Vilnius Academy of Arts Photography and media arts department Giorgi Papalashvili’s MA degree theoretical work: The myth of red messiah, Deconstructed nationalism and story telling Author of the work: Giorgi Papalashvili Supervisor of the work: Laima Kreivyte Reviewer: Auridas Gajauskas Vilnius, 2014 1 Summary A Georgian monk Ioane Zosime in his 10th century poem predicted, that on the second coming of the Messiah he will judge the world in Georgian language. It has become the future telling of the Georgian nation. The interlacement of political power and religion in the stories being told in this crossroad between Asia and Europe is the reason why by now Georgian Orthodox Church and Stalinism adore each other. In my work “Red Messiah” I investigate this phenomenon and construct a storytelling situation based on chance, various object and events from Georgia. 2 Contents Introduction 4 Red messiah 6 Caucasian Clay Circle 19 Barbare Rafaliantsi case 24 Where your heart beats 28 Conclusion 34 Bibliography 35 3 Introduction In the end of 20th century globally one of the most important appearances was the collapse of Soviet Union, which is seen as the mirror and culmination of fast social changes. In 1991 Enton Giddens wrote: “today we live in an epoch which characterizes with huge social changes that is radically different from the changes of previous epochs”. The changes were sudden and fast for the nations of Eastern Europe. One day they woke up not in huge communist union but in capitalist world. For some of the countries this move was so shocking that they still can’t decline the hidden communist mentality but on the same time living as independent democratic states. The main research question can be formulated in following way: how are storytelling and chance reflecting on the collective memory with the example of Georgia? The contemporary Georgian national narratives gather around two aspects: A. traumatic events happening around the concept B. pro-western orientation as a cultural paradigm. The thesis searches the roots of the Georgian collective memory in different aspects. A Georgian monk Ioane Zosime in his 10th century poem predicted, that on the second coming of the Messiah he will judge the world in Georgian language. It has become the future telling of the Georgian nation. The interlacement of political power and religion in 4 the stories being told in this crossroad between Asia and Europe is the reason why, by now, Georgian Orthodox Church and Stalinism adore each other. The rise and fall of totalitarian regimes and concomitant ideologies in the 20th century have given rise to different attempts to understand various social phenomena of contemporary industrial and post-industrial societies. Among them one of the central objects of interest is national identity and collective/social memory. 5 RED MESSIAH 1 “Well, now open your mouth and say – A”, these are the famous word from well- known Georgian film “Sherekilebi” (crazies). In the film saying a letter “A” is important for a doctor to find out a problem in patient’s illnesses. 2 But we can see this method as a symbol of tool for searching the truth about a person. It can be Georgian version of “Shibboleth”. The 12th chapter of "Book of Judges" in "Old Testament" describes the conflict 1. http://forum.ge/?f=84&showtopic=34638589 6 2. “Sherekilebi”, A Georgian film directed by Eldar Shengelaia, 1973 year. between two Jewish tribes. "Shibboleth," the Hebrew word for "stream," was used by the soldiers of Gilead to separate their neighbors from the Ephraimites, who pronounced the “sh” as an “s”. The Gileadites held the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. And when any fugitive from Ephraim said, "Let me cross," the men of Gilead would ask him, "Are you an Ephraimite?"; if he said, "No," they would say to him, "Then say shibboleth"; but he would say "sibboleth," not being able to pronounce it correctly. Thereupon they would seize him and slay him by the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell at that time. 3 On the basis of this biblical story appeared the term "shibboleth", which has gained meaning of an identification mark. Later a philosopher Jacques Derrida defines “Shibboleth” as a characteristic mark, which itself is devoid from any concept, but the differences are determined, and thus it becomes a sort of separation of the subjects and the senselessness gains a decisive importance. Accent appears from an irrelevance, when, for example, a person isn’t in his/her area of origin – it can be geographical or social environment – i.e., he/she doesn’t belong to dominant majority, but speaks in the language of them. In this case the accent is one of the main tools to unmask the difference, which consider as “deviation from the norm” only outside of own territory or area. For example, Georgian Adjarian accent can be an accent only outside of Adjaria (Georgian region), where most of the people don’t come from that territory. 3. The Hebrew Bible, book of judges, chapter 12, 7 But in order to consider accent as “Shibboleth” it’s important to identify it, which requires some knowledge about the owner of an accent from the listener. For example, in Germany when Georgian person is speaking in German language with Georgian accent he/she shows that he/she is a foreigner, but most of the Germans can’t recognize his/her nationality, because for them the sound of Georgian accent is unknown. But for example French accent is already “Shibboleth” in Germany, because they already have some information about that country. So, the accent creates the whole chain of association, which can start from living spheres and step by step it can also go to cultural or political phenomenon. So, the accent, which perceives as “Shibboleth”, has a representative meaning and produces various kind of emotions in listener, due to his/her knowledge or experience. These emotions are called temporary insanity, which appears not with thinking but associatively and shows the emotional approach to the things what they perceive. And behind the temporary insanity there are some icons and stories hidden that are associatively joined with accents. If in the west part of Europe Georgian accent doesn’t mean anything, in Russia it is part of cultural memory and associates with one concrete person – Josef Stalin, whose accent is presented as prototype of Georgian one: even after half of the century when Russian parodists and to speak in Russian with Georgian accent they use the example of Stalin speeches. 4 Georgian accent is the accent of Stalin and this makes it as “Shibboleth”. And this fact itself creates a paradox in Russian historical and cultural memory: a person, which is a symbol of Russia’s military and political power, is carrying the sign of marginalization. 4. The accent of Stalin and the apocalypse of Georgian language, Giorgi Maisuradze, Tskheli Shokkoladi, 2009, 1-3 8 In May 9th, 1945 Stalin’s own formula "Великий русский народ" 5 (the Great Russian people), which is considered as a declaration of new big-Russian chauvinism and imperialism, was pronounced in Georgian accent. This fact put the marginal stamp on its own big-Russian chauvinism, as far as authorized rights belong to non-Russian marginal person, to “Shibboleth”. Khrushchev's famous speech at the XX Congress of the CPSU in 1956 and the de-Stalinization of Soviet Union was an attempt to free Russian-Soviet imperialism from phonetic defect – do not accept in Russia Russian language with Georgian accent. In 1950, June 20, in the newspaper “Pravda” Stalin published the article “Marxism and issues of language science” that was written for discrediting the opinion of scientist Niko Mari. 6 He described the language, as Marx called it superstructure, as the ideological product of social-economical bases. That means he considered language as class phenomenon, every social class has its own language. Josef Stalin didn’t agree on this theory and in the article he said that language can’t be superstructure and it stands on no bases. Language is not for the specific class but it is created by the whole society. In this article he wrote a lot about the dialects but he mentioned the word “accent” only once in ironical way: “Russian aristocrats are proud of themselves when they talk with strong French accent while speaking in Russian language. Russia was cleaned from these class poppies by the revolution”. 6 5. The Great Russian people, Pravda, Josef Stalin, 1945, 1 6. Marxism and issues of Language science, Pravda, Josef Stalin, 1950, 1 9 The revolution replaced class French accent with accents from the Russian provinces. It should be surprising for Russia when its history can remember Catherine II speaking with so strong German accent that sometime she was making many grammar mistakes also. The principal difference between Catherine’s German accent and Stalin’s Georgian accent was that Georgian was the language of the colony. During 31 years it was giving the tone of language of conquered nation and province to the conqueror Russia’s language. By the direct order of Stalin Soviet nations create the whole pantheons of national heroes and the anniversaries of the figures face to public holidays in the whole of Soviet Union. For example, for Russia this kind of figure is Pushkin, about whom Stalin specially mentions in his "Marxism and Linguistic Issues" and reminds Russian people that they speak in the language of Pushkin; in Ukraine Taras Shevchenko was created as a cult; in 1937 they celebrate the anniversary of Shota Rustaveli (Georgian Poet) in the whole Soviet Union.