family and offer presents in order to calm their anger. Reconciliation was easier when the girl was kidnapped against her will, but when she stated that she was kidnapped voluntarily reconciliation was difficult, since it demanded a legal and traditional marriage (Itonishvili 1960a). The formal wedding could only be omitted in case of an involuntary kidnapping. The act of kidnapping itself was then considered as the wedding. The kidnapper and his family had to offer gifts through an intermediary. When they were accepted and the groom’s family received permission to come for a visit, they had to fall to their knees and beg for forgiveness. When the bride’s family forgave them, they celebrated a large feast and the marriage was considered legitimate by tradition.

Research on bride kidnapping in other countries

Anthropological studies on bride kidnapping can be found in various regions in the world. Some similarities and explanations offered in these comparative studies correspond to the historical data I presented for Geor- gia. The Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne organised an exhibition and published a companion volume on the topic of bride kidnapping (Völger and Welck 1985). Some of the articles from this publication will be used for discussing my own findings in a comparative framework.

172

Fig 24: Cross on the road to Tetritskaro.

173 Volprecht (1985) studies the history of bride kidnapping and states that it never was a legitimate form of marriage but was always seen as a violation of marriage rules. Ramseyer (1985) concurs on the basis of his research in Bali, where marriage is considered an important part of Hindu religion and customary law (adat) alike. It is seen as evidence for future success in faith and life. Bride kidnapping is officially forbidden but con- doned by adat. Elopement is tolerated as well and practiced in order to avoid the high cost of a marriage feast. Kidnapping and elopement may provoke conflict between the parents and the couple, however. Such conflict can be solved by financial compensation. In addition, the birth of the first child may mitigate the strain between the couple and their families. The conflict can ultimately only be solved by an arranged marriage (Volprecht 1985). Schindler (1985) presents a historical analysis of the 19th-century Ma- puche of Chile. The head of the family was intent on receiving a high bride price for his daughter, therefore bride kidnapping was likely to happen among poorer families. It is doubtful, however, that it was a very common practice; elopement, by contrast, happened quite often. The future groom’s father planned the elopement with the help of friends and intermediaries. The marriage was made legitimate when the groom’s family paid a compensation fee. In 1974, the journal Anthropological Quarterly published several articles on bride kidnapping. Stross (1974) studied the Tzeltal in Chiapas, Mexiko. When a girl was kidnapped, the community would blame her father for not taking care of her. Elopement was often practised to avoid the payment of the bride price, but even when it happened with the girl’s consent, it was still considered shameful for her family. A girl who admit- ted that she was kidnapped was viewed as disrespectful toward her father. It was considered disreputable for a girl to talk about her kidnapping. She would hide the fact that she was raped because of the shame for her family. She kept silent and accepted her fate in order to avoid conflict between the families. If she would turn to the police, her kidnapper would put all the blame on her by claiming that she came along voluntari-

174 ly. It was not only the shame that the girl fears but also the fact that it is not socially acceptable for her to ›re‹-marry. When a girl who had been kidnapped returns to her family, she had lost her reputation and is usually unable to marry again. Rumours would circulate about her alleged per- missiveness and force her into marriage with her kidnapper. According to Stross, the fact that the patrilineal family forbids premarital sexual intercourse and expects a high bride price makes bride kidnapping the only viable solution to transcend traditional social rules (Stross 1974). Bates (1974) studies the Yörük of Turkey. He described bride kidnapping (voluntarily or involuntarily) is a »special mode of marriage« (1974: 270), which differs from the normative form of marriage and is socially undesirable, because it is seen as an insult against the bride’s family. When a kidnapping has taken place, compensation must be paid to reconcile the families. That payment would be received with bad feelings and not always considered satisfactory. In the latter case the family may demand the kidnapper’s death. This triggers a serious conflict between the families and may lead to blood feuding and/or police intervention. Bride kidnapping is viewed as ›extreme shame‹ (Stross 1974) among the Tzeltal. Traditional marriage rules are broken by bride kidnapping as well as marriage contracts, which has severe economic effects on the family, who may already have taken loans. However, as Bates (1974) mentions, kidnapping may also create new social and maybe even more attractive economic relations. Stross (1974) notes that the girl is often raped after the kidnapping, because her chance for remarriage will be slight when she has lost her virginity. She is therefore forced to marry her kidnapper. Both bride kidnapping and elopement provoke hostility between the involved parties, but the families try to evade violence. Ayres (1974) points out that bride kidnapping occurs in matrilineal as well as in patrilineal societies. She distinguishes between genuine kidnapping and elopement. Both kinds lead to conflicts between the involved parties and can only be mediated after years. Virginity is an important factor in the kidnapping complex. After a girl has been raped, she must

175 marry her kidnapper; she will have no chance to ›re‹-marry otherwise. Ayres argues that men in patrilocal societies use bride kidnapping as a rational strategy to marry a certain woman. They deny their responsibility by referring to traditional wedding rules which demand negotiation skills and respect towards authorities. Such disrespect is both legally and socially sanctioned, by compensation payments, physical violence, ostracism, imprisonment, economic sanctions or death. Barnes (1999) studies the region of Lamalera in eastern Indonesia. Bride kidnapping is not socially accepted here but elopement is tolerated. The kidnapping is planned with the help of friends. After the capture the kidnappers take the girl to a distant house to calm her and open the way for negotiations with her family about the bride price. The bride price would increase because of the kidnapping and the concomitant disrespect shown toward the authorities by the breach of traditional wedding rules. The kidnapper would try to reconcile with the girl’s family by offering a compensation payment. Thus a lifelong relationship of dependence is established between the kidnapper and the bride’s family, who expects further presents and money transfers. Therefore only wealthy families can ›afford‹ a bride kidnapping (see Arndt 1940, Barnes 1999). A key aspect that can be drawn from the ethnographic findings on wedding ceremonies, elopement and bride kidnapping is filial piety. Dis- respecting the head of the family implies breaking traditional rules and shows disrespect toward a cultural heritage. Such behaviour disturbs not only the family but also the community. Elopements and kidnappings are conducted without the consent of the head of the family and therefore undermine the family’s authority. Such acts lead to conflicts which require resolution in order to avoid social stigmatisation or blood feuding. Compensation must be offered either in terms of cash payments or of apologies and the legalisation of the unofficial marriage.

176 Bride kidnapping – interviews in Tetritskaro, Georgia1

During my interviews in Tetritskaro I was often told that bride kidnapping destroys the social order and mediation is imperative in order to restore order regarding tradition and the authority of the head of the family. In the following I present one example of elopement and two examples of involuntary kidnapping to explain this statement.

Elopement

Tea (age 53), who lives in a small village near Tetritskaro, told me her story of elopement in Soviet times. At this time she and her family were still living in the mountains of Svaneti.

Tea: When I went to work in the morning, I did not know what would happen that day. My future husband came to the office where I worked and said that we must leave today. I asked him why and where we have to go. Must we elope? What will happen to my parents? What will they think? My parents already knew I was in love and I wanted to marry this man. But my family thought that he would not marry me, because none of his relatives had come to ask for my hand. So I loved him and therefore I went with him. […] We stayed two days at my husband’s cousin’s place and later we went to my grandfather’s. He was very angry and pointed a knife at me. He was very,

1 The following interview excerpts are taken from my field diary. Research was conducted in the region of Kvemo Kartli and its surrounding villages from July 2009 to August 2009 and from March 2010 to November 2010. I conducted approximately 65 interviews (overall length, 50 hours) among mostly women aged between 14 and 90. The interviews were conducted in Georgian and later translated into English. All names are anonymised.

177 very angry and said that he would kill me because I lied to him. He was so angry.

Tea followed the advice of her future husband and eloped with him to avoid the refusal of her wedding by her family. She knew that her grandfather would be angry because she lied to him and did not ask his permission. The conflict could be solved after a while as time went by and Tea and her husband were officially married. Nevertheless the elopement caused tensions between the families and required that respect toward the authority of the bride’s family was restored. It took time to calm the situation and achieve reconciliation with Teas family, especially with her grandfather. When a couple decides to elope, they violate the traditional wedding rules but are in control of the situation. They are aware of the fact that they have caused trouble and will be punished, but in most cases the couple asserts their wish to marry even without their parents’ consent. Con- sent is usually given after a while and the wedding is legitimised according to traditional rules.

The case of an involuntary bride kidnapping

My sixteen-year-old interlocutor Tsiala tells the story of her close friend Tea who was kidnapped in 2009 in Tetritskaro at the age of 15. Tea was on her way to private piano lessons and walked next to a park along the main street in Tetritskaro.

Tsiala: And there was a man waiting in his car with his friends and they dragged her [Tea] into the car and fled. [...] She cried, but she could not help herself by crying. E. K.: Did the parents report the case to the police? Tsiala: No, her stepfather himself works for the police and he managed it alone. When the parents found out where she was and wanted to pick her up, she did not want to

178 come with them. She was afraid that other people would think badly about her. That’s why she stayed in Rustavi [a neighbouring city]. [...] E. K.: Why didn’t she go home with her parents? Tsiala: She was ashamed to return to Tetritskaro. E. K.: Why was she ashamed? She had been kidnapped - couldn’t she return home afterwards? Tsiala: She was also ashamed to return to school.

Tsiala often mentioned shame in describing the feelings of her kidnapped friend Tea. In other interviews I also noticed that shame is a key term for describing the feelings of a kidnapped girl. Shame makes her want to be invisible and do everything to resolve the situation. Shame is also associated with feelings of guilt (Hilgers 2006). In most cases the kidnapped girl marries her kidnapper because she is overcome with shame and sees this as the only way to restore her own and her family’s reputation.

Bride kidnapping by trickery

Marina was kidnapped by a man who tricked her. At that time she lived in Tbilisi. The uncle of her future husband also lived there. When her future husband asked for her hand in marriage, Marina said »his words went in one ear and out the other«. Marina did not want to marry him, therefore he tricked her. He persuaded his uncle to help him. The uncle told Mari- na that her father, who lived in Svaneti, was ill and the uncle, who had to do business in Mestia, had taken him to the hospital to Tbilisi. Marina was scared when she heard that her father was sick and wanted to see him quickly. The uncle said that he would take her to the hospital. When Marina got in the car, they drove straight to the uncles’ place where Mari- na’s future husband waited. The story about her sick father was a lie and when Marina became aware that she had been kidnapped she cried and cried.

179 Marina: I cried so loud that everybody in the entire house could hear me. I did everything, I went to the window, but we were on the 7th floor, then I cried the whole time. And I said, anyway, I will not stay, I will not stay and … I have stayed until now.

The uncle and Marinas future husband threatened her by saying they would kill her father and her brother if Marina would leave. Thus Marina decided to stay in order to save her family.

Marina: It would have been a huge insult for Svan people if I had left this place. My father also did not want him as a son-in-law, because he was crazy […]. E. K.: Did a conflict ensue afterwards? Marina: No, no. My father died without knowing that I had been kidnapped; I was afraid that he would not forgive me. My father was a strong man; in our region they would call on him for mediating conflicts as they would on my grandmother. He would have not forgiven them. When we celebrated the wedding feast, also the reconciliation, he [my father] chased this uncle with a knife and shouted that he certainly organised this marriage. […] Several intermediaries (shuamavlebi) from various families had come to us; they had like a competition, who will marry me. Even when I was in 9th grade the first intermediary came, yes, in the 9th grade. E. K.: How did you then tell your family that you are going to marry? You did not tell that you were kidnapped. Marina: At the time of reconciliation the intermediaries also came. E. K.: You mean they came to ascertain that you had been kidnapped?

180 Fig. 23: Field research in Tetritskaro.

Marina: Yes, but they did not know that I was tricked. I told them I went with my husband voluntarily. The uncle told me to say that everything was organised. He told me that if I would not say so, there would be a conflict and hostility. Anyway, you could not go back. E. K.: Haven’t you told your mother what really happened? Marina: My mother knew everything, but she did not tell my father or my brothers, because they were so small at the time.

Marina was afraid that if she would tell the truth, her father would harm her future husband and has to face the consequences. She therefore kept silent about what had really happened and married her kidnapper. It was not her choice to marry him but she tried to save her family. Marina was

181 kidnapped against her will and she had not only accepted the situation but also married her kidnapper. In a society where notions of honour and virginity are so closely intertwined, a woman cannot ›survive‹ without her reputation.

Gender-related social norms: explanations and perceptions concerning honour and shame

As described in Tsiala’s and Marina’s cases, girls fear the consequences of losing their own honour but also endangering that of their family if they would refuse to marry their kidnapper. Honour, reputation and shame are important issues in Georgian society. A person who has honour is trusted and seen as a reputable member of society. In several fields like in social relationships, especially concerning norms of behaviour, or in the economic realm honour defines the social status of a man or woman in society. The topic of honour and shame has been researched for decades. Pitt- Rivers (1974 [1966]) and Peristiany (1974 [1966]) pioneered the approach to Mediterranean societies as dominated by the notion of honour and shame. Their – fairly evolutionary – view sees honour as the individual’s proper behaviour, which corresponds to their peer group’s values and a system of social norms that has been adopted through socialisation and imitation. Every individual must follow these conceptions in order to keep – or even increase – their honour. The individual’s behaviour is judged by the others and radiates on the entire group (1974 [1966]). In general terms, honour can be described as a form of social control in a society (Giordano 1994). In Georgian society the behaviour of men and women has to follow expected social norms. This behaviour is gendered and the expectations concerning men and women differ. Perceptions of honour and shame play an important role in decision-making, behaviour and judgement in the region of Tetritskaro. During my field research in Tetritskaro I was often told that a woman must meet several behavioural criteria in order to be an honourable

182 woman to marry. She is expected to behave bashful and modest and conform to the moral standards. Most interlocutors pointed especially to the value of a woman’s physical integrity, her virginity. Even the smallest rumour about a meeting with a man without the presence of her or his friends can hurt her and her family’s reputation. Therefore her family is expected to control where she goes and what company she keeps. Patios- neba, ghirseba, sindisi, namusi and sakheli are the Georgian terms for describing gender-related honourable behaviour; they translate into the English terms honour, uprightness, respect, purity and name. I was interested to learn what my interlocutors associate with patiosneba, ghirseba, sindisi, namusi and sakheli. I myself failed to see a gender-related specificity in the translations suggested by the dictionary of Rayfield et al. (2006), therefore I tried to elicit my interlocutors’ explanations. The following table shows the distinction they made between these five terms in relation to the English term ›honour‹ as given in the third column according to the dictionary of Rayfield et al. (2006).

Term interlocutors’ associations translations according to (Rayfield et al. 2006) patiosneba loyalty, honesty 1) honour, uprightness 2) having respect ghirseba not making mistakes, 1) worth self-respect, honesty 2) dignity, honour 3) self-respect 4) quality, standard 5) (social) title, rank 6) gravity sindisi kindheartedness, honesty, conscience not spreading rumours

183 namusi purity (regarding female honour, conscience sexuality) loyality (of women toward their husbands) sakheli reputation, fame, name 1) name, 2) renown, fame, glory

This table gives an overview of how my interlocutors perceive conceptions of honour. The associations agree in most cases; especially for patiosneba and namusi, however, my interlocutors’ associations do not match the translations in the dictionary.2 First of all, they do not match because of different associations and second, because contrariness and double standards are reflected in the construction of terms of honour and honourable behaviour, where uprightness and honesty are supposed to be the ultimate ambition. Concerning patiosneba, my interlocutor Nunu pointed out that if a man has affairs with other women, he should be forgiven; but if a woman has an affair, it is considered shameful and she is not considered a patiosani woman any more. She said that a man will be forgiven and still be patiosani but you cannot forgive a woman. Namusi is related to women’s sexual behaviour, a connotation not mentioned by the dictionary. Namusi was never used during my interviews to describe a man’s behaviour; it only refers to a woman’s attitude, especially her virginity. I will now focus on the construction of female honour (virginity) and gender-specific behaviour concerning honour (patiosneba, ghirseba, sindisi, namusi and sakheli) and shame (sirzkhvili). It must be noted that such terms are not static and their associations differ from one individual to the next. The concepts of honour and shame and their associations are socially constructed and differ in terms of gender roles and atti-

2 A regular dictionary in fact rarely explains the cultural images associated with a certain entry.

184 tudes. Because they are social constructs they are to a certain extend ne- gotiable and may also produce contradiction and double standards. Ap- pearing honourable is therefore much more important than actually being honourable (see Schiffauer 2008: 25). This attitude becomes apparent with regard to family and society in the case of bride kidnapping.

The virgin and the kidnapper

Namusi is described as women’s honour in terms of her physical integrity. Once her physical integrity is called into question, a woman is considered dishonoured and has hardly a chance to ›re‹-marry after being kidnapped. Virginity is identified with a woman’s honour and therefore plays an essential role in discussions about bride kidnapping and marriage traditions. The following interview excerpts emphasise the importance of virginity.

E. K.: Does a woman have to be a virgin when she becomes engaged? Tea: Yes, of course. E. K.: What will happen if she is not a virgin anymore? Tea: We Svans kick her out of our house. She won’t stay another minute in our house if she is no virgin anymore. We Svans are like that. […] E. K.: Do you know of [other] cases? Tea: If a woman is no virgin anymore, her parents will kill her. In our culture, the Svan culture, there is no forgiveness, there is no excuse. E. K.: Can you remember a case that you observed? Tea: Yes, there was a case, I will not mention the name, because you are recording and I do not want anything [bad] to happen. There was a case 3 or 4 years ago. A man and a woman were talking [like lovers] and he was lying to her in order to win her over. Then they had sexual intercourse.

185 And later he refused to marry her. The parents of the woman first killed her and then that man. E. K.: The parents killed both of them? Tea: Yes, the parents killed both of them. E. K.: What happened then? […] Are the families still in conflict with each other? Tea: Yes, of course. E. K.: Did the man’s family kill another member of the woman’s family? Tea: No, the case is now mediated. The woman and the man were killed, one person from each side.

Tea emphasises the extraordinary strong community ties in Svaneti, she focuses on their ›unforgivingness‹, their brave and strict attitude toward people who break traditional norms. The Svans have an idealised perception of Svaneti, where traditions and rules were much powerful and society was more strictly regulated than in today’s Georgia. Virginity is of great importance for the bride’s and the groom’s families. It is considered a woman’s honour, but in Georgian society honour does not refer to the ›right to honour‹ but is »rather a personalised property: honour belongs to people – it is spoken of as the father’s, brother’s, of family’s honour« (Wikan 2008: 59). Women have neither the right to decide for themselves whom to marry nor to get divorced without losing face, losing their honour. Honour is seen as a property – either you have it or you lose it. Even worse, the loss of honour may involve the whole family. In this case the girl will be expelled from her family or even killed in order to compensate for the loss of honour (see also Wikan 2008). The following interview excerpt illustrates the argument made above:

E. K.: If a woman is not a virgin before marriage, what will happen? Tina (age 23): They will throw her out of the house. E. K.: For whom is virginity so important?

186

Fig. 24: Wedding in Mzcheta.

187 Nunu (age 45): It is important for everybody – for the wife herself, for her husband and of course for the whole family. [...] There is a strict rule in our society that a man must marry a virgin.

The prevalent norms require men to behave bravely and assertively, while women are expected to behave modestly and bashfully. Such attitudes lead to the glorification of womanhood. A woman is considered pure, even sacred when she confirms to social norms and standards. Her honour, her virginity, is crucial for affirming the reputation and honour of her future husband and his family. Not just the bride’s physical integrity is considered important but also her sexual and moral integrity. Bride kidnapping is one way for men to demonstrate their assertive behaviour and to guarantee the bride’s virginity.

Who is considered a virgin and what is meant by honour in the context of virginity?

In my opinion virginity has the following three aspects: First, virginity can be seen as a woman’s physical status in terms of the existence of an intact hymen (physical integrity). Second, a woman is considered a virgin when she has never had sexual intercourse with a man. (It may be added that the issue of virginity has recently achieved awareness among religious groups in western societies and men can also considered virgins in this regard) (sexual integrity). Third, a woman is considered a virgin when her behaviour is virgin-like in terms of the display of modesty and pudency (behavioural virginity). The first aspect is virginity as physical integrity. It is believed that a virgin must have a hymen which will tear in the wedding night. In contrast to this understanding, Bernau (2007) shows that already in the 17th century physicians found out that only some women have a hymen at birth while others do not. Some women may have an elastic hymen that does not tear. When women engage in certain sports, the hymen, if it exists,

188 may tear easily. Therefore, an intact or non-existent hymen is neither evidence for virginity nor for non-virginity (see Bernau 2007, Wild et al. 2009). In contrast to traditional views, such as the blood on the sheet, the physical integrity of virginity does not apply to all women. The second aspect is virginity as sexual integrity. Objectively speaking, this appears to be the most important aspect but the one most difficult to prove. To the future husband the importance of his bride’s sexual integrity derives from the idea of securing the purity of his bloodline. He has to be sure that his descendants are of his own flesh and blood in order for them to inherit his property. For this reason, he must know – or believe – that he is marrying a virgin. For most Georgian men it is considered a shame to marry a non-virgin. They would be ridiculed by their friends. Rumours – if right or wrong – can easily destroy the belief in a woman’s virginity and make it very difficult for her to prove the opposite. The third aspect emphasises behavioural virginity. Before marriage a woman must behave modestly and bashfully and conform to certain standards to prove she is worthy of marriage. Such behaviour also helps to make people believe in her sexual integrity. After marriage she is supposed to retain this behaviour as it reflects on her own and her husband’s reputation. The third aspect obviously differs from the first and the second, as it refers to a woman’s life before and after marriage. By marrying a woman with the prescribed virgin-like behaviour, a man reinforces his status in society. In the cases of involuntary kidnapping described above the decision of the kidnapped woman was dictated by traditional norms. She agrees to marriage in order to maintain her personal honour but also the honour of her family, that is, the integrity of its reputation and social status. She is afraid of social degradation, especially when the kidnapper and other people spread rumours about the loss of her virginity. Once a woman’s virginity is called into question, there is no way for her to prove her integrity. The girl and her family are thus under enormous social pressure. For this reason the girl usually either voluntarily agrees to marriage or is

189 forced to agree. Marriage saves a woman’s reputation and that of her family. Moreover, it restores order which was disturbed when the girl was raped by her kidnapper. »If the rapist marries his victim, honour is thought to be saved« (Wikan 2008: 50).

Modern Georgia – old traditions: kalishvilobis instituti – ›the institution of virginity‹

In view of the democratisation process in contemporary Georgia, my description of bride kidnapping and virginity must seem outdated and likely to be replaced by modern attitudes toward women’s rights and liberty. For those people in Georgia who think modern this may be true, but there are still many traditionally-minded people who legitimise their views on virginity from a religious and traditional perspective. Age plays only a minor role concerning the point of view people have on the topic of virginity. It is rather a matter of either modern or traditional affiliation. The topic of virginity is vividly discussed in Georgian talk shows and online chat rooms.3 An interesting aspect is the Georgian term kalishvilobis instituti, which may be translated as ›the institution of virginity‹. It refers to women’s bashful behaviour before marriage. A Georgian woman is considered pure when she remains a ›three-aspect-virgin‹ until marriage. In interviews with hospital staff in Tbilisi I found out that some men even asked for a certificate to confirm their wives’ virginity. In July 2013 women demonstrated against their discrimination through virginity tests and for equal rights in Georgian society in front of the National Forensic Bureau in Tbilisi (Tarkhnishvili 2013).

3 For example in http://vseobemlyushiy.ru/c-page-bfdchgg.php; http://www.kinto.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?id=77, both accessed 02.02.2011.

190 Fig. 25: German colonist’s house, Asureti.

As mentioned above, the intactness of the hymen and the lack of blood on the sheets after the first intercourse cannot be taken as undisputable evidence of a girl’s virginity (Wild et al. 2009). Many women nonetheless want to make sure to be a virgin or to ›restore‹ their virginity and seek help at private clinics. In countries where virginity is considered a cultural and social asset (for example in Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Iran or Iraq) such interventions are a profitable business. Hymen reconstruction surgery costs between $200 and $500 in Georgia.4 In October 2010 a talk show on the TV channel Rustavi 2 reported that this operation is much more frequent than cosmetic nose surgery, which is also very popular in Georgia.

4 For comparison: the income of a university professor in Georgia is about $400 a month.

191 Some interlocutors told me that for many young women marriage is the answer to the debate about virginity: in order to avoid discussions about sex before marriage and remaining a virgin, girls get married at a very young age. As a consequence the number of divorces of young couples has increased in recent years (Dourglishvili 1997). Couples soon realise that marrying at the age of 14 or 16 does not solve the problem of sexual behaviour but rather creates new problems.

The social construction of virginity and norms of sexual behaviour

Natia: There is a canon that tells that you must marry a virgin. E. K.: Has this canon changed from one generation to the next? Natia: No, it is still like this. Everybody follows the canon who lives with the tradition and has a regular family.

Virginity is not just viewed in terms of the physical integrity of the hymen but also in terms of virgin-like behaviour, which means modesty and bashfulness. Although for biological reason not every woman’s hymen’s is physically intact, blood on the sheets is taken as a guarantee of virginity. Therefore sexual intercourse before marriage (including rape) is the reason for women to undergo hymen reconstruction surgery. They are willing to spend large sums of money on this operation in order to fulfil the expectations of her family. I have shown that the appearance of virginity is much more important than its reality. It is this appearance that signal conformity with the societal norms of behaviour and morality. Honour is nothing absolute – it is interpreted as a display to the outside, to the neighbours, to society. Whatever clashes with these norms is hidden and regulated within the family. The opinion of others and the appearance of honour, of correct behaviour, is what count most. Most women are aware that there is no undisputed evidence for virginity, but the fear of the consequences forces

192 them to be sure of their virginity or ›restore‹ it with the help of hymen reconstruction surgery. The notion of an intact virginity centres on the intact hymen. In order to preserve their purity women are therefore persuaded to have anal sex. Such notion of virginity has nothing to do with sexual abstinence. Kath- leen Coyne Kelly denies the anatomic relevance of the hymen and rather focuses on its social relevance: »The hymen (and its cultural analogues) functions as both metaphor and metonym for an array of ideas and beliefs about women, women’s relation with and to men, and relations between men in cultural systems in which women figure as objectives of exchange« (Kelly 2000: 28). Virginity is a socio-cultural construction and is maintained in patriarchal societies. Reconstructive surgery is an element of this construction. It is vividly discussed from legal-medical, ethical and cultural perspectives: »There are a thousand ways of losing the marks of virginity, without having to do with a man; there are, in like manner, a thousand ways of recov- ering them again, when it has been really lost by having to do with a man« (Bernau 2007: 8). Anke Bernau has studied medieval myths of virginity. At that time some physicians already doubted the existence of a skin fold (hymen) for every woman, yet they also offered ways to make a husband believe in his wife’s virginity by using external blood (Bernau 2007). The Italian physician Trotula suggested in the first half of the 11th century to put leeches on the labium (Green 1986). Even such methods did not offer a guarantee for blood to be found on the sheets but nevertheless they served to uphold the image of virginity, supporting the social construction of notions of honour and shame in terms of gender-specific behaviour. This construction is not shared by every woman and man in Georgia. Some do not follow traditional norms but rather strive to eman- cipate themselves through education or by living abroad. Yet even today it remains difficult for women to escape the traditional way of thinking about a woman’s proper behaviour, especially with regard to virginity and the family’s honour. The pressure that is put on women and men alike to

193 maintain traditional concepts of honour is enormous and often infringes upon women’s rights. Bride kidnapping, be it voluntarily or involuntarily, destroys the social order and requires reconciliation. In the traditional way reconciliation is achieved by swearing an oath on a religious icon in order to establish the truth. By these means the families are reconciled and the conflict is solved.

The oath on an icon – the traditional way of conflict solution

At the time of the Soviet invasion Nino’s family demanded to initiate a reconciliation process with the family of Nino’s future husband Nodari. The oath on an icon was indispensable for settling the conflict. Nino’s honour, her reputation and that of her family were at stake when No- dari’s kidnapped her for the purpose of marriage. The capture happened without her or her family’s consent and created a severe conflict. She was kidnapped by three men at the age of 23 and had no idea whom she was supposed to marry. After she had spent one night in her kidnappers’ house, her parents found out where she had been taken and tried to negotiate with the kidnappers. The man who was planning to marry Nino threatened her family with a blood feud if they refused to agree to the marriage. After hours of negotiating her parents finally agreed. The families had to be reconciled before the marriage could be arranged in the traditional way. That reconciliation required the oath on an icon (khati). The male family members met on a certain field and the icon was brought from a neighbour’s house. Nino’s kidnapper swore on the icon that if he were in the situation of Nino’s family, he would not be angry or insulted but would forgive the other party. Nino’s father and brother accepted the oath and forgave him. The reconciliation was thus concluded and Nino’s family gave her officially as bride to her kidnapper. Nino herself was not happy with the situation since she did not want to marry that man. After having spent a few days with Nodari, she returned to her

194 family; however, she remained married to him and visited him from time to time. In Svaneti the icon is the symbol for the reconciliation process. In So- viet times the icons were saved from the massive destruction of churches and their interior by the communists. Svan people hid them in their homes or in other hiding places. In Svan tradition the oath on an icon is immediately linked to the notion of finding the truth. Marina, whom I introduced above, wanted to save her kidnapper from prison. She lied for him so he needed to fear neither the police nor the anger of her father. Marina’s father became angry very easily and Marina said that he would have killed her kidnapper. Therefore she told him she had eloped with her future husband. Marina’s father was in prison in Soviet times for criminal assault, but local mediators established his innocence. They solved the conflict in their own way and asked Marinas father to swear on an icon.

Marina: The mediators saw that he [her father] was innocent and he took an oath on an icon that he spoke the truth. The oath on an icon solves all cases in Svaneti, it gives a final judgement – the icon and the cross. If you swear on an icon, you must speak the truth; there is no other way.

It is mostly men who serve as mediators in reconciliation processes; female mediators are very rare. However, Marina’s grandmother Eteri was one of them.

Marina: I know it is very rare, maybe one case out of a thousand [female to male mediators]. But my grandmother came to this village; my grandmother is like a man [mamali kali]. She was a widow, her husband had died in war and therefore she appears authoritative and severe. E. K.: What cases between women were mediated by your grandmother?

195 Marina: When women were arguing in the neighbourhood […] E. K.: How did your grandmother resolve such conflicts? Was there a specific locality for the mediation? Marina: She first heard the story of one woman, then she went to the other woman; she pointed out that she had to hear both stories about the conflict. She listened to both stories and then she decided on the case. E. K.: Did she go there alone? Marina: No, some men or women accompanied her […] She listened to both sides, then she reflected on their stories and offered her judgement, ›you are right and you have to swear on the icon‹. Afterwards both women were led to the icon; they had to go to the icon when it was a serious incident; if not, she [Marina’s grandmother] simply said, ›you are right and you are not‹, then they were reconciled and that was it. E. K.: What was a serious incident? Marina: I don’t know. Spreading rumours, for example. Something like that, not homicide or the like. For such cases women would not be called. For such incidents men were responsible […] E. K.: I have seen the mediator’s sticks in the museum of Mestia, where cuts mark the cases. Did your grandmother have a stick like that? Marina: Yes, she had one like that. It is said today that she had to have one when she went to mediate, then she held that stick. Why? Sometimes when there were conflicts, she needed to hold something in her hand to calm and separate the involved parties. She might have had to deal a blow. Not everyone is reasonable and it happened that she needed the stick.

196 The oath on an icon is the traditional way to resolve conflicts among people within the community. It is a traditional method to help establish the truth in the course of reconciliation.

Do law and tradition equal traditional law?

Officially bride kidnapping is forbidden by law. It is considered a crime in contemporary Georgia as it was under Soviet rule. In the Criminal Code of the Soviet Republic of Georgia (1960), a specific article was devoted to the topic, (›Kidnapping for the Purpose of Marriage‹, §134) which included the threat of a prison sentence of at least three years. Since 2004 bride kidnapping is threatened with a prison sentence from two to ten years (Criminal Code of Georgia, §143) and falls into the category of ›deprivation of personal freedom‹. Although non-governmental organisations like Amnesty International or World Organisation against Torture (OMCT) have been lobbying for a specific law on bride kidnapping, no such law has yet been passed. In Tetritskaro the police registered eight bride kidnappings in 2009, but not a single one of them went to court. All eight complaints were finally withdrawn by the victim’s family to avoid social stigmatisation and dis- grace. In one of my rare interviews with men,5 Suliko (age 23) stated that victims of involuntary kidnapping fail to report the case to the police not just because of their fear of social stigmatisation but also because they do not want the kidnapper sent to prison. The kidnapped girl and her family are under strong pressure for her to marry her kidnapper.

5 Men mostly refused to talk to me about bride kidnapping, so I have only a few interviews with male interlocutors.

197 Fig. 26: Villagers playing Nardi in Asureti.

Suliko: And they begged the girl to stay – don’t do this, stay – because they knew that Lika [the kidnapped girl] did not want to stay and all of them would go to prison. Later the housewife [of the house where they hid the girl] came and persuaded her to stay, saying, ›daughter‹ you must stay now‹ and Lika went outside, looked at all the boys and said, ›OK, I will stay because of you‹.

Suliko stated that Lika married her kidnapper to keep him and his friends from prison. She liked her kidnapper, although she was not in love with him. Nevertheless she agreed on the marriage in order to avoid a conflict and the loss of her own and her family’s reputation.

198 Fears of social degradation, the loss of reputation and of rumours concerning her physical integrity exert a strong pressure on the girl. Virginity is seen as a prerequisite of marriage and once a girl has been kidnapped she will rarely have the chance to marry someone else. Bride kidnapping is not just a ›deprivation of personal freedom‹ but also a predetermined act by the kidnapper who is aware of the consequences of his behaviour. His action is well planned and he feels safe in a society where bride kidnapping is still considered a trivial offence and seldom taken to court. Knowing the norms of female behaviour men feel certain about the woman’s decision. They know about the social consequences of rumours and the loss of a woman’s reputation. Sometimes women are raped during a kidnapping in order to demonstrate the man’s dominance in the decision-making process.

Conclusion

To sum up, women have no choice after their kidnapping. This is shown by historical data and by the interviews I conducted in the municipality of Tetritskaro. Bride kidnapping was never considered a tradition but is treated as one. When bride kidnapping occurs, it is likely to cause conflicts between families and in society. The head of the family, who is traditionally in charge of the decision-making process regarding his children’s marriage, is passed over and disregarded in the case of an elopement or a forced kidnapping. Such disregard provokes conflict because it violates the norms of society. Moreover, the kidnapping leaves the woman (and her family) in a desperate situation. Once she has been kidnapped her honour – in terms of her virginity –, her own reputation and that of her family are called into question. For her there is no choice but to marry her kidnapper or else she and her family would be ridiculed and their reputation tarnished. In closing I would like to stress that the reconciliation process is important for restoring order in the community. During the reconciliation process the elders gather either in a specific place or in the church in order to take an oath on an icon for forgiveness. In rare

199 cases a blood feud is necessary for restoring order within the family and society. In the reconciliation process it is important that each side puts itself in the other’s place in order to understand their position and forgive them. Only then the conflict is resolved and the involved parties can live in peace. After the reconciliation the bride kidnapping can be transformed into an official wedding in order to conform to the traditional marriage rules. Order has thus been restored.

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200 Giordano, Christian 1994. Der Ehrkompex im Mittelmeerraum: sozialanthropologische Konstruktion oder Grundstruktur mediterraner Lebensformen. In: Ludgera Vogt and Arnold Zingerle (eds.) Ehre: Archaische Momente in der Moderne. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp: 172-192. Green, Monica H. 1986. The Development of the Trotula. In: Revue d’Histoire des Textes 26: 119-203. Hilgers, Micha 2006. Scham: Gesichter eines Affekts. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. Itonishvili, Valerian 1960a. Kartvel mtielta saojakho urtiertobis istoriidan [From the History of the Family Life of the Georgian Highlanders]. Tbilisi: Sakartvelos metsnierebata akademiis gamomtsemloba. Itonishvili, Valerian 1960b. Kartvel mtielta: saochakho urtiertobis istoriidan [From the History of the Family Relations of Georgian Mountaineers]. Tbilisi: Sakartvelos SSR Metsnierebata Akademiis Ga- momtsemloba. Ivelashvili, Tina 1999. Sakortsino tsesi: chveulebani sakartveloshi [Wedding Customs: Traditions in Georgia]. Tbilisi. Kelly, Kathleen Coyne 2000. Performing Virginity and Chastity in the Middle Ages (Routledge Research in Medieval Studies). London: Routledge. Maibaum, Frank [n. d.]. Der Ursprung des alten Hochzeitsbrauchs ›Brautentführung‹. In: http://www.hochzeitsfluesterer.de/ brautentfuehrung.htm#Tradition, accessed 16.11.2014. Melikishvili, Lia 1986. Traditsiuli sakorttsilo tses: chveulebebis strukturis analizi da inovatsia [Traditional Wedding Customs: Traditional Structures and Analyses]. Tbilisi: Metsniereba. Nadareishvili, Giorgi 1959. Kartuli samartlebrivi kulturis zogierti sakitkhi XI-XII ss. sakartveloshi [About the Issue of Georgian Traditional Law in the 11th-12th Century in Georgia]. Tbilisi: Sakartvelos SSR Metsnie- rebata Akademiis gamomtsemloba. Nadareishvili, Giorgi 1965. Kartuli saochakho samartlis istoriidan [From the History of Georgian Familiy Law]. Tbilisi: Metsniereba.

201 Peristiany, Jean G. 1974 [1966]. Introduction. In: Jean G. Peristiany (ed.) Honour and Shame: the Values of Mediterranean Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 9-18. Pitt-Rivers, Julian 1974 [1966]. Honour and Social Status. In: Jean G. Peristiany (ed.) Honour and Shame: the Values of Mediterranean Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 21-77. Ramseyer, Urs 1985. Brauterwerb und Hochzeit in der Hindu- Balinesischen Religion. In: Karin Völger and Gisela Welck (eds.) Die Braut: Geliebt, verkauft, getauscht, geraubt – Zur Rolle der Frau im Kulturvergleich, Vol. 1. Köln: Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum: 202-209. Rayfield, Donald, Shukia Apridonidze and Ariane Chanturia (eds.) 2006. A Comprehensive Georgian-English Dictionary. London: Garnett Press. Schiffauer, Werner 2008. Parallelgesellschaften: Wie viel Wertekonsens braucht unsere Gesellschaft? Bielefeld: transcript. Schindler, Helmut 1985. Brautraub und Brautkauf bei den chilenischen Mapuche im 19. Jahrhundert. In: Karin Völger and Gisela Welck (eds.) Die Braut: Geliebt, verkauft, getauscht, geraubt – Zur Rolle der Frau im Kulturvergleich, Vo. 2. Köln: Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum: 576-583. Stross, Brian 1974. Tzeltal Marriage by Capture In: Anthropological Quarterly 47, 3: 328-346. Tarkhnishvili, Nino 2013. Georgian Women Protest ›Virginity Inspections‹ In: http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67332, accessed 08.02.2015. Völger, Karin and Gisela Welck (eds.) 1985. Die Braut: Geliebt, verkauft, getauscht, geraubt – Zur Rolle der Frau im Kulturvergleich, 2 Vols. (Die Braut: Geliebt, verkauft, getauscht, geraubt – Zur Rolle der Frau im Kulturvergleich, Vo. 2). Köln: Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum. Volprecht, Klaus 1985. Frauenraub – Raubheirat – Brautraub. In: Karin Völger and Gisela Welck (eds.) Die Braut: Geliebt, verkauft, getauscht, geraubt – Zur Rolle der Frau im Kulturvergleich, Vol. 1. Köln: Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum: 102-107.

202 Wikan, Unni 2008. In Honor of Fadime: Murder and Shame. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wild, Verina, Hinda Poulin and Nikola Biller-Andorno 2009. Rekonstruktion des Hymens: Zur Ethik eines tabuisierten Eingriffs. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt 106, 8: A 340-1.

203

Stéphane Voell

The Battle of Shashviani Inscriptions into a Contested Space

It was during one of those conversations in which we spoke about an incident at the beginning of the 1990s between Svans and Greeks near Shash- viani, a little village around four kilometres from Tetritskaro.1 We first heard this story from a Svan elder from this village in the course of one of our many conversations on traditional law in Svan villages. It sounded to us like the narrative of a mythical Greek military campaign to chase the Svans out of the region again. This elder, Lado, proudly described how the fierce Svan people managed with guile and wile to defeat a superior adversary. Initially, this event was little more than an interesting anecdote, but after a while, after hearing ever more references to the incident, we regularly included questions about it in our interviews and discovered an impressive and multi-faceted narrative that appeared to be something like an arrival story of the Svans in Kvemo Kartli. Thus it came to pass that in one interview, Nika introduced our questions on the conflict around Shashviani with a reference to the ›Battle of Didgori‹ (1121), that is, by associating the contemporary clash between Svans and numerous Greek ›aggressors‹ with the historic battle between the small army of David IV and a much larger Seljuk army. This reference was not made on purpose and the Svans being

1 I conducted research together with my assistants Sandro Shanidze (2009) and Nika Loladze (2010), without whom the project would not have been possible. When in the text is spoken of ›we‹ it is referred to situations in which I was present together with one of my assistants.

205 interviewed at the time never addressed it directly, but after Nika had mentioned the Battle of Didgori, several ›parallels‹ to the ›Battle of Shashviani‹ suddenly became clear to me. In 1121, the Seljuk Turks had transformed Kvemo Kartli into a large pasture for their cattle (Fähnrich 1993). Since the 11th century, Turkish tribes had repeatedly invaded and subdued Georgia and forced the Geor- gian kings to pay tribute. The period is remembered today as didi turkoba, the ›Great Turkish Trouble‹ (Suny 1994). It was a dark period for Georgia and Kvemo Kartli was under the full control of the Seljuk Turks. This changed with the coming to power of the young King David IV (1073-1125), whose reign marked the beginning of the Georgian Golden Age (12th to early 13th century) and who fought in the mythical Battle of Didgori, under the shadow of Mount Didgori (1647 m), a little more than an hour’s drive away from the Svan village of Shashviani in the municipality of Tetritskaro. David IV was successful in re-establishing the Georgian Kingdom. He was able to unite the Georgian lords who had been until that time very independent-minded and against the political unity of the kingdom. He found an important ally in the Georgian Orthodox Church. In the following years David IV gradually gained independence from the power of the Seljuks. Benefiting from the general decline of the Seljuk Empire, he attacked isolated Seljuk garrisons and stopped paying tribute. Having halted the Seljuk expansion in the South Caucasus, he gained increasing power in the region. The Seljuk Turks became increasingly worried about the growing importance of the emerging Christian state in the South Caucasus. Tbilisi, which was still under the control of the Seljuks, was at the mercy of the Christian troops that controlled more and more of the territory around the city. The Muslim population of Tbilisi asked the Seljuk ruler for support. Mahmud II of Great Seljuk (1105-1131) thus declared a Holy War on Georgia and initiated a large coalition of Muslim states. On 10 August 1121, an army on the way to Tbilisi camped in a valley near Mount Did- gori.

206

Fig. 27: Part of Didgori Monument.

207 The size of the Seljuk army is an object of speculation: 400,000 to 600,000 Turks are cited in some sources, others write of 100,000 to 250,000 soldiers (Mikaberidze 2007). What can be agreed upon is, however, that a large number of Turks had camped under Mount Didgori. The army of King David was small by comparison. Their number – around 40,000 Georgians, 15,000 Kipchaks (a Turkish nomadic people), 500 Ossetians, and 200 Crusaders returning from the Holy Land – does not vary much in the sources (Silogava and Shengelia 2007). The question for the Georgian side was how to defeat such superior enemy? Was the battle not lost from the start? (Fähnrich 1993). On 12 August 1121 the Caucasus witnessed dzvela sakirveli (the miraculous victory) (Suny 1994). Every schoolchild in Georgia knows this story by heart; it is considered the greatest military victory of Georgian history (Mikaberidze 2007). With guile and wile, King David managed to defeat the far superior enemy army and heralded the Georgian Golden Age. David IV sent a detach- ment of two hundred Kipchaks to the Seljuk camp. They were let in because the Turks thought the men wanted to surrender. They gathered inside of the Seljuk camp and on a signal the two hundred soldiers attacked the stunned Seljuk warriors. The Seljuks were caught completely off guard and disorganised by this trick. Then the main part of the Geor- gian army attacked the disoriented Seljuk army, profiting from the confu- sion to overcome the Turks in only three hours. In the following years, David IV would complete his military conquest of the South Caucasus and capture Tbilisi.

Inscriptions

In this text I describe the Svan migration to Kvemo Kartli as inscriptions into contested spaces. With ›inscription‹ I mean – in the words of Hilda Kuper – »a number of field situations in which the question ›where‹ appear[s] to be a central issue« (1972: 422). In doing so I want to point to the basic conditions and processes in which people mark their presence in a given territory, how they provide these sites with meaning and how –

208 conversely – this socially constructed ›space‹ itself participates in its own social construction. On the one hand, inscriptions are concrete physical alterations in a geographic location. This can be almost anything, but in the Svan context these are predominantly houses, streets, churches, shrines, piles of stones, and cross monuments of various kinds. Inscriptions can also be appro- priated from earlier inscriptions, in the Svan case the remnants of old churches near their new villages that they use as shrines for their religious holidays. Inscriptions are made by people to demonstrate to themselves and others that they are present at this specific site. They inscribe themselves on a site because it is relevant to them. The main questions in relation to inscriptions are why people inscribe themselves on a particular site and how one can grasp this process on a conceptual level. On the other hand, inscription refers to the process of the assigning of meaning. People can relate to inscribed sites for any number of reasons. The remnants of one ancient Christian church in Kvemo Kartli is used by Svans to insert themselves into a long Georgian and Christian presence in the region, even though they were for centuries only one of many minorities in Kvemo Kartli and the church abandoned. For the local Azerbaija- nis and other groups, however, the meaningful reappropriation of ancient Christian sites by Georgians might be interpreted as the product of a nationalist policy. The ascription of meaning, however, is not a one-way road. By convey- ing one specific site with the same set of meanings over a longer period, the site itself begins to stand for these meanings: people ›read‹ the meanings of the place and are in day-to-day life not questioning the allocated meaning anymore. The ›site‹ becomes an actor, emitting meaning without direct social action. Because of the material nature of a site, like, for example, an ancient church, the meanings attached to it are – however constructed – not easily questioned; the materiality of the site provides the meanings with a kind of durability. In other words, the product of an inscription becomes ›naturally‹ relevant for social action and becomes part of the communicative process; this is so because the site eventually

209 begins to contemporise and reproduces the system of meanings (see Law- rence and Low 1990). I have borrowed the term ›inscription‹ from Setha Low and Denise Lawrence-Zuñiga (2009), who speak of ›inscribed spaces‹. By this they mean that people inscribe their presence into their environment in an enduring manner. Inscribed places relate to how people attach meanings through the appropriation of space. With inscriptions, people extract from the broader concept of space one place as a specific site. The question is here how experience is embedded in space and becomes a bearer of memory. Inscribed spaces include the discussion of the basic historical and political conditions of the process of inscription and how the people on the spot experience both these processes in day-to-day life and life with earlier inscribed spaces. It is about how inscribed spaces are interpreted both by the actors in the process of inscription and all the other people affected by it.

Socio-political framework

It is unclear when exactly the Shashviani incident took place. According to the descriptions of the narrators, it must have been sometime between 1989 and 1991. Some respondents claimed that it was during the presidency of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, while others said that it was just before he came to power. This period was a turbulent time in Georgia and the socio-political framework at this time is important for understanding why the Svans were being resettled especially to Kvemo Kartli. I want to focus here briefly especially on the ethno-nationalist policy of the Georgian national movement and the lack of rule of law in combination with important mafia-like activities. Both aspects resonate in the narratives of the incident. With the coming into power of Mikhail Gorbachev and his policy of perestroika, the Georgian national movement and the decolonisation process became increasingly important, accompanied by increasing pressure on the minorities in Georgia (Gerber 1997). The national movement,

210 including figures like Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Merab Kostava, propagat- ed the belief that only the Georgians were ›at home‹ in what was then still a Soviet Republic while the minorities – often residing in the country for centuries – were labelled ›guests‹. Differences were made between autoch- thonous peoples and settlers, the latter differentiated into groups on the basis of various periods of arrival (Gerber 1997, Jones 1993, Suny 1994).2 This categorisation provides the Svans in Kvemo Kartli a noteworthy turn: The newly arrived Georgian Svans were, according to this logic, part of the indigenous population while the long-time residents – the Azerbai- janis – who had been living in the region since the end of the 16th century (Balci and Motika 2005) were reduced to settlers and guests on Geor- gian territory. In this very late socialist period in Georgia the economic discrimination of the periphery was important. Regions like Kvemo Kartli with large Armenian and Azerbaijani populations experienced this policy as deliberate discrimination leading to ethnic tensions. In addition, the government of the Georgian SSR abandoned the Soviet multilingual language policy – that is, Russian and the respective local languages – and introduced Georgian as the only official language in the administration and in the universities, leading to an exclusion of minorities, who rarely learned Georgian in schools. The political climate was shaped by the general emphasis on the national movement and ethnic boundaries and an inability to put policies into place for the integration of all minorities into the Georgian territory (Gerber 1997). Thomas de Waal writes that »the outbreak of ethnic nationalism Georgia suffered in 1989-91 was so extreme it resembled a collective national fever« (2010: 135). The Svans in Kvemo Kartli say that they were sent to their new region of residence in order to rebalance the ethnic equilibrium in favour of the Georgians (see also

2 See for example the program of the Ilia Chavchavadze Society (founded in 1987), which united very different fractions of the Georgian national movement. This unity later disintegrated rapidly. In the society’s program, however, one could read that Georgia was to be the state of Georgians alone (Gerber 1997).

211 Trier and Turashvili 2007). This agrees with the general policy of the national movement of securing a historical Georgian territory and ensuring that the Georgians avoided being a minority in their own country (Gerber 1997). A snow catastrophe in Svaneti and the necessity to relocate the population was sold as a humanitarian action, but was used to make this policy reality. The Svans became a »tool to advance such policies« (Trier and Turashvili 2007: 4). An important turning point in Georgia’s drive for independency was the so-called ›Tbilisi Massacre‹ or ›Tragedy of Tbilisi‹ on 9 April 1989. The Soviet Army violently put down anti-Soviet demonstrations, which led to twenty deaths and many injuries. This event was also a watershed in the disintegration of the rule of law. The local Communist Party and the Soviet Georgian government lost control, leading to an unprecedented and total collapse of state order. The state was no longer in a position to maintain its monopoly on violence and mafia-like structures filled the gap as ›private entrepreneurs‹ of violence (Aves 1995, Nodia 2005, Trier and Turashvili 2007). Svans also spoke of the ›thieves-in-law‹ (kanonieri qurdebi) or the mafia- like organisation Mkhedrioni (horsemen) when describing the difficult socio-political situation in Kvemo Kartli when the confrontation in Shashviani took place. Thieves-in-law were an important part of Geor- gian society at the end of the Soviet period (Slade 2012a, 2012b). They are a mythologised criminal elite with an ideology originating from the Gu- lags of the 1930s. It consists of a group of initiated men with a strict code of conduct or law. The thieves-in-law became increasingly important with the retreat of the state and emerged as providing and monopolising core functions of government, upholding order, ensuring security and mediating conflicts. In the turbulent transitional period in Georgia, the ›thieves‹ presented themselves as a reliable source of order based on clearly defined moral values and a code of honour. In the accounts of some Svans the Battle took place in the period in which the Mkhedrioni were influential in Kvemo Kartli. This period was later, after Gamzakhurdia had to leave his presidency because of a violent

212 coup d’état in January 1992. The Mkhedrioni, however, stand in this narratives on the Battle for a period in which the state administration and the law enforcement were extremely weak. The Mkhedrioni were led by the enigmatic ›thief‹ Jaba Ioseliani. The organisation counted around 4,000 men and was presented as having been created to provide security to the Georgians in the republic. With weapons mainly originating from Soviet Army stocks, the Mkhedrioni were involved, however, in all kinds of business under the guise of their patriotic ideology. Their main activities were racketeering, extortion, smuggling of weapons and tobacco and the regional control of food production (Aves 1996, De Waal 2010, Gerber 1997, Nodia 2005). It was in this period of fading state control, increasing criminality and the emergence of mafia-like organisations that the Svans arrived in Kvemo Kartli. The people already living in Kvemo Kartli made a link between these processes and the arrival of the Svans into the region, per- ceiving the latter as criminals and in a way as the authors of the turbulent times and the criminality in Kvemo Kartli (Trier and Turashvili 2007).

Contested spaces

Inscriptions in space are literally condensed conceptions of space. Through inscriptions, concrete places emerge, places as concretised spaces. And these places are not, as Margaret C. Rodman writes, ›inert containers‹ but »politicised, culturally relative, historically specific, local and multiple constructions« (1992: 641). Places are multi-layered and multiple constructions, made not necessarily only by the people on the spot, but also by persons in distant places and even by scholars studying them. Rodman highlights the ›multivocality‹ of place, that is, that there is in fact not one place, but numerous conceptions of place possibly superposing on one another and that these spaces can have various meanings and values for different users. One part of Rodman’s text seems to fit particularly well to the situation of the Svans in Kvemo Kartli who arrived in the region after of the snow catastrophe in the highlands: »Anyone whose place has been transformed, for

213 example, by a natural disaster or suburban development – in other words, anyone dislocated from his or her familiar place, or from the possibility of local identity – is keenly aware of contrasts between the known and the unfamiliar. In such situations, people often see a new landscape in terms of familiar ones« (1992: 646-647). This is how the Svans inscribed themselves into the new surroundings; they recreated the familiar in the unfamiliar. That said, the social and political framework of the process makes a conceptual approach based on place an interesting analytical tool. In Kvemo Kartli, inscriptions are always made in contested space. Open conflicts in the region – like the one described in this text or the clashes between Azer- baijanis, Greeks and Svans sketched in the Introduction of this book – have decreased significantly, but contradicting conceptions of respective social positions in space continue to confront one another in day-to-day life. The inscriptions of one side contests on a very general level the inscriptions of the other. With ›contested spaces‹ I mean with Low and Lawrence-Zuñiga »geographic locations where conflicts in the form of opposition, confrontation, subversion and/or resistance engage actors whose social positions are defined by differential control of resources and access to power« (2009: 18). Conflicts in relation to space in Kvemo Kartli mostly concern meanings attached to a specific site. Spaces are in this sense contested »because they concretise the fundamental and recurring, but otherwise unexamined, ideological, and social frameworks that structure practice« (2009: 18). Putting the emphasis on how different parties aim at monopolising interpretative authority or even the control of a specific site is not new. Steven Feld and Keith Basso (1996) argue that in anthropology, space is most generally discussed from the contested perspective and its interrelation of this process to local and global relations of power. This is so in the numerous studies on forced displacement, resettlement, contested borders or diaspora – all of them very important issues in the Caucasus –, but also in studies on conflicts and open wars of minorities in their drive for independence in their ›ancestral regions‹.

214 Fig. 28: Reproductions of Svan towers as tombstones in a Svan village graveyard in Kvemo Kartli.

But for Kvemo Kartli, ›contested space‹ is not only a conceptual tool to explicate the processes on the ground on a theoretical level; contested spaces, like controversies over property relations, the appropriation of ancient religious buildings, the introduction of new villages and the outmigration of long-time residents shows that space and place and the discussion around them are important topics also in the day-to-day life of the people in the region.

Social production of space

The works of Henri Lefebvre are important when discussing the interre- lations of space, power and physical structures and, in return, how built environments affect social forms. The core idea in Lefebvre’s (2000 [1974]) classic approach is that social space is a social product, that is, that humans actively produce space. They alter nature and, in doing so, them-

215 selves. Lefebvre’s research focus was on the city and he wanted to show by means of the study of capitalist social space the generating forces behind of it. He asked who in the urban context creates social space – and how. Lefebvre is interesting here because he points out that one should not conceive of space as something that is ready-made; one should look at the processes that are constantly generating space. It is not useful to study the ›thing in space‹ but to question the production of the thing ›space‹. Besides studying actors and interests in the production of space, another aspect of Lefebvre’s approach is relevant for this text. Space is not a mere plain something for all kinds of reproductions; it is not only a stage for the actors in the process of reproduction. Space is part of the ensem- ble and a vital and productive part of the process of reproduction (Merri- field 2000). In order to grasp social space conceptually, Lefebvre introduced a theoretical framework based on a tripartition, the ›spatial triad‹ or triplicité (Proteri 2006, Lefebvre 2000 [1974]). This is not a full blown theory, but, as Andy Merrifield (2000) states, some preliminary sketch and an invita- tion to adapt it to one’s own approach. The spatial triad refers to the perceived (perçu), the conceptualised (conçu) and the lived (vécu) and was introduced to overcome the classic dialectical conception of object and meaning (Unwin 2000). The ›perceived‹ dimension of Lefebvre’s approach is spatial practice (pratique spatial). It describes the interconnection of a perceived space (perçu) with day-to-day urban reality. It is the perspective of a person living and acting in space. The people show here their individual spatial competence and performance in a conception of space, which for the individual appears to be coherent, even though when seen from the outside it does not appear logical. It is important to remember that spatial practice might be different from what has been initially conceived for the space in question. Lefebvre calls conceptualised space ›representations of space‹ (représenta- tions de l’espace). This is the space conceived (conçu) by the bodies in power,

216 the professionals, the technocrats or scholars. The ›representations‹ refer to the predominant conceptions of space in a society, the blueprints for the appropriation of space created by the elites and how they are interre- lated to the specific local modes of production and configurations of power. Representational spaces (espaces de représentation) are introduced by Lefebvre as the lived space (vécu) of its inhabitants and its uses from a general point of view (not from the more individual perspective as in spatial practice). It consists of those dimensions of space that are com- municated with general images and symbols that form the genuine codes of the society. These are also (re)produced by writers or philosophers. Representational space can be described as something overlaying the physical constructions, like packaging, that ensures the continuity and cohesion of social space. Henri Lefebvre is in turn a core influence in Setha Low’s discussions of the social production of space. Low examines what she calls the ›spatialisation of culture‹ (1996). She defines the verb ›to spatialise‹ as »to locate – physically, historically, and conceptually – social relations and social practice in space« (2000: 127) and introduces two terms to grasp it better: ›social production‹ and ›social construction‹. She conceives these terms as tools for tracing transformations of space into a meaningful reality. With ›social production‹ Low (1996) describes on the one hand the social, economic, ideological and technical factors that frame the physical creation of space. More concretely, social production concerns the history of the creation of social space, its political and economic moulding. The focus is here on the physical dimension of space, a rather diachronic perspective framed by history, policy and ideology. On the other hand ›social construction‹ points to the phenomenological and symbolic experience and, most generally, to the social exchange of people in relation to space, that is the memories and images in relation to the day-to-day practice of space, framed by exchange, conflict, and control. Social construction highlights those practices that effectively transform space into place through meaningful spatial social action. Social construction is therefore

217 the synchronic side of the conception of social space; it is the affective and symbolic moulding of space. The anthropology of the built environment and Low’s spatialisation of culture informs my approach because in the case of the Svans, resettling to Kvemo Kartli and the following conflicts with other local residents concerns directly the built environment, the narrations behind its creation, and the social experience of space. The Svan villages are socially produced forms, but the construction of the village cannot be evaluated without considering the conceptions of the contested space of ›Kvemo Kartli‹.

Approach

The Svans inscribed themselves into a region in which various groups were constantly inscribing and ›outscribing‹ themselves. Seljuks, Mongols, Ottomans, Persians, and Georgians arrived and left. Armenians, Azerbai- janis, Germans, Greeks and Ossetians also came and settled to Kvemo Kartli. In the years under Stalin, many Georgians from the highlands (from Khevsureti or Tusheti) were – among others – resettled to Kvemo Kartli, where they were expected to clear empty land and cultivate it (Trier and Turashvili 2007). In the 1940s, many people were deported from Kvemo Kartli, such as the Germans. The Svans arrived at the end of the 1980s (see the Introduction of this book). In the last decade, new groups of Svans settled to Kvemo Kartli in former Greek and Ossetian villages. The latter emigrated in large number to Greece and the North Caucasus. Kvemo Kartli stands for continuous coming and going. Inscriptions create places in space; places are concretised spaces. Places are here defined as »the experience of a particular location with some measure of groundedness (however unstable), sense of boundaries (however permeable), and connections to everyday life, even if its identity is constructed, traversed by power, and never fixed« (Escobar 2001: 140). Places are grounded and bounded locations with an identity that they

218 acquire through the ascription of meaning. In our context it is more useful to write that place might have multiple identities. My general approach to this issue is to describe the basic conditions for the creation of place, its history, narrations and reports in and through which meaning is attributed to spaces from many different directions. But it is also important to consider how divergent conceptions of the same place are experienced and what are the reactions to this fact. The dynamic of the ascription of meaning to places will be shown with the help of three key terms: foundation (Konstitutierung), construction (Konstruktion) and controversies (Kontroversen). My specific approach here in this text is the combination of the basic concepts introduced by Lefebvre and Low. The latter is grounding the work of the former, making accessible for anthropology Lefebvre’s ›La Production de l’Espace‹, the reading of which can for Tim Unwin »be compared to walking across quicksand, or trying to find the end of the rainbow« (2000: 14). Low builds on Lefebvre but shifts the emphasis in the social production of space to the production of meaning instead of the interrelation of the modes of production with the creation of urban space in general. I use Low’s approach (1996, 2000) with this accent on the relevance of meanings attached to space all the while considering the basic political and social conditions of inscription. The difficulty inherent in Low’s concept is, however, that by reducing Lefebvre’s spatial triad to a dichotomy of social production and social construction, which are, so Low, in a ›dialogic‹ and not a dialectical relation, she reintroduces this dichotomy of object and meaning that Lefebvre wanted to overcome. Notwithstanding that Low writes that social production and construction takes place in a contested environment, the clash of different concepts of space appears side-lined. With ›foundation‹, ›construction‹ and ›controversies‹ I use Setha Low’s perspective but include the emphasis of the contested nature of the inscriptions in the region of Kvemo Kartli. With ›controversies‹ I mean struggles, clashes and conflicts around place from the start and try to

219 overcome the trap of single-stranded dialectical relations between object and meaning. With foundations of space I denote historic and contemporary basic conditions of the process of inscription of the Svans in Kvemo Kartli. The focus lies here on social, economic and ideological processes that lead to the virtual existence of place. This is the politics of place. This aspect – related to Low’s ›social production‹ and Lefebvre’s ›representations of space‹ – concerns the history of the region of Kvemo Kartli until the resettlement of the Svans, but also the Georgian-Russian War of 2008 that lead to a new influx of Svan migrants. With ›foundations‹ I designate the planning and the creation of new places, but also the construction or renovation of, for example, shrines and churches. The foundations of place are especially in Kvemo Kartli a continuous process that has no end. The Svans continue to come and inscribe themselves anew in the former Greek and Ossetian villages. It is only the political framework for the migration movements that changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Construction of place encompasses the attribution of meanings and values to space. It is the imaginaries of space. This dimension is based on Low’s notion of ›social construction‹ and to meanings attributed to space from a general societal view in Lefebvre’s ›representational spaces‹. Mean- ings are related to spaces from different sides, even from persons who were never personally on the spot, as Rodman (1992) noted. The ascription of meaning can be done by groups in the area, but can also be the product of another historic period. With ›construction‹ I want to describe how Svans make places accessible from themselves, how they – by ob- serving the multitude of voices present behind it – position themselves in the place, relate it to Svaneti and the history of the region Kvemo Kartli. But it also shows how others are doing this in the region, in our case the Greek population. The third dimension – controversies over place – is important to get out of the trap of presenting a simple dichotomy of object and meaning. This component is in this explicit form missing in Low’s approach. It

220 echoes Lefebvre’s ›spatial practice‹ in the day-to-day use of place, but here in a contested setting. This dimension acknowledges the ›multivocality‹ and ›multilocality‹ as introduced by Rodman (1992). Whereas foundation and construction set the frame of action, here the performance of place is the focus. In constructions the ascription of meaning is of importance, but with controversies I frame the clash of conceptions of place or the people referring to these divergent conceptions of place. The structure of power in and around a place in question, as framed by foundations, the possibility of the political instrumentalisation of place and the tentative efforts to maintain control of the layout of meaning or the production of meaning is here performed directly or through narrations in situ. An inscription takes place in a process in which numerous authors take part with divergent interests. Especially in Kvemo Kartli it becomes clear that inscription never takes place in a vacuum: there were always others there before who invariably left their traces. But there are also others still present who have different approaches to the recent inscriptions. When we speak of Svans who resettle in Greek villages or who rediscover remnants of ancient Christian churches for their religious practice, it quickly becomes clear that we are speaking here not only of inscriptions, but also of ›overwriting‹, of ›outscription‹ or even of ›retracing‹ old inscriptions. It is important to keep in mind that foundations and constructions describe the social production of the place in question and the general processes that frame the scene of action. This means in our case the association of Kvemo Kartli with the Battle of Didgori, but also more recently the process of the construction of villages and the resettlement of the Svans. The focus of this text is on the third dimension, the concrete performance of controversies. This dimension of inscriptions into contested spaces refers to actions on the ground by various sides. Here I will discuss the process of the narration (performing through telling a story) and the action described in the narration itself. The controversies are condensed around a specific place.

221

Fig. 29: Svans in the village of Khaishi in Kvemo Kartli singing on the occasion of the Svan religious holiday kvirikoba in 2009.

222 I focus here on the built environment, on villages, streets, houses, very material traces of inscriptions. These concrete material places are not only socially constructed, but are at the same time taking part in the construction process. Spaces in general structure our behaviour and support us in deciding where we are and which social actions are appropriate (Schroer 2006). People are constantly ascribing spaces with a comparable set of meanings, the latter merge literally with the space they are designating. The ascribed meaning is not questioned in everyday life; it unburdens the individual because it provides definitions that are already inscribed into a space (Kruse and Graumann 1978, Schroer 2006). The material dimension of the built environment gives to the inscribed meanings an even more palpable relevance. Through the material presence of a village, a house, a shrine or even a street, the ascribed meaning to the built environment in question might not be questioned easily because the material, unquestionable nature of the built environment, gives to the attached meaning an equally unquestionable status.

Preceding events: robbery in Iraga

Besarion was not happy that I came to know about this story, but since I asked, he felt compelled to tell me all that he knew about the event. His wife, Tamar, and his daughter were both sitting with us in their house in Shashviani and encouraged him to tell me about the conflict. Besarion began to speak about the ›Battle of Shashviani‹ – as I have dubbed it –, but not without underlining that this incident had brought shame upon him and the Svans of Shashviani. If he felt the need to tell me about the event, it was above all to exculpate himself from this shame. He wanted to speak to me about the Greeks, who used to live in numerous villages in the region of Tetritskaro. These Greeks worked predominantly in the quarries. They worked hard and had become very rich. Besarion said that many of these Greeks working in the quarries, young and old alike, only had three fingers on each hand. They had lost their other fingers in acci- dents with the machines and quarrying tools. One of the rich Greeks was

223 Leonid Mikhailov.3 He lived in Iraga, a village eight kilometres away from Shashviani and at the time mainly populated by Greeks. Mikhailov owned a number of quarries in the region and was a wealthy man. Besarion continued with his version of the history leading up to the Battle of Shashviani. He recalled the event in the form of a fairy tale and I have the impression that we were not the first to hear it, so elaborated it appeared to me. In his story, some Svans from his village went down to the Greek village of Iraga. These villagers were not his relatives, but Be- sarion knew them well. In the dark of the night they crept to Leonid Mi- khailov’s house with the plan to rob the wealthy Greek. They arrived at his house, knocked at his door and threatened Mikhailov. They wanted money. Besarion called them ›thieves‹. The Greek asked his nightly visi- tors how much money they wanted and gave them the requested sum. The Svans left the Greek village. Several days later the Svans came again and again Mikhailov gave them the money they asked for. This time, however, the Greek said to the thieves that they should not come again to his house to ask for money. If they came again he would treat them as thieves. Besarion got angry telling his story. If I could imagine that the Svan thieves were dissuaded by Mikhailov’s threat? No! They only thought of continuing their good life, living off of other people’s money. The thieves went a third time to Mikhailov’s house in Iraga. But Mikhailov was prepared and had a rifle beside his bed. If the thieves would come again he would be ready; if they were to return to his house and demand entry – their voices were familiar to Mikhailov now – he would take out his gun and shoot them. The Svans returned, knocking at his door once again. Mikhailov asked who was there at his door and they replied: ›It’s us‹. The Greek opened the door and exclaimed: ›Oh, it’s you!‹ ›Yes, we are here‹. Then Mikhailov shot without further warning. He seriously injured a Svan named Gabliani. Mikhailov also was injured in the course of the

3 Besarion did not name him explicitly.

224 following struggle. The thieves took their severely injured comrade with them. Young Gabliani died shortly afterwards of his injuries. – This was the beginning of the Battle of Shashviani, closed Besarion the prelude of his story.4 I had developed a good relationship with Vakhtang, an employee of the local administration in Tetritskaro. He supported us in organising our research in the region in 2009. In the early 1990s he had worked for the regional court and remembered the ›Mikhailov Case‹. He recalled how four Svans had visited Leonid Mikhailov in Iraga at night. All the villagers were sleeping. Mikhailov was resting with a loaded gun close by. Vakh- tang emphasised that Mikhailov had not put the gun beside his bed because he had expected a thief. The early 1990s were a turbulent period in Georgia and consequently, many people had weapons at home. It was nothing special to be in the possession of weapons in this time. This was the only reason, said Vakhtang that the gun was within reach. When Mi- khailov heard a noise in his basement, he got up, took is gun and went down the stairs. His family was sleeping in the basement. He did not hesitate one moment and shot as soon as he discovered the thieves in his house. Mikhailov injured one of the thieves, the mentioned Gabliani. The other Svans fled, taking Gabliani with them. On the way back to their village they realised that they could not help him anymore. They left the dying young man on the road and ran from the police. The thieves from Shashviani later claimed that Mikhailov was at fault for the whole thing. The Svans explained that they never had the intention of robbing him and that he had shot at them without provocation. Vakhtang, however, does not agree with this point of view because the police examination of the crime scene told a clear story: Gabliani’s blood was found in Mikhailov’s house and why else would the Svans have been in the house in the middle of the night besides burglarising it? The police examination drew a clear picture of the event. After this incident, con-

4 Besarion did not name the incident ›Battle of Shashviani‹ but said that these were the events before it all began.

225 cluded Vakhtang, the Greeks from Iraga met and marched in the direction of Shashviani. Was the Mikhailov case really a burglary gone wrong or was it something else, for example a case of racketeering? Could the Svans have been thieves-in-law? The smuggling route to Armenia and Azerbaijan, which at the beginning of the 1990s was one of the major sources of criminal income in Georgia, passed through Kvemo Kartli. The repeated visits mentioned by Besarion also suggest a case of racketeering. A Balt, Vladimir, living in Tetritskaro did not think that this was the case. The Greek was not being asked to pay protection money; it must have been a simple burglary. The Svans arrived in Iraga, continued Vladimir, with the clear intention to rob the Greek. Mikhailov was in possession of a hunting rifle. It was not against the law to have it at home and the gun was registered. Mikhailov used this hunting rifle in an act of self-defence, shooting the young Svan Gabliani. Vladimir added his thoughts on the possibility that the Svans might have injured Gabliani themselves, possibly even torturing him, but he did not really know. In any case, Mikhailov did chase the Svans and did shoot at them. The Svans left the injured Gabli- ani behind and ran to their car. They ran and left their comrade behind. Later, Mikhailov himself went to the police in Tetritskaro and explained everything. He did not hide the fact that he had killed a Svan in an act of self-defence. The police examined the case and concluded that Mikhai- lov’s version appeared to be the most probable. Nevertheless, the police did advise the Greek to leave his village since the Svans would most probably come back to Iraga to avenge Gabliani. Mikhailov thereupon left his home village and emigrated to Russia. It is most probably no longer possible to find out what really happened that night in Iraga. Katya, a Russian woman living in Tetritskaro, is generally very suspicious of the Svans. In our discussion she painted a bloody picture of the incident in Iraga: The Svans arrived in Iraga, three or four of them, she does not remember anymore. She also does not recall exactly if the person they robbed was Greek or Georgian. The Svans, of this she was sure, were robbers. They went to the house and wanted to be let

226 in. The man living in the house, however, had no illusions about what nature the visit was. The Svans were not let in. For a while the owner of the house had the impression that the knockers at the door had left. But suddenly, Katya continued, he heard a metallic noise. He could not identify the origin of the noise and opened the door in order to find out. As soon as he unlocked the door, they charged in. The man’s grandchild and wife were very anxious and afraid and told the intruders to take everything they wanted, but not to harm them or their family. The Svans did not listen, says Katya, they gagged their prisoners with tape and then they wrapped the man of the house with cable until he died. She never mentioned that one of the Svans had been injured or died.

Preceding events: the video rental store

Some of my interview partners said that the raid on Mikhailov’s house was the reason for the Battle of Shashviani. More often, however, the main reason was identified as being an incident in a bar or gambling den in the centre of Tetritskaro. In some stories it is identified as a video rental store. Tornike, the former chief of police and now lawyer in the little town spoke about the owner of the establishment, a Greek from Ivanovka. His name was Yannis, he said, or something in this vein. May- be Yannis did not let the Svans in or the Svans did not pay their bill. Tor- nike did not remember the case very well because many years had passed. In any case, they began to argue and the Svans beat Yannis up. Yannis was brought to a hospital and the fight continued there. Tornike concluded that this was the catalyst for the Battle of Shashviani. The story that Lado, the Svan from Shashviani mentioned at the beginning of this paper, told was closer to this version. We were sitting together outside his house in September 2009. He was the first person to tell me the story of the Battle of Shashviani and without him I probably would never have come across it. I spoke with him a couple of times, about many things, but also about the battle, and every time he provided more details about it, some of them contradicting the details he had told me the

227 time before. The Svans, Lado recalled, were newcomers and the local authorities were on the side of the Greeks. Some young Svans went to a nearby restaurant. The Greeks in the restaurant started to insult the Svans, as was often the case then. The insults were such that this time a fist fight broke out. The Svans fled to Shashviani and told some men sitting around at the village market place where the new church now stands about it. They returned together to the restaurant and took their revenge on the Greeks, beating them up in turn. When Lado told the story a second time, the restaurant was a gambling den in Tetritskaro. The Svans from Shashviani, who this time were only referred to as ›the Georgians‹, had been gambling, but did not pay for their losses, and this is why the fight broke out. The car of the gambling den’s owner was parked in front of the building. The Svans broke into the car and – just for fun, Lado pointed out – drove it around Tetritskaro. This is why the battle started. In the course of the events in Tetritskaro, a young Greek was seriously wounded and had to be brought to hospital. At the moment that the surgeons transferred the injured Greek to the operation table, several Svans suddenly stormed the operating room. They tied the injured man to the table, damaging the latter seriously. The young Greek had to be brought to Tbilisi for further treatment. Was this young Greek Yannis? Lado never mentioned this name. In a third conversation with Lado the gambling den was a discotheque where a Greek from the village of Ivanovka worked. Svans from Shashviani were in this discotheque. They played ›something‹, as Lado said, but they did not pay for it. The Svans left the disco and stole the owner’s car. Of course, so Lado stressed, it was ›our people‹ misbehaving and this was why the fight started. But ›those of us‹ did beat the Greek badly and he had to be brought to hospital. They even followed him into the operating room. The Svans were about twenty years old at the time and of course, it was not good what they did, Lado concluded. Kakha was sitting on the terrace of our dacha in Tetritskaro. He was in our house with two other young Svans from Shashviani. Kakha pointed towards our kitchen. ›Yannis was as tall as your kitchen‹, he said.

228 Fig. 31: Local administration building in Tetritskaro.

Yannis was the owner of the video rental store in Tetritskaro and a good man. Such stores were a novelty at the time, especially in the provincial town of Tetritskaro. The Svans paid a visit to the store and there the problems began. Kakha did not get any more concrete about the nature of these problems. He said that some people have money and some did not, but that this should not be used against them. The fight started, Kakha continued. And he described Yannis as being as big as a house. The Svans kicked and punched Yannis the Greek, but they had nothing on him. Then the Svans took knives and cut him. Yannis was seriously wounded and had to be brought to hospital in Tetritskaro. The Svans pursued him even into the hospital. Two of them – Emzar and Dato –

229 even went into the operation room and continued their fight with Yannis there. Kakha admits that his Svan countrymen definitely went too far. Yannis, however, rose from the operating table and tackled Emzar and Dato. He seized both and threw them across the operation room. The Svans got up and threw a bucket at him; they threw everything they could get their hands on at him and continued to kick Yannis. In the end, Yan- nis collapsed. He was so tall, said Kakha, that when he died fifteen years later, it was necessary to pass his corpse through the window, because the door was not large enough. At this moment, says Kakha, Yannis had been a friend of the Svans for a long time.

The march on Shashviani

It was then that the Battle of Shashviani began, said Vakhtang from the local administration in Tetritskaro. The Greeks wanted to take revenge. The Armenians were also there, allied with the Greeks. They all wanted to go to Shashviani, but first they blocked the bridge over the railroad tracks. Apparently there had also been some incidents in the centre of Tetritskaro. Besarion had been there, in the centre of town. Besarion used to work as an agronomist in the region and travelled back and forth between the villages. Besarion said that he knew many people and many people knew him. At this moment he was in the town centre, on the main square in front of the regional administration building, where numerous people from the surrounding villages had met, some even with their cars. Besarion went to the protesting Greeks and since he knew most of them he started to talk: ›What is happening here, brother?‹ The Greek then explained the situation to Besarion. They wanted the Svans to be relocated elsewhere; and if this did not happen, the Greeks would have to kill them. The Greeks were standing with their guns in their hands. Besarion spoke to the Greeks. He beseeched them to stay calm: ›But you did kill the man, who wanted to rob you!‹ referring to the assault on the house in Iraga and the young Gabliani who was killed by the Greek Mikhailov. ›And if someone would break into your house again, then kill him, too!‹

230 Besarion prompted the Greeks to kill every thief who dared to rob them: ›Kill them all!‹ Besarion was worried about his family in Shashviani, about Tamar. He was standing in Tetritskaro in the midst of indignant Greeks who were about to descend on his village. Besarion recalled that he was thinking about his children in the kindergarten and about his sister. She had cancer and was no longer able to walk. He saw his entire family in danger. And this was only, so Besarion, because of ›that little bastard‹, again referenc- ing the story as it took place in Iraga. But all his pleading was in vain. They went off from their meeting point in front of the regional administration in the direction of Shashviani. The police was present and they tried to hold back the Greek protest march as well. They blocked the bridge over the railroad tracks on the way to Shashviani. The chief of police, so Besarion, beseeched him to do something to calm the situation: ›Besarion: Do something! Talk with them! Stop them!‹ The Greek procession approached the police barriers, but it could not stop the Greeks, who continued with their march. Then the police tried to stop the march at a second bridge across a little river. This second road block was just as useless. Besarion said that the procession looked like an army column on the march. Soon after the Greeks passed the second road block, Besarion continued, the police resigned. The chief of police again approached Besarion and told him: ›Well, Besarion, save yourself. There will be no help and support for you!‹ Besarion went along with the Greek march from Te- tritskaro to Shashviani. Many of the Greeks were his friends. Over and over again he pled: there were old people, women and babies in the village. ›Do not do it!‹ They should not attack Shashviani. ›You killed the bastard. Nobody will blame you for this!‹ Besarion described how he cursed the thieves from his village who had wanted to rob Mikhailov’s house. Besarion tried to appease the Greeks and asked them not to blame an entire village only because some few had committed the crime. Besari- on’s pleas remained unheard and the Greeks continued on their way to Shashviani. The Greeks reached the village where the church was later

231 built. Besarion thought that around 2,000 people were standing there on the outskirts of Shashviani.

The siege of Shashviani

When in September 2009 I spoke with Lado in Shashviani, he said that there were around 500 Greeks. According to him, they attacked the village several times. In June 2010 Lado recalled seeing 2,000 Greeks and later in the course of the interview he said that ›thousands of Greeks‹ had come to the village that day. Kakha, sitting on the terrace of our dacha, underlined the fact that Ossetians and Armenians had joined the Greeks in laying siege to Shashviani and that it must have been no less than 1,000 people. Lado was in the village when the Greeks finally reached Shashviani. He spoke about this moment, when Greeks from Tetritskaro, Iraga, Tsintskaro and Teliani had crossed the little river and appeared on the outskirts of his village. The police and other representatives of the local administration had not been able to stop them. Lado also told me that the police had informed the Svans about their inability to stop the march. Shashviani had to defend itself on its own. Lado presented himself to me as a man of action. He started to distribute weapons in the village. On the property beside the plot where the church is now and where the Greeks assembled stood a half-finished building that was initially planned to be a village store. The building had never been finished and today only the foundation remains visible. Several armed Svan villagers barricaded themselves in this empty skeleton of a building; even women took part in defending the village, said Lado. As not all Svans had weapons at hand, Lado proudly talked of his feint: he distributed steel rods used for construction. From a distance these could be mistaken for guns. In addition, the Svans stopped a truck that was driving through Shashviani, blocking the road into the village with it. Lado could be considered – at least according to his own description – to be one of the village leaders. He called out commands to the Svan villagers, shouting that nobody should shoot. If there would be a reason

232 to shoot, he himself would be the first. At this moment, continues Lado, the Greeks did not expect to see armed Svans. The Greeks saw how the Svans had barricaded themselves and were waiting for them, armed with guns. The Greeks were not armed, assumed Lado. They all stood close together on the outskirts of the village. Each shot by the Svans in the direction of the Greeks would have been a sure hit. It would have been difficult not to hit one of the Greeks. Lado told the other Svans that if a Greek passed the truck he would open fire immediately. One of the Svans was difficult to hold back as he wanted to shoot immediately. Lado said that he took the gun out of his hands to prevent this. The Greeks, so Lado, were afraid in this situation into which they had gotten themselves. Were the Greeks really so frightened? Vladimir, the Balt from Tetritska- ro, shook his head. It did not happen like this, said Vladimir, and the Greeks had not been afraid of the Svans. The Greeks were standing at the outskirts of Shashviani, maybe 300 people, but in no case more. They came with cars, tractors and other motor vehicles – this is certainly true, added Vladimir. But when entering the village, the Greeks saw no men in the streets. Nobody was waiting in ambush and, apart from the women and children, the village appeared to be empty. The Svan men fled before the Greeks arrived, hiding in the forest in the vicinity of the village. There was no Battle for Shashviani, because one party was missing. I do not know what really happened that day in Shashviani. The more people I asked, the less I knew. I was often surprised by new twists that yet another narration brought to the whole story. Depending on the ethnicity of the respondent (Svan, Greek, Russian etc.) a different group had the advantage during this Battle and the events turned in their favour. Even within the village of Shashviani the perception of the Battle was multi-layered and contradictory, especially on the question about who brought about a resolution to the conflict.

233 Fig. 31: Street in the village of Shashviani.

The mediation process

Besarion gave me his account of the mediation process. He was marching beside the Greeks from Tetritskaro in the direction of Shashviani. Once they had arrived in his village, he ran over to the Svan villagers to explain to them how they should react. The Svan thieves, who had assaulted Mikhailov in Iraga were also there. Angrily, Besarion told them not to do or say anything: ›If there is anyone in a position to help you, then it’s me! I will help you, you dogs!‹ Besarion then walked back to the Greeks. But he did not want to face the Greeks alone; if they were to kill him, he did not want to be alone. He was, after all, a little afraid of being shot. Then the Greeks would attack the entire village. He did not want to lie there, dead and alone. Thus he asked one of his cousins to join him. Besarion’s cousin is now an old man, but at the time of the Battle, he was a ›strong boy‹ who used to be a wrestler. Of course, underlines Besarion, his cousin

234 could not have done a thing against the Greeks’ weapons. Besarion, however, thought that the Greeks would not kill him. Besarion explained how the Greeks called out to him: ›Besarion, come here!‹ He came, and his cousin followed him slowly. The latter was really afraid and Besarion recalled well how he had to calm him, saying that he would not be killed. He should not be afraid to join him. A third man came as well. This was Lado, but Besarion was not able to say anything positive about him. Lado followed the cousins in the direction of the Greeks and Besarion did not mention him again in the rest of his version of the story. The group of three men approached the other side on the outskirts of Shashviani. Besarion’s narration had the tone of a showdown like in a Western movie. The Greeks spoke: ›Well, Besarion, what can you say to us?‹ Besarion drew himself up and said loudly to the Greeks: ›Go back to your houses.‹ He told them that they had already killed one Svan, this young Gabliani, who was killed during the hold-up at Mikhailov’s house in Iraga. If in the future a Svan from Shashviani would try to rob a Greek house, the Greeks should again shoot and kill them. Besarion cursed the Svan thieves. Besarion spoke loudly and everybody heard it clearly. After he said this, said Besarion, the Greeks slowly calmed down and one by one left the village of Shashviani. In the end, one Greek said: ›Besarion, it is only because of your words that we are going home now. We trust you.‹ The Greeks left and nobody was hurt in the incident. Lado, for his part, presented himself as having been the most important negotiator during the mediation. In Besarion’s version, Lado had not spoken. Lado told me his version of events: The Greeks from all the neighbouring villages were standing at the outskirts of the village. Mem- bers of the municipal administration were also present. Then Greeks saw that the Svans were prepared for anything, they understood that it would be impossible to do anything against Shashviani’s villagers. Both parties then accepted negotiations. The Greeks invited the Svans to name a mediator and Lado stepped up. He went to the Greeks together with another Svan, but Lado did not tell us his name. The chief of police and the

235 state attorney were also present. Lado went directly to them. The Greeks spoke Russian and Lado spoke it as well, albeit not very well. He had learned it during his military service. Lado directed his speech towards the Greeks and challenged them. He spoke Georgian to them and somebody must have translated his speech. Lado asked them: ›Who do they think they are? Is Georgia a cow that one can simply milk at any time?‹ The Greeks were here in Georgia and were not even able to speak Georgian! He himself speaks Russian, but did not want to use this language at this moment. Then, concludes Lado, he acknowledged in his speech that the Svans indeed had made a mistake; they had not conducted themselves properly. But now the Greeks were standing here in this large number and threatened an entire village. That day a funeral had been planned but it had to be cancelled due to the Greek attack. After he had said this, so Lado, the Greeks made a hesitant and perturbed impression. Shortly afterwards, they left the village of Shashviani. Who was the main mediator on the side of the Svans? Was it Lado or Besarion? Guram, another elder and respected person from Shashviani, did not want to commit himself either way. The Greeks had stopped at the outskirts of the village. If they would have entered the village – Gu- ram was sure about this – the incident could have become an open battle. Soon after the Greeks’ arrival, negotiations started between both sides. Guram did not know what exactly the conversations had been about; there were mediators from the Svan side, a Greek and someone from the police was also present. For the village of Shashviani Lado, Besarion and the latter’s cousin were part of the group. All three were there. Tornike, the former chief of police told me another version. A man with the family name Tamliani lived in Shashviani. He was Svan and lived in the tradition of the thieves-in-law. He was shot in a later incident and today sits in a wheelchair. Tornike saw the men on both sides with their weapons and decided that he had to intervene. He went to Tamliani and both discussed the incident. Only then were five or six representatives from both sides selected, that is, from the Greek and the Svan side. They sat together and talked, but which Svan elders took part in this mediation

236 process, he did not remember. In the end a large Georgian banquet (supra) was convened, recalled Guram. The Svans organised it because it was their fault that the troubles began. The banquet took place in the schoolyard and Lado highlighted to me that he had been the tamada (toastmaster). Was it really a conflict between Greeks and Svans? Most of the people I talked to presented the incident to me in these terms. On the Greeks’ side, however, stood also the Armenians and Ossetians. On the side of the Svans stood some Georgians. Besarion’s wife Tamar recalled how Georgians from Mtiuleti who had resettled in Kvemo Kartli before the Svans took the side of the villagers of Shashviani. When they heard about the imminent Battle they came ›from the mountains‹ and lay in waiting near the village of Shashviani. Tamar was very grateful for this, because if an open conflict would have emerged, the Svans of Shashviani would not have been alone. Georgians do not leave other Georgians to their fate, she concluded. But Lado said no, nobody had come to the aid of the Svans. And if some Georgians had wanted to do so, the Svans did not need their support.

Conclusion

There was never a Battle of Shashviani. It might at best have been a Siege of Shashviani. And many of the events attributed to this siege probably took place only in the narratives about the siege. That said, the parallels to the Battle of Didgori in today’s administrative region Kvemo Kartli, the marvellous victory that marked the beginning of the Georgian Golden Age, are palpable: the Battle of Didgori, the victory of a small group against a superior army, of David versus Goliath, was the beginning of something new. The victory was a result of Georgian cunning, a skilful response to a threat by a numerically superior enemy. The narrations and the social actions described in these histories are explicit or implicit practices in space. The village of Shashviani is an inscription into the contested space of Kvemo Kartli and with this inscrip-

237 tion a place is created, as it is introduced here as concretised space. In order to grasp the dimensions of these acts of ›spatialisation of culture‹ (Low 1996) I introduced the notions foundations, constructions, controversies of place as tools for analysing the multi-layered and multivocal conceptions of place in Kvemo Kartli. What is important to underline here is especially the category of ›controversies of place‹ which character- ises my approach. The foundations of place refer to the development of basic historic and more recent conditions that led to the existence of the place. With this I mean the construction process of the village of Shashviani, its concrete planning and creation. Foundations are the politics of place which are in our case framed by the Georgian national movements, especially since 1985. It is the time just before the outbreak of violence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The minorities in Georgia found themselves excluded from the independence policies and were even feared by Georgians because of their increasing number. The snow catastrophe in Svaneti led to the creation of the new Svan villages in Kvemo Kartli. In the late Soviet period the resettlement process had, however, a strong nationalist impetus, and the snow catastrophe provided an opportunity to shift the ethnic balance in Kvemo Kartli. The resettlement mostly took place in the stormy post-Soviet years, which were marked by a lack of state order, and the narrations reflect how the police appeared to be irrelevant. The thieves-in-law were a strong and economically powerful factor in this period, also because the smuggling routes of these Mafia-like organisations passed through Kvemo Kartli. With constructions of place I want to highlight the ascriptions of meaning to place. This is generally done from different sides and also in different times. I denote here the imaginaries of place. With the Battle of Did- gori the region of Kvemo Kartli is presented as part of the ancient heartland of the Georgian Kingdom. There are numerous material remnants of the Golden Age (described, for example, in Fähnrich 2007). Svans found old shrines and ruins near their new villages and use these today for their folk religious celebrations. In doing so they are inscribing themselves into

238 a historic continuity. A direct line from the medieval Georgians to the Svan newcomers is drawn, positioning the recent settlers as long-time locals at the expense of the Greeks or Azerbaijanis, who have been living in the region since the 17th century but who find themselves in the position of barely tolerated guests. The Svans in Shashviani and in the other villages of the municipality of Tetritskaro feel to be on a mission. The fierce highlanders, with their harsh traditions, give the impression that they are on a special mission to reincorporate Kvemo Kartli into the heartland; the Greeks and Azerbaijanis found themselves betrayed by post-Soviet national policy. The narrations about the Battle of Shashviani demonstrate how first the Greeks are drawn as an established and economically successful group. The Svans arrived in the turmoil of the post- Soviet period, are associated with this turmoil, and apparently allowed to do anything they wanted. The push-back of the wealthy Greeks resonates in the description of the unceasing battle with Yannis, who in the end could be defeated, again with allusions to David and Goliath. The topic of traditional law is important here. The Svans are feared because of their ›traditions‹. The Greek Mikhailov was asked to leave the village after he had killed the young Svan from the Gabliani family. This is a practice common to prevent blood feud: the perpetrator – even though he only defended himself – is better off to leave the area in order to avoid getting killed himself. At the centre of this paper are the controversies over place. It is the performance in a place, where narrations and social actions in respect to places meet and clash, like here, where the Svans and the Greeks meet in the village of Shashviani. The events preceding the encounter on the outskirts of Shashviani, that is, the Svan intrusion of Mikhailov’s house are a parallel to the Svans intruding in Kvemo Kartli itself. The Greeks wanted to respond, defended themselves and drive the Svans out of the house and the region in general. This was the purpose of the Greek march on Shashviani. They approached in a huge, amorphous and for the public authorities unstoppable mass. In the versions of the Svans the Greeks were appeased and held back with trickery (the iron rods used as

239 guns) and mediation by the elders (a core element of Svan traditional law). Non-Svan voices deny the Battle of Shashviani any importance. It was even said that the Svan men had left the village, leaving their women and children behind. This can be seen as a challenge to Svan honour as they are portrayed as cowards. The conflict ended here because there was no enemy to fight. The place of Shashviani induced a specific behaviour in the narrations. As the place was produced in a nationalist setting with the implicit policy to shift the ethnic balance in the region, the existence of the village itself is a political statement. Svans in Shashviani apparently felt obliged to act as a vanguard for the Georgian cause. The Svans wanted to demonstrate in the events preceding the Battle but also during the ›siege‹ of Shashviani that they – the Georgians – are now back in the region and the leading force in Kvemo Kartli. Any reflection on the Svan side that they might have acted inappropriately as newcomers was rare. The Svan troublemak- ers of the post-Soviet period were painted as chaotic youth involved in criminal activities, somehow influenced by the thieves-in-law. Very few Svans were not proud of the event’s outcome. The elders had been able to mediate the crises and ›now‹, they are good friends. Many Svans were present at Yannis’ funeral and some Greek families even developed close ties to the Svans through godparenthood. It is easy to say that Svans and Greeks are good friends today: most of the Greek population has since left the region and only very few of them remain.

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List of Illustrations

Introduction

Fig. 1: Svan wooden chair (sakurtskhili) in the village of Khaishi (photo: Voell). Fig. 2: Svan wooden chair in the museum in Mestia (Svaneti), picture taken from the museum’s catalogue. Fig. 3: Svan wooden chairs with new interpretations in Teliani (photo: Voell). Fig. 4: Svan wooden chairs with new interpretations in Tetritskaro (photo: Voell). Fig. 5.1: Svan chair in Teliani (photo: Voell). Fig. 5.2: Rear view of the Svan chair (photo: Voell). Fig. 5.3: Justitia on the back of the Svan chair, detail (photo: Voell). Fig. 6: Map of Kvemo Kartli (Voell). Fig. 7: Map of Svaneti (Voell 2013b). Fig. 8: Icons at a Svan shrine near the village of Shashviani (photo: Voell). Fig. 9: Empty house frame in a Svan village in Kvemo Kartli (photo: Voell). Fig. 10: Desert area around Khaishi (photo: Voell) Fig. 11: Church in a Svan village in Kvemo Kartli (photo: Voell). Fig. 12: Project workshop in Tbilisi 2009 (photo: Voell).

245 Chapter of Lavrenti Janiashvili

Fig. 13: Mkhitar Gosh, front of the Matenadaran (Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts), Yerevan, Armenia (photo: Rita Willaert, Wiki Commons, https://commons. wiki- media.org /wiki/File:Mkhitar_Gosh.jpg, accessed 10.06.2016 Fig. 14: Mestia in 1890 (source: Lang, David Marshall. 1966. The Geor- gians. London: Thames and Hudson). Fig. 15: Mestia in 2009 (photo: Voell). Fig. 16: Mulakhi in 2009 (photo: Voell). Fig. 17: Icon of Shaliani, a Byzantine repoussé icon, kept in the Church of St. Kvirike in Svaneti (source: Bernoville, Raphaël 1875. La Souanétie libre: Épisode d’un voyage à la chaine centrale de Caucase. Paris: Morel).

Chapter of Natia Jalabdze

Fig. 18: Ushguli, Svaneti in 2009 (photo: Kamm). Fig. 19: Mutso, Khevsureti, in 2010 (photo: Kamm). Fig. 20: Shatili, Khevsureti, in 2010 (photo: Kamm).

Chapter of Elke Kamm

Fig. 21: Ipove shenshi dzala. Dadzlie dzaladoba ojakhshi. [Find the Power in Yourself. Overcome Violence in the Family]. Cam- paign of UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) against domestic violence in Georgia. The poster indicates hotline numbers to encourage women to call to seek help. Tbilisi, 2010 (photo: Kamm). Fig. 22: Cross on the road to Tetritskaro (photo: Voell) Fig. 23: Field research in Tetritskaro (photo: Kamm). Fig. 24: Wedding in Mzcheta (photo: Voell). Fig. 25: German colonists’ house, Asureti (photo: Voell).

246 Fig. 26: Villagers playing Nardi in Asureti (photo: Voell).

Chapter of Stéphane Voell

Fig. 27: Part of Didgori Monument (photo: George Mel, Wiki Com- mons). Fig. 28: Reproductions of Svan towers as tombstones in a Svan village graveyard in Kvemo Kartli (photo: Voell). Fig. 29: Svans in the village of Khaishi in Kvemo Kartli singing on the occasion of the Svan religious holiday kvirikoba in 2009 (photo: Voell). Fig. 30: Local administration building in Tetritskaro (photo: Voell). Fig. 31: Street in the village of Shashviani (photo: Voell).

247

Contributors

Lavrenti Janiashvili is a senior researcher (lead scientist) at the Ja- vakhishvili Institute of History and Ethnology, Tbilisi State University. His research focuses on ethnicity, ethnic minorities, traditional law, ethnohistory and religion. He has conducted research in Georgia, Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan and participated in numerous projects such as ›The Problem of Social Isolation and Perspectives of Overcoming Aliena- tion‹ (2004-2006, MacArthur Foundation), ›The Revitalization of Tradi- tional Law in Georgia‹ (2009-2011, Volkswagen Foundation), ›Social As- pects of Ethnic Security in Polyethnic Society‹ (2008-2010, Rustaveli Foundation) or ›The Occupied Akhalgori District and the Dynamics of Georgian-Ossetian Relations‹ (2014-2015, Rustaveli Foundation).

Natia Jalabadze is a senior researcher at the Javakhishvili Institute of History and Ethnology, Tbilisi State University. She studies the ethnography of the Caucasus, traditional law, multiethnic societies and intercultur- al communication. She was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacAr- thur Foundation research and writing grant for 2004-2005. Jalabadze was leader of the research project ›The Occupied Akhalgori District and the Dynamics of Georgian-Ossetian Relations‹ (2010 - 2011, Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation) and participated in various projects like ›The Revitalization of Traditional Law in Georgia‹ (2009-2011, Volks- wagen Foundation) and ›The Impact of Current Transformational Pro- cesses on Language and Ethnic identity: Urum and Pontic Greeks in Georgia‹ (2013-2015, Volkswagen Foundation).

249

Elke Kamm is a former lecturer and research fellow at the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Philipps-Universität Marburg. Her research focuses on wedding traditions, gender relations and conflict. She has conducted research in Georgia as part of the project of ›The Revitali- zation of Traditional Law in Georgia‹ (2009-2011, Volkswagen Founda- tion) and co-organised the series of student research projects ›Caucasus, Conflict, Culture 1, 2, 4 and 5‹ (2011-2016, DAAD).

Stéphane Voell is a former lecturer, research fellow and visiting professor at the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Philipps- Universität Marburg. His research focuses on ethnicity, conflict, space, religion and traditional law. He has done fieldwork in Georgia and Alba- nia. He was project leader of ›The Revitalization of Traditional Law in Georgia‹ project (2009-2011, Volkswagen Foundation) and the series of student research projects ›Caucasus, Conflict, Culture 1-5‹ (2011-2016, DAAD).

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