DOCSLIB.ORG

Brewin Pembroke College Department of History of Art University of Cambridge

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Brewin Pembroke College Department of History of Art University of Cambridge NAVIGATING ‘NATIONAL FORM’ AND ‘SOCIALIST CONTENT’ IN THE GREAT LEADER’S HOMELAND: GEORGIAN PAINTING AND NATIONAL POLITICS UNDER STALIN, 1921-39 Jennifer Ellen Brewin Pembroke College Department of History of Art University of Cambridge This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 30 April 2018 Navigating ‘National form’ and ‘socialist content’ in the Great Leader’s homeland: Georgian painting and national politics under Stalin, 1921-39 Jennifer Ellen Brewin, Pembroke College PhD Thesis, 2018 Abstract This thesis examines the interaction of Georgian painting and national politics in the first two decades of Soviet power in Georgia, 1921-1939, focussing in particular on the period following the consolidation of Stalin’s power at the helm of the Communist Party in 1926-7. In the Stalin era, Georgians enjoyed special status among Soviet nations thanks to Georgia’s prestige as the place of Stalin’s birth. However, Georgians’ advanced sense of their national sovereignty and initial hostility towards Bolshevik control following Georgia’s Sovietisation in 1921 also resulted in Georgia’s uniquely fraught relationship with Soviet power in Moscow in the decades that followed. In light of these circumstances, this thesis explores how and why the experience and activities of Georgian painters between 1926 and 1939 differed from those of other Soviet artists. One of its central arguments is that the experiences of Georgian artists and critics in this period not only differed significantly from those of artists and critics of other republics, but that the uniqueness of their experience was precipitated by a complex network of factors resulting from the interaction of various political imperatives and practical circumstances, including those relating to Soviet national politics. Chapter one of this thesis introduces the key institutions and individuals involved in producing, evaluating and setting the direction of Georgian painting in the 1920s and early 1930s. Chapters two and three show that artists and critics in Georgia as well as commentators in Moscow in the 1920s and 30s were actively engaged in efforts to interpret the Party’s demand for ‘national form’ in Soviet culture and to suggest what that form might entail as regards Georgian painting. However, contradictions inherent in Soviet nationalities policy, which both demanded the active cultivation of cultural difference between Soviet nationalities and eagerly anticipated a time when national distinctions in all spheres would naturally disappear, made it impossible for an appropriate interpretation of ‘national form’ to be identified. Chapter three, moreover, demonstrates how frequent shifts in Soviet cultural and nationalities policies presented Moscow institutions with a range of practical challenges which ultimately prevented them from reflecting in their exhibitions and publications the contemporary artistic activity taking place in the republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia. A key finding of chapters four and five concerns the uniquely significant role that Lavrenty Beria, Stalin’s ruthless deputy and the head of the Georgian and Transcaucasian Party organisations, played in differentiating Georgian painters’ experiences from those of Soviet artists of other nationalities. Beginning in 1934, Beria employed Georgian painters to produce an exhibition of monumental paintings, opening at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow in 1937, depicting episodes from his own falsified history of Stalin’s role in the revolutionary movement in Transcaucasia. As this thesis shows, the production of the exhibition introduced an unprecedented degree of direct Party supervision over Georgian painting as Beria personally critiqued works by Georgian painters produced on prescribed narrative subjects in a centralised collective studio. As well as representing a major contribution to Stalin’s personality cult, the exhibition, which conferred on Georgian painters special responsibility for representing Stalin and his activities, was also a public statement of the special status that the Georgians were now to enjoy, second only to that of the Russians. However, this special status involved both special privileges and special responsibilities. Georgians would enjoy special access to opportunities in Moscow and a special degree of autonomy in local governance, but in return they were required to lead the way in declaring allegiance to the Stalin regime. Chapter six returns to the debate about ‘national form’ in Georgian painting by examining how the pre-Revolutionary self-taught Georgian painter, Niko Pirosmani, was discussed by cultural commentators in Georgia and Moscow in the 1920s and 30s as a source informing a Soviet or Soviet Georgian canon of painting. It shows that, in addition to presenting views on the suitability of Pirosmani’s painting either in terms of its formal or class content, commentators perpetuated and developed a cult of Pirosmani steeped in stereotypes of a Georgian ‘national character.’ Further, the establishment of this cult during the late 1920s and early 1930s seems to have been a primary reason for the painter’s subsequent canonisation in the second half of the 1930s as a ‘Great Tradition’ of Soviet Georgian culture. It helped to articulate a version of Georgian national identity that was at once familiar and gratifying for Georgians and useful for the Soviet regime. The combined impression of cultural sovereignty embodied in this and other ‘Great Traditions’ of Soviet Georgian culture and the special status articulated through the 1937 exhibition allowed Georgian nationalism to be aligned, for a time, with support for Stalin and the Soviet regime. Declaration This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted or is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma, or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University of similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. The dissertation does not exceed the prescribed word limit for the relevant Degree Committee. A version of chapter six of this thesis was published as ‘The Appropriation and Adaption of Niko Pirosmani in Soviet Art History in the 1920s and 1930s’ in Pirosmani and Georgian Culture: Proceedings, International Interdisciplinary Conference, Tbilisi, Georgia, 5th-7th November 2013 (Tbilisi, s. n., 2014), pp. 42-50. Certain ideas presented in thesis were published in the book chapter ‘Ucha Japaridze, Lado Gudiashvili, and the Spiritual in Georgian Painting’ in Louise Hardiman and Nicola Kozicharow (eds), Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2017), pp. 229-63. The dissertation is 79,938 words in length, including footnotes, but excluding captions, appendices, and bibliography. Jennifer Ellen Brewin Pembroke College, Cambridge 30 April 2018 CONTENTS Acknowledgements 1 Conventions and Abbreviations 3 Introduction 13 Literature Review Painting in the non-Russian Republics 16 National Politics in Stalin’s Soviet Union 26 Methodology National Politics and National Culture 31 Imagining the Georgian nation 37 Chapter outlines 46 Chapter 1. The Battle for Soviet Painting in Georgia in the 1920s and 30s 49 Soviet Painting, Socialist Realism and the Georgian Case 52 The Old and New Guards: In search of Georgian Proletarian Painting 61 Institutional Structures Before and After the April 1932 Decree 66 Proletkult in Georgia 69 Keeping up with Moscow: Georgian Arts Periodicals in the 1920s and 30s 72 Khelovneba (‘Art’) 73 Other Periodicals 77 Chapter 2. Representing ‘National Art’: Moscow Institutions and the Art of the Soviet East in 81 the 1920s and 30s (Not) Representing National Art at the Soviet Centre: The All-Soviet Scholarly 82 Association of Oriental Studies (VNAV) and the Museum of Oriental Cultures (GMVK) The Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR) and the Department 94 for the Study of the Art of the Nationalities of the USSR at the State Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN) The Class War on National Form, 1931-32: The Case of Lazar Rempel 107 Chapter 3. Proletarian in Form, Proletarian in Content?: Georgian Painting and the National 113 Question during the Cultural Revolution Georgia and the Cultural Revolution 114 Proletarian in Form, Proletarian in Content?: Negotiating the Theory and Practice 119 of Soviet Nationalities Policy in Georgia during the Cultural Revolution Chapter 4. Georgian Artists, Beria and the Exhibition of Painting, Sculpture and Graphics of 143 the Georgian SSR in Moscow in 1937 Beria and The Arts in Georgia 147 Producing the 1937 exhibition 149 The Georgian exhibition as a Stalinist Gesamtkunstwerk 154 Chapter 5. The Great Terror and 1937 Exhibition as a Statement of Georgian Submission 165 under the ‘Friendship of the Peoples’ ‘Despite a Series of Substantial Insufficiencies’: Reception of the Exhibition and its 165 Significance Controlling Georgia: the 1937 Exhibition and the Demise of Duduchava 171 ‘The responsibility for depicting Stalin belongs completely to Georgian
Load more

Recommended publications
  • PROBLEMS of UKRAINIAN FOREIGN POLICY a New Change in A.C.L.P.R
    UKPAItllAll PSEP 1 EP Vol. V No. 4 — 5 LONDON, APRIL — MAY 1953 Price 1 sh NEW NAME, OLD CONTENTS PROBLEMS OF UKRAINIAN FOREIGN POLICY A New Change in A.C.L.P.R. which does not solve the Problem It is certainly no simple matter in this Both tendencies, as Well as all the place to present the Ukrainian problems Ukrainian politicians, are one in prin­ The “American Committee for the of foreign policy in their entirety or even ciple. This principle is: the political in­ Liberation of the Peoples of Russia” to make a prognosis over their future dependence, sovereignty and unity of (A.C.L.P.R.) in New York changed re­ possibilities. An attempt that would lead Ukraine. cently its name into “American Com­ to clearly defined and also detailed for- mittee for Liberation from Bolshevism, The second principle which is generally mularisation would be, from the very Inc.” (A.C.L.B.). This was announced by recognised by all Ukrainian political beginning, doomed to failure. This state a sp:cial Press release of March 25th, 53, groups is the opinion of the necessity of of affairs is conditioned by the present dissolving the Soviet empire and realising sent to all interested circles. This is the general political situation in the first place the political independence of all peoples third change of the name of this organi­ and the status quo in the Ukrainian zation. At its inception in February 1951 of the present Soviet Union. S.S.R. in the second. The Ukrainian poli­ The third, and just as important, prin­ it was called: “American Committee for tical emigration is moreover confronted, Freedom for the Peoples of the U .S.S.R.” ciple which is likewise shared by all the in their position of representatives of Ukrainian political groups, is the integ­ These frequent changes of the name Ukrainian political interests in the West, rity of Ukrainian national interests.
    [Show full text]
  • A Short History of Georgian Architecture
    A SHORT HISTORY OF GEORGIAN ARCHITECTURE Georgia is situated on the isthmus between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. In the north it is bounded by the Main Caucasian Range, forming the frontier with Russia, Azerbaijan to the east and in the south by Armenia and Turkey. Geographically Georgia is the meeting place of the European and Asian continents and is located at the crossroads of western and eastern cultures. In classical sources eastern Georgia is called Iberia or Caucasian Iberia, while western Georgia was known to Greeks and Romans as Colchis. Georgia has an elongated form from east to west. Approximately in the centre in the Great Caucasian range extends downwards to the south Surami range, bisecting the country into western and eastern parts. Although this range is not high, it produces different climates on its western and eastern sides. In the western part the climate is milder and on the sea coast sub-tropical with frequent rains, while the eastern part is typically dry. Figure 1 Map of Georgia Georgian vernacular architecture The different climates in western and eastern Georgia, together with distinct local building materials and various cultural differences creates a diverse range of vernacular architectural styles. In western Georgia, because the climate is mild and the region has abundance of timber, vernacular architecture is characterised by timber buildings. Surrounding the timber houses are lawns and decorative trees, which rarely found in the rest of the country. The population and hamlets scattered in the landscape. In eastern Georgia, vernacular architecture is typified by Darbazi, a type of masonry building partially cut into ground and roofed by timber or stone (rarely) constructions known as Darbazi, from which the type derives its name.
    [Show full text]
  • Supplementary Information For
    1 2 Supplementary Information for 3 Dissecting landscape art history with information theory 4 Byunghwee Lee, Min Kyung Seo, Daniel Kim, In-seob Shin, Maximilian Schich, Hawoong Jeong, Seung Kee Han 5 Hawoong Jeong 6 E-mail:[email protected] 7 Seung Kee Han 8 E-mail:[email protected] 9 This PDF file includes: 10 Supplementary text 11 Figs. S1 to S20 12 Tables S1 to S2 13 References for SI reference citations www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2011927117 Byunghwee Lee, Min Kyung Seo, Daniel Kim, In-seob Shin, Maximilian Schich, Hawoong Jeong, Seung Kee Han 1 of 28 14 Supporting Information Text 15 I. Datasets 16 A. Data curation. Digital scans of landscape paintings were collected from the two major online sources: Wiki Art (WA) (1) 17 and the Web Gallery of Art (WGA) (2). For our purpose, we collected 12,431 landscape paintings by 1,071 artists assigned to 18 61 nationalities from WA, and 3,610 landscape paintings by 816 artists assigned with 20 nationalities from WGA. While the 19 overall number of paintings from WGA is relatively smaller than from WA, the WGA dataset has a larger volume of paintings 20 produced before 1800 CE. Therefore, we utilize both datasets in a complementary way. 21 As same paintings can be included in both datasets, we carefully constructed a unified dataset by filtering out the duplicate 22 paintings from both datasets by using meta-information of paintings (title, painter, completion date, etc.) to construct a unified 23 set of painting images. The filtering process is as follows.
    [Show full text]
  • Table of Content 1
    15 WEEKLY CLIENT ALERTS N N ALERTS CLIENT WEEKLY TK&PARTNERS TABLE OF CONTENT 1. BILLS IN PARLIAMENT 2. GOVERNMENT DECREES 3. TAX LEGISLATION 4. ALEXANDER BAZHBEUK-MELIKYAN #YourSupportTeam BILLS IN PARLIAMENT THE CONSEQUANCE OF OMMISION OF THE DEADLINE FOR THE STATE REGISTRATION OF RIGHTS OF REAL ESTATE The draft, approved on June 11, 2020, proposes to consider the omission of 30 days for the registration of real estate rights under the RA Law “On State Registration of Property Rights” as respectable if the person (applicant) justifies the fact of missing the deadline for reasons beyond their control (in the absence of their fault). The deadline for submitting an application for respecting the omission of the state registration deadline is 15 working days upon the elimination date thereof. In case of non-transaction parties, the deadline for submitting the application is 15 working days upon the day when they knew or were obliged to know about the transaction. The bill has been proposed by the Government and is still in the National Assembly. Find more here. #YourSupportTeam GOVERNMENT DECREES THE STATE OF EMERGENCY CONTINUES It has been resolved to extend the state of emergency declared in the Republic of Armenia on March 16, 2020 and extended until June 13 until July 13, 2020. Henceforth, the activities of certain legal entities and individual 1958. Art Lesson entrepreneurs (including sales by individuals in the markets of agricultural products) at the place (address) may be may temporarily banned by the commandant’s decision if there is a doubt about the presence of infection or in case of detection of infection among the employees.
    [Show full text]
  • Catalogo Giornate Del Cinema Muto 2011
    Clara Bow in Mantrap, Victor Fleming, 1926. (Library of Congress) Merna Kennedy, Charles Chaplin in The Circus, 1928. (Roy Export S.A.S) Sommario / Contents 3 Presentazione / Introduction 31 Shostakovich & FEKS 6 Premio Jean Mitry / The Jean Mitry Award 94 Cinema italiano: rarità e ritrovamenti Italy: Retrospect and Discovery 7 In ricordo di Jonathan Dennis The Jonathan Dennis Memorial Lecture 71 Cinema georgiano / Georgian Cinema 9 The 2011 Pordenone Masterclasses 83 Kertész prima di Curtiz / Kertész before Curtiz 0 1 Collegium 2011 99 National Film Preservation Foundation Tesori western / Treasures of the West 12 La collezione Davide Turconi The Davide Turconi Collection 109 La corsa al Polo / The Race to the Pole 7 1 Eventi musicali / Musical Events 119 Il canone rivisitato / The Canon Revisited Novyi Vavilon A colpi di note / Striking a New Note 513 Cinema delle origini / Early Cinema SpilimBrass play Chaplin Le voyage dans la lune; The Soldier’s Courtship El Dorado The Corrick Collection; Thanhouser Shinel 155 Pionieri del cinema d’animazione giapponese An Audience with Jean Darling The Birth of Anime: Pioneers of Japanese Animation The Circus The Wind 165 Disney’s Laugh-O-grams 179 Riscoperte e restauri / Rediscoveries and Restorations The White Shadow; The Divine Woman The Canadian; Diepte; The Indian Woman’s Pluck The Little Minister; Das Rätsel von Bangalor Rosalie fait du sabotage; Spreewaldmädel Tonaufnahmen Berglund Italianamerican: Santa Lucia Luntana, Movie Actor I pericoli del cinema / Perils of the Pictures 195 Ritratti / Portraits 201 Muti del XXI secolo / 21st Century Silents 620 Indice dei titoli / Film Title Index Introduzioni e note di / Introductions and programme notes by Peter Bagrov Otto Kylmälä Aldo Bernardini Leslie Anne Lewis Ivo Blom Antonello Mazzucco Lenny Borger Patrick McCarthy Neil Brand Annette Melville Geoff Brown Russell Merritt Kevin Brownlow Maud Nelissen Günter A.
    [Show full text]
  • The Myth of the City in the French and the Georgian Symbolist Aesthetics
    The International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Invention 5(03): 4519-4525, 2018 DOI: 10.18535/ijsshi/v5i3.07 ICV 2015: 45.28 ISSN: 2349-2031 © 2018, THEIJSSHI Research Article The Myth of the City in the French and the Georgian Symbolist Aesthetics Tatia Oboladze PhD student at Ivane Javakhisvhili Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia,young-researcher at Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature ―Modern Art is a genuine offspring of the city… the city The cultural contexts of the two countries were also different. created new images, here the foundation was laid for the If in the 19th-c. French literature the tendencies of literary school, known as Symbolism…The poet’s Romanticism and Realism (with certain variations) co-existed consciousness was burdened by the gray iron city and it and it was distinguished by paradoxes, striving towards poured out into a new unknown song‖ (Tabidze 2011: 121- continuous formal novelties, the beginning of the 20th c. was 122), - writes Georgian Symbolist Titsian Tabidze in his the period of stagnation of Georgian culture. Although in the program article Tsisperi Qantsebit (With Blue Horns). Indeed, work of individual authors (A.Abasheli, S.Shanshiashvili, in the Symbolist aesthetics the city-megalopolis, as a micro G.Tabidze, and others) aesthetic features of modernism, model of the material world, is formed as one of the basic tendencies of new art were observable, on the whole, literature concepts. was predominated by epigonism1. Against this background, in Within the topic under study we discuss the work of Charles 1916, the first Symbolist literary group Tsisperi Qantsebi (The Baudelaire and the poets of the Georgian Symbolist school Blue Horns) came into being in the Georgian literary area.
    [Show full text]
  • Georgian Symbolism: Context and Influence
    International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature E-ISSN: 2200-3452 & P-ISSN: 2200-3592 www.ijalel.aiac.org.au Georgian Symbolism: Context and Influence Tatia Oboladze* Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia Corresponding Author: Tatia Oboladze, E-mail: [email protected] ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history In the 1910s in the Georgian literary area the first Symbolist group TsisperiQantsebi (The Blue Received: November 18, 2017 Horns) comes into being, with a clearly defined purpose and aesthetic position, which implied Accepted: January 27, 2018 renewing the Georgian literature and including it into the Western context. Desiring to expand Published: March 01, 2018 the thought area and to modernize Georgian literature, Georgian Symbolists rested on the Volume: 7 Issue: 2 philosophical and worldview principles of French Symbolism. Georgian Symbolism appears Advance access: February 2018 as an original invariant generated from the French Symbolist aesthetics, which is unequivocally national. Conflicts of interest: None Funding: None Key words: Georgian Symbolism, Georgian Modernism, The Blue Horns In 1916, when European, namely French Symbolism in also by their public activities performed an enormous role fact was a completed project, the first Symbolist literary in the process of Europeanization of Georgian literature and group Tsisperi Qantsebi (The Blue Horns)1 came into being transformation of Georgia into a cultural centre, in general. in Georgia. Young poets united to achieve a common objec- The socio-political and cultural context of France of the tive, which implied restoring the artificially broken connec- 19th c. and Georgia of the early 20th c. were totally different. tion of Georgian literature with the Western area.
    [Show full text]
  • Acceptance and Rejection of Foreign Influence in the Church Architecture of Eastern Georgia
    The Churches of Mtskheta: Acceptance and Rejection of Foreign Influence in the Church Architecture of Eastern Georgia Samantha Johnson Senior Art History Thesis December 14, 2017 The small town of Mtskheta, located near Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia, is the seat of the Georgian Orthodox Church and is the heart of Christianity in the country. This town, one of the oldest in the nation, was once the capital and has been a key player throughout Georgia’s tumultuous history, witnessing not only the nation’s conversion to Christianity, but also the devastation of foreign invasions. It also contains three churches that are national symbols and represent the two major waves of church building in the seventh and eleventh centuries. Georgia is, above all, a Christian nation and religion is central to its national identity. This paper examines the interaction between incoming foreign cultures and deeply-rooted local traditions that have shaped art and architecture in Transcaucasia.1 Nestled among the Caucasus Mountains, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, present-day Georgia contains fewer than four million people and has its own unique alphabet and language as well as a long, complex history. In fact, historians cannot agree on how Georgia got its English exonym, because in the native tongue, kartulad, the country is called Sakartvelo, or “land of the karvelians.”2 They know that the name “Sakartvelo” first appeared in texts around 800 AD as another name for the eastern kingdom of Kartli in Transcaucasia. It then evolved to signify the unified eastern and western kingdoms in 1008.3 Most scholars agree that the name “Georgia” did not stem from the nation’s patron saint, George, as is commonly thought, but actually comes 1 This research addresses the multitude of influences that have contributed to the development of Georgia’s ecclesiastical architecture.
    [Show full text]
  • Georgian Country and Culture Guide
    Georgian Country and Culture Guide მშვიდობის კორპუსი საქართველოში Peace Corps Georgia 2017 Forward What you have in your hands right now is the collaborate effort of numerous Peace Corps Volunteers and staff, who researched, wrote and edited the entire book. The process began in the fall of 2011, when the Language and Cross-Culture component of Peace Corps Georgia launched a Georgian Country and Culture Guide project and PCVs from different regions volunteered to do research and gather information on their specific areas. After the initial information was gathered, the arduous process of merging the researched information began. Extensive editing followed and this is the end result. The book is accompanied by a CD with Georgian music and dance audio and video files. We hope that this book is both informative and useful for you during your service. Sincerely, The Culture Book Team Initial Researchers/Writers Culture Sara Bushman (Director Programming and Training, PC Staff, 2010-11) History Jack Brands (G11), Samantha Oliver (G10) Adjara Jen Geerlings (G10), Emily New (G10) Guria Michelle Anderl (G11), Goodloe Harman (G11), Conor Hartnett (G11), Kaitlin Schaefer (G10) Imereti Caitlin Lowery (G11) Kakheti Jack Brands (G11), Jana Price (G11), Danielle Roe (G10) Kvemo Kartli Anastasia Skoybedo (G11), Chase Johnson (G11) Samstkhe-Javakheti Sam Harris (G10) Tbilisi Keti Chikovani (Language and Cross-Culture Coordinator, PC Staff) Workplace Culture Kimberly Tramel (G11), Shannon Knudsen (G11), Tami Timmer (G11), Connie Ross (G11) Compilers/Final Editors Jack Brands (G11) Caitlin Lowery (G11) Conor Hartnett (G11) Emily New (G10) Keti Chikovani (Language and Cross-Culture Coordinator, PC Staff) Compilers of Audio and Video Files Keti Chikovani (Language and Cross-Culture Coordinator, PC Staff) Irakli Elizbarashvili (IT Specialist, PC Staff) Revised and updated by Tea Sakvarelidze (Language and Cross-Culture Coordinator) and Kakha Gordadze (Training Manager).
    [Show full text]
  • Mzia Chikhradze Modernism and Identity the Paradigm of Modernism
    Mzia Chikhradze Modernism and Identity The paradigm of modernism places it in a cosmopolitan area. The desire to become integrated into a unified artistic space generates not only common, similar artistic trends in modernist art, but also severely limits the borders between the specific national derivatives within it. Coupled with the fact that “national” became a dangerous and unpopular topic after World War I, the modernism that developed in Central Europe developed as an anti-national phenomenon. Georgia enjoyed a short period of independence from 1918 to 1921. Not only Georgian modernism, but also the distinctive model of the Tbilisi avant-garde flourished during this time. It was based on a creative collaboration between different nationalities, their multinational and intercultural art. The specificity of the Tbilisi avant-garde was characterized by integrating different national characteristics into a unified artistic system. Despite the artists’ differing individual and national backgrounds, a unified artistic language was formed and this unique language determined the emerging art’s diversity and vivid imagery. The art and culture that developed in the bosom of independent Georgia generally carried a trace of Georgian national characteristics. The question arises: How organic and relevant is distinctiveness by national features in the context of modernism, which, as already mentioned, promotes cosmopolitanism. The priority of nationality should be considered as a hindering factor in terms of modernist values. However, the specifics of Georgian modernism and the Tbilisi avant-garde differed from the European ones. Namely, as Italian futurism stated and Tommaso Marinetti, its founding father, wrote in his Manifesto of Futurism: “We want to destroy museums and libraries, fight against morality, feminism, and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice ..
    [Show full text]
  • Hazelnuts and Honey Highlight Georgia's Export Potential
    SOLAR PANELS TO BE PRODUCED GEORGIAN BUSINESSES A BILLION EUROS FOR AT KUTAISI FREE ZONE EMBRACE COACHING CULTURE GEORGIA Investor.A Magazine Of The American Chamber Of Commerce In Georgia geISSUE 68 APRIL-MAY 2019 Hazelnuts and Honey Highlight Georgia’s Export Potential APRIL-MAY 2019 Investor.ge | 3 Investor.ge CONTENT 6 Investment News Investor.ge provides a brief update on investments and changes in government policy that could impact the business environment. The information in this issue was taken from agenda.ge, a government supported website, and other sources. 8 Georgia Pushes for Close Relations with Japan Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze led a delegation to Japan in March. The prime minister noted that it is possible to increase exports to Japan and increase foreign direct investments from Japanese businesses. 16 9 Solar Panels to Be Produced at Kutaisi Free Zone 10 Georgia Goes All in On Education – Way to Freedom Initiative 11 Breathe a sigh of relief: Georgian government acts to improve air quality 16 A Billion Euros for Georgia: An interview with investor Oleg Ossinovski 19 Georgian Hazelnuts and Honey Highlight Export Potential Georgian agriculture exports are steadily increasing: in 2018 the country exported $959.2 million worth of agricultural products, up 23.2 percent compared to 19 2017. Exports to the EU are still dwarfed by the demand from other countries, but two products — hazelnuts and honey — underscore the potential for growth. 23 Explainer: Anaklia Deep-Sea Port 25 Georgia Ski Resorts Prepare to Host Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Championships Georgian ski resorts are steadily growing in popularity.
    [Show full text]
  • Media Influence Matrix: Georgia
    F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 Media Influence Matrix: Georgia Government, Politics and Regulation Author: Giorgi Jangiani Research consultant: Ekaterine Basilaia Editor: Marius Dragomir Published by CEU Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS), Budapest, 2019 About CMDS About the authors The Center for Media, Data and Society Giorgi Jangiani is a researcher at the Center for Media, (CMDS) is a research center for the Data and Society. He’s currently a Master's candidate study of media, communication, and in European Public Policy at CEU. He focuses on the information policy and its impact on integration of Eastern European countries to the EU and society and practice. Founded in 2004 public policy transfer and improvement. Prior to as the Center for Media and attending CEU, he worked at the think tank Georgia's Communication Studies, CMDS is part Reforms Associates (GRASS), where he as a Project of CEU’s School of Public Policy and Manager/Research Fellow supported projects on the serves as a focal point for an EU-Georgian Integration. He also holds an M.A. in Diplomacy and a B.A. in International Relations from international network of acclaimed the Tbilisi State University. scholars, research institutions and activists. Ekaterine Basilaia is currently a lecturer and a researcher at Tbilisi State University. She is a co-author of the book “The Role and Limitations of non- CMDS ADVISORY BOARD Governmental Policy Advocacy in Georgia: Groups and Media in Agenda-Setting” (2016). She was a senior Clara-Luz Álvarez researcher in Georgia for the Horizon 2020 WOSCAP Floriana Fossato project (2016-2017), studying the EU's engagement and Ellen Hume communication strategies in Georgia.
    [Show full text]