Caucasus Studies 2

IMER - INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AND ETHNIC RELATIONS MIGRATION IMER - INTERNATIONAL CAUCASUS STUDIES 2 STUDIES CAUCASUS I m Caucasus Studies 2 INTERNATIONA • ER Caucasus Studies 2 LANGUAGE,Caucasus Studies HISTOR 2Y AND CULTURAL IDENTITIES IN THE CAUCASUS l m LANGUAGE, HISTORY AND CULTURAL RE ETHNIC AND IGRATION Edited IDENTITIES by Karina Vamling IN THE CAUCASUS l The internationalEdited by conferenceKarina Vamling Language, History and Cultural Identities in the CU AND HISTORY ANGUAGE, Caucasus, 17-20 June 2005, hosted by the School of International Migration LANGUAGE, HISTORY AND CULTURAL and Ethnic Relations (IMER) at Malmö University (Sweden), brought together IDENTITIES IN THE CAUCASUS Caucasian and Western schoolars with diverse disciplinary backgrounds – l social anthropology, linguistics, literature, social psychology, political science ATIONS – who focus on the Caucasus in their research. The present volume is based on Papers from the conference, papers from this conference. June 17-19 2005, Malmö University l TURA Edited by Karina Vamling l IDENTITIES IN THE CAUCASUS THE IN IDENTITIES MALMÖ UNIVERSITY MALMÖ 2009 SE-205 06 Malmö Sweden m www.mah.se MALMÖ UNIVERSITY A ISBN 978-91-7104-088-6 2010 lmö SE-205 06 Malmö Sweden www.mah.se ISBN 978-91-7104-088-6 Caucasus Studies 1 Circassian Clause Structure Mukhadin Kumakhov & Karina Vamling 2 Language, History and Cultural Identities in the Caucasus. Papers from the conference, June 17-19 2005. Edited by Karina Vamling 3 Conference in the fields of Migration – Society – Language 28-30 November 2008. Abstracts Caucasus Studies 2 LANGUAGE, HISTORY AND CULTURAL IDENTITIES IN THE CAUCASUS Papers from the conference, June 17-19 2005, Malmö University Edited by Karina Vamling Department of International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER) Malmö University Sweden Caucasus Studies 2 Language, History and Cultural Identities in the Caucasus Papers from the conference, June 17-19 2005, Malmö University Edited by Karina Vamling Published by Malmö University Faculty of Culture and Society Department of International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER) S-20506 Malmö, www.mah.se © 2010, Department of IMER and the authors Cover illustration: Caucasus Mountains (K. Vamling) ISBN 978-91-7104-088-6 Holmbergs, Malmö Contents List of contributors vi Preface vii The Autocrat of the Banquet Table: the political and social significance of the Georgian supra 9 Kevin Tuite Continuity of a Tradition: A Survey of the Performance Practices of Traditional Polyphonic Songs in Tbilisi 36 Andrea Kuzmich An Attempt to Create an Ethnic Group: Identity Change Dynamics of Muslimized Meskhetians 53 Marine Beridze and Manana Kobaidze The Georgian Language and Cultural Identity in Old Georgia: An Examination of Some Conceptual Foundations 67 Tinatin Bolkvadze The Modern Language Situation in Georgia: Issues Regarding the Linguistic Affiliation of the Population 74 Manana Tabidze Language Use and Attitudes among Megrelians in Georgia 81 Karina Vamling and Revaz Tchantouria The Present-day Situation of the Minority Ethno-Linguistic Peoples within the Avaric Region in the Republic of Dagestan 93 Rune Westerlund Human Rights, Terrorism, and the Destruction of Chechnya 105 Ib Faurby Why No Settlement in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict? – Which are the obstacles to a negotiated solution? 114 Märta-Lisa Magnusson Discrepancies between Form and Meaning: Reanalyzing Wish Formulae in Georgian 144 Nino Amiridze Two Types of Relative Clauses in Modern Georgian 156 Kojima Yasuhiro Contributors Nino Amiridze (Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, The Netherlands) Marine Beridze (Chikobava Institute of Linguistics, Georgian Academy of Sciences Tbilisi, Georgia) Tinatin Bolkvadze (Dept. of General and Applied Linguistics, Tbilisi State University, Georgia) Ib Faurby (Royal Danish Defence College, Copenhagen, Denmark) Manana Kobaidze (IMER, Malmö University, Sweden) Andrea Kuzmich (Toronto, Canada) Märta-Lisa Magnusson (Dept. of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark) Manana Tabidze (Chikobava Institute of Linguistics, Georgian Academy of Sciences, Georgia) Revaz Tchantouria (IMER, Malmö University, Sweden) Kevin Tuite (Dept. of Anthropology, University of Montreal, Canada) Karina Vamling (IMER, Malmö University, Sweden) Rune Westerlund (Department of Languages and Culture, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden) Kojima Yasuhiro (Dept. of Linguistics, University of Tokyo, Japan) Preface The international conference Language, History and Cultural Identities in the Caucasus, 17-20 June 2005, hosted by the School of International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER) at Malmö University (Sweden), brought together Caucasian and Western schoolars with diverse disciplinary backgrounds – social anthropology, linguistics, literature, social psychology, political science – who focus on the Caucasus in their research. The present volume is based on papers from this conference. Caucasus studies is an expanding multidisciplinary field of research. The Caucasus is a very complex region in many ways. It embraces four states (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and parts of Southern Russia), a number of autonomous republics and approximately fifty different ethnolinguistic groups. Due to its strategic geopolitical location on the strip of land between Europe and Asia, the Black and Caspian Seas, the Caucasus has repeatedly during the course of history been invaded by great powers – Persians, Arabs, Mongols, Turks and Russians. Despite this foreign domination, the peoples of the Caucasus have managed to maintain specific cultural traits and identity. Increased Russian/Soviet control over the region during the last two centuries has lead to deep political, social and cultural changes, including depor- tations of entire peoples and extensive migration. The post-Soviet period has been characterized by ethnopolitical conflicts (for instance, in Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia) and problems with refugees and IDPs and has in various ways affected all the states in the region. In building their national identities, language, religion and historical and cultural symbols have an important unifying function in the newly independent states. Several events during the last years have increased international interest for and presence in the region: the views on international terrorism following the events of September 11 (primarily in relation to the conflict in Chechnya), the ‘Rose’ revolution in Georgia and following westernization, the US involvement in neighbouring Irak, and Turkey’s rapprochment to the EU. The theme of the conference – Language, History and Cultural Identities – thus reflects important issues in the past and present situation in the Caucasus. The conference was made possible thanks to funding from the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). We would like to express our sincere gratitude for this support. We would also like to thank colleaugues at the Department of International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER) – Jean Hudson, Damian Finnegan, Manana Kobaidze, Märta-Lisa Magnusson, Revaz Tchantouria – who have helped us in various ways and made it possible to publish this volume. The editor and the Department of International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER) are not responsible for views expressed in the individual papers. Malmö, 30 November 2010 Karina Vamling vii viii The Autocrat of the Banquet Table: the political and social significance of the Georgian supra Kevin Tuite 0. Introduction. Ask any foreigner who has spent time in Georgia to describe his or her impressions of that country, and without fail the banquet (supra) will appear at or near the top of the list. Nearly twenty years ago, I spent nine months in what was then the Soviet Republic of Georgia, to gather linguistic data for my PhD thesis. The day after my arrival in Tbilisi, I went to the center of the city to have a look around. A man of about my age stopped and asked me (in Russian) where I was from. I answered him in the best Georgian I could muster at the time. Within minutes, or so it seemed, we were seated in a restaurant. The waiter came by, and my new acquaintance, and now my host, ordered three bottles of wine – for two people. When the wine arrived, he filled our glasses, and then made the first toast at my first supra on Georgian soil. It was a captivating moment: The spontaneous generosity shown by someone I had met only minutes earlier, the abundance of food and wine on the table, the stylized eloquence of the toasts, the sense that I was participating in some sort of ancient ritual. The supra seemed all the more grandiose because it contrasted so dramatically with the “Soviet way of life” as it was represented at the time of Gorbachev and Reagan: the drinking (despite Gorbachev’s dry laws), the expenditure (despite Soviet salaries), the seeming absence of politics – to the point that, on the few occasions where a tipsy banqueter made disparaging remarks about Communists or Russians, he was reproved by the other guests. Yet the Georgian banquet is heavily loaded with political implications, whether or not politics is spoken about at the table. Since the supra is such a prominent feature of social life, and furthermore, one that is frequently mentioned as a marker of Georgian or Caucasian identity, authors who write about this ritual necessarily engage with widespread notions of Georgianness, and find themselves – tacitly or explicitly – taking a stance with regard to such politically-loaded issues as gender,

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