From War to Peace: The Literary Life of Georgia after the Second World War Irma Ratiani Ivane Javakhishvili, Tbilisi State University, Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature, 1 Chavchavadze Ave, Tbilisi 0179, Georgia [email protected] After the Second World War, political changes occurred in the Soviet Union. In 1953 Joseph Stalin—originally Georgian and the incarnate symbol of the country— died, and soon the much-talked-about Twentieth Assembly of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union headed by Nikita Khrushchev followed in 1956. In Georgia, Khrushchev’s speech against Stalin was followed by serious political unrest that ended with the tragic events of March 9th, 1956. It is still unclear whether this was a political event or demonstration of insulted national pride. Soon after that, the Khrushchev Thaw (Russian: Ottepel) occurred throughout the Soviet Union. The literary process during the Thaw yielded quite a different picture compared to the previous decades of Soviet life. Under the conditions of political liberalization, various tendencies were noticed in Georgian literary space: on the one hand, there was an obvious nostalgia for Stalin, and on the other hand there was the growth of a specific model of Neo-Realism and, of no less importance, the rise of women’s writing. Keywords: literature and ideology / Georgian literature / World War II / Khrushchev thaw / Soviet Union Modifications of the Soviet regime Georgian literature before the Second World War was by no means flourishing. As a result of the political purges of the 1930s conducted by Soviet government, the leading Georgian writers were elimi- nated. Georgian Modernism and the Georgian Avant-Garde, which had found itself in antagonism with the ideological principles of the Soviet dictatorship from the outset, ceased to exist.1 This current of 1 Georgian Modernism and the Georgian Avant-Garde as two literary styles or vari- ants were formed in the first half of the twentieth century, during the modernist period. With its depth and subjectivism, the openness of its thinking, and the transgression of stylistic boundaries, Georgian Modernism constituted a threat to the Soviet ideological 89 Primerjalna književnost (Ljubljana) 42.1 (2019) PKn, letnik 42, št 1, Ljubljana, maj 2019 literature that rejected Socialist Realism was based on the progressive Western spirit and modernist philosophy (intuitivism, Freudianism, pragmatism, and neo-positivism). However, the traditional synthesis of national values with Western tendencies was particularly observable in the establishment of the idea of Georgian renewal, which was the sign of a desire to change reality. Accompanied by literature with the status of a bearer of culture, new interpretations of national identity became “associated with awareness of the national cultural image against the background of the inevitable process of Europeanization—in order to acquire a strong position with regard to European culture” (Tsipuria, “Modernistuli” 11). These ideas were intractable for Soviet ideologists. With the help of the aggressive efforts of the authorities, a “new Soviet canon emerged to replace the universal one” (Ratiani 161). The Soviet literary canon soon replaced the national one, and Georgian literature was distanced from Western European literary space. During the Second World War, the generalized Soviet mental cor- relate of Homo sovieticus was finally formed: the “Great Patriotic War” served as a prop of the dictatorship. The concept “I” had long since been replaced by the concept “We,” which was the most significant achievement of the policy of equality and collectivism declared in the Soviet Union. During the war, the speech of Soviet journalism proved to be the most successful functional and stylistic implementation of Soviet discourse. Social and political journalism proceeding from its genre specificity fully fit the process of the ideology; however, in a dis- course of this type two different layers can be distinguished: a) The official press as a manifestation of the position of Soviet ideologues; this included the leading newspapers (Pravda, Izvestia, Komunisti, etc.) as well as journals in which popular and scholarly articles were controlled, and radio reports (one need only recall the well-known timbre and dramatic texts of Yuri Levitan, a Soviet radio announcer during the Second World War);2 and b) Artistically refined patriotic texts of authoritative writers express- ing sincere support for the overall ethnic problem. system, but according to Bela Tsipuria (“Modernistuli” 262) the Georgian Avant-Garde created no less a threat to Soviet cultural policy, despite the fact that it rejected the entire system of spiritual problems and existential relations. Georgian Modernism and the Georgian Avant-Garde, as forms of anti-Soviet discourse, expressed the anti-Soviet pathos of artists distinguished by their free ideological position. For more details, see also Tsipuria (“Modernizmi”) and Lomidze (“Modernizmi” and “Simbolizmi”). 2 Yuri Levitan was the primary Soviet radio announcer during and after the Second World War. He announced all major international events from the 1940s to the 1960s. 90 Irma Ratiani: The Literary Life of Georgia after the Second World War In contrast to these two layers, epistolary texts (i.e., writers’ personal records and private correspondence) were one of the rare examples in which the split was felt between the official stance and the real situa- tion. Owing to the experience of general physical threat, from 1941 to 1945 anti-Soviet discourse, which was well shaped in the 1930s, was present only in the underground, and it also acquired a relatively frag- mentary character. Even a desire to single out the identities of Soviet peoples was regarded as treason: the wartime film directors were forced to introduce a multiethnic gallery of characters into their films, which further intensified the pathos of universal consolidation and harmoni- ous coexistence, much more significant than national self-determina- tion. Invocations of the common social threat and consolidation fur- ther refuted the necessity of determining identities: the acute issue of ethnic identity fell into oblivion for a long period. Moreover, the dictatorship distorted the interpretation of the texts by classic Georgian writers. During the war, one can observe that the process of returning to the works of classic nineteenth-cen- tury Georgian writers such as Ilia Chavchavadze (1837–1907), Akaki Tsereteli (1840–1915), Aleksandre Qazbegi (1848–1893), and Vazha- Pshavela (1861–1915) was neglected against the background of post- revolutionary passions, and, when they were used as a reference, they were reinterpreted against the grain of new revolutionary thought. This was a deliberate ideological maneuver: Soviet criticism “diligently” rewrote the strategies of romantic, realist, and even modernist classi- cal texts that had previously served as a cultural-literary reference for Georgian national identity, and it reduced the issue of ethnic identity to the level of education. This spirit immediately spread to visual art (theatre, cinema, and painting), resulting in narrative patterns that were “modernized” according to the Soviet pattern in both literary texts and visual art. Films such as Otaraant Qvrivi (Otar’s Widow) and Glakhis Naambobi (The Story of a Beggar) are perfect examples of this reduc- tion. Both examples are especially noteworthy because both movies are adaptations of texts written by the aforementioned Chavchavadze, a representative of critical realism. However, even when visual art did not draw on the preceding literary text, during the Second World War Soviet power was assisted by scriptwriters and playwrights that devoted special attention to the heroism of the Soviet people, or entertained audi- ences with light naive comedies. Against this background, it was obvious that every step against the flow was punished severely. In 1942 the young but already well- known writer Kote Khimshiashvili was shot for participating in an 91 PKn, letnik 42, št 1, Ljubljana, maj 2019 anti-Soviet conspiracy. Twenty promising Georgians were shot along with him. The incident is known as the Samanelebi Case. At the beginning of the Second World War, an anti-Soviet underground organization called Samani was established; the organization brought together young nationalists and its aim was to overthrow the Soviet regime and to restore the independence of Georgia and private prop- erty in Georgia. The Second World War gave rise to young authors and poets such as Lado Asatiani (1917–1943), Alexandre Sajaia (1916–1944), and Mirza Gelovani (1917–1944). All of them died before the end of the Second World War. Their verses were mostly dedicated to their moth- erland or beloved Tbilisi, to friendship, or to love and beauty. Their poetry thus changed the point of view of the lyrical narrator from the distant and often pathetic address adopted in Soviet poetry of the time to an intimate conversation with the reader. Viewed from this perspec- tive, this was a new phenomenon, in a way comparable to the epistolary texts and their anti-Soviet (i.e., anti-official) stance, despite the fact that Asatiani’s, Sajaia’s and Gelovani’s poetry, in fact, merges styles from the nineteenth century; namely, both realism and romanticism. Their mixture therefore complements the poetry of an older generation that was still present, especially in Galaktion Tabidze (1891–1959) and Giorgi Leonidze (1900–1966). After the war, the political