NOMEN EST OMEN? NAMING AND RENAMING OF PLACES IN MINORITY INHABITED AREAS IN GEORGIA María Diego Gordón ECMI WORKING PAPER #103 December 2017 ECMI- Working Paper # 103 The European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) is a non-partisan institution founded in 1996 by the Governments of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the German State of Schleswig-Holstein. ECMI was established in Flensburg, at the heart of the Danish-German border region, in order to draw from the encouraging example of peaceful coexistence between minorities and majorities achieved here. ECMI’s aim is to promote interdisciplinary research on issues related to minorities and majorities in a European perspective and to contribute to the improvement of interethnic relations in those parts of Western and Eastern Europe where ethno- political tension and conflict prevail. ECMI Working Papers are written either by the staff of ECMI or by outside authors commissioned by the Centre. As ECMI does not propagate opinions of its own, the views expressed in any of its publications are the sole responsibility of the author concerned. ECMI Working Paper # 103 European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) Director: Prof. Dr. Tove H. Malloy © ECMI 2017 ISSN 1435-9812; ISSN-Internet 2196-4890 2 | P a g e ECMI- Working Paper # 103 NOMEN EST OMEN? NAMING AND RE- NAMING OF PLACES IN MINORITY INHABITED AREAS IN GEROGIA Georgia is home for almost 490,000 members of different ethnic minority groups, people that are mostly inhabiting the Kvemo Kartli and Samkhtse-Javakheti regions. Since the beginning of the 1990’s claims have been made by local activists and some NGOs regarding the renaming of their villages in these areas. It has long been discussed the pivotal role played by place-names in the formation of the collective memory of a country. Hence, even though these names are perceived as an unquestionable part of everyday landscape, they are a really valuable reflection of the different political tendencies that the governments and regimes are following, for example, regarding ethnic and national minorities. Firstly, the aim of this working paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the changes that the topographical landscape in the minority inhabited areas in Georgia have experienced since 1921. Secondly, to explain and contextualize the reasons behind the very different regimes and governments to execute these changes. María Diego Gordón December 2017 ECMI Working Paper # 103 I. INTRODUCTION In July 2015, during the Dinamo Tbilisi - Gabala Year 1990. The inhabitants of the village of (Azerbaijani team) football game in Azerbaijan Kochulo woke up with a surprise waiting for people carried banners in both English and them. The sign on the main road had been Azerbaijani, claiming territory for their country changed during the night. They now lived in as well as disputing place names: “Borchali is Chapala. However, this was not the only case, ancient Azerbaijan land”; “Sarvan no Marneuli”; since 1918 the same scenario has been lived in “Bostandere No Rustavi”; and “ChorukGemerli! different villages spread all around the districts of No Bolnisi!”1. In the context of these recent the area until nowadays. events, the issue of naming and re-naming places has once again come to the fore and the 3 | P a g e ECMI- Working Paper # 103 discussion been reopened. A discussion involving and replaced it by an ethnically Georgian a diverse variety of actors, whose opinions are exclusive one? extremely polarized2. In order to accomplish this, the research Many scholars have underlined the role of focused on six of the municipalities of the Kvemo place-names as a tool in the formation of the Kartli and Samkhtse Javakheti regions in collective memory of a country. As Derek H. Georgia, specifically the ones where ethnic Alderman recalled in his study, Place naming and minorities make up more than the 50% of the the Interpretation of Cultural Landscapes, population. “Naming is a powerful vehicle for promoting Chapter 2 explores theoretical background of identification with the past and locating oneself the naming and renaming processes, the role of within wider networks of memory”3. Even though the geographical landscape in social processes these names are perceived as an unquestionable and in the integration or rejection of non- part of everyday landscape, or perhaps because of dominant groups (i.e. ethnic minorities) in nation this, toponyms are a reliable source to track the building and identity construction as it is different national building processes that a portrayed in social sciences. country has been through, and the place of ethnic Chapter 3 exposes an overview of every minorities in the configuration of the consequent analyzed district and its ethnic demography, national identification. In such an ethnically principally concentrating on dynamics and diverse state, where the 16% of the population relationships within the diverse ethnic groups that consist of ethnic minorities4, (which makes it the have been populating the analyzed areas and the most diverse one in the South Caucasus region) etymologic characteristics and development of spotting a light in this issue could be a good their toponyms. In order to achieve that goal, it indicator of those tendencies in Georgian soil. employs results of the quantitative research. This research analyzes the relation between Chapter 4 describes and deepens into all the the naming and re-naming of places and the different big renaming processes that the region changing political attitudes towards ethnic experienced since 1918 until nowadays, with the minorities since 1918. Therefore, the objective of respective socio-political contextualization. this working paper, far from being the elucidation Reference will also be made to the legal of which of the toponyms are the ones which hold framework. the biggest historical value (if the ones used by Eventually, chapter 5 presents the conclusions ethnic minorities or the ones used for renaming and main findings that this research has made. them), is to show the way that toponyms (and The majority of the analyzed documents were their development) portrayed the relation in Russian and Georgian. This inconvenience between the Georgian state and the minorities made the search of post-soviet documents a inhabiting the territory, during the last century. titanic task, since all the official documents were Or in other words, have the Georgian authorities written in the vernacular language (and not only, in different periods and regimes embraced their due to the fact that even not a derisory amount of multi-ethnic history or have they tried to erase it the Soviet files kept in the National Archives were also edited in Georgian). 4 | P a g e ECMI- Working Paper # 103 Furthermore, in Georgia there has been really The six volumes under the title Administrative- little research specifically on this issue, confined Territorial Division of the Georgian SSR (1925- to a couple of reports written by NGOs, which, 88) had also been analyzed. Further on, fieldwork although provided good hints and a first scenario in the minority regions of Kvemo Kartli and to work on, were lacking accuracy. Moreover, Samtskhe-Javakheti has been held. To expand the facts and sources provided in these reports were picture, meetings were conducted with not supported by official state documents - only representatives of minority organizations, ethnic by the opinion and memories of the local people minority NGO leaders, members of local self- and local activists. governance and local authorities, students, Moreover, even though a new census was teachers, and academic experts9. conducted in the year 2014, the results of the ethnic distribution of the population per province II. WHY PLACE NAMES? have not been released yet, that is why some of the quantitative data referring to the demography 2.1 The importance of toponymy in the was based in the last published census, which is dated in 2002. formation of identity Research for this working paper was conducted between June and September 2015 and ‘Nomen est ommen’ is one of the pieces of draws on both primary and secondary sources, wisdom that the Roman Empire left to history. from the last two centuries. The earliest document This idiom nowadays could be translated as this on place-names that has been consulted was a basic concept: names matter. Names define the French map of the Russian Possessions in the reality around themselves. Simple Caucasus, published in 18405. However, the first ‘undifferentiated spaces’ become places after 10 cartographic file that gives a more detailed they are named . Thus, toponyms are perceived picture of Georgian place-names is from 19036. as one of the most powerful and durable national Even though in the case of toponyms in the symbols, playing a key role in the formation of Javakheti area the book Gurjistan’is vilaet didi the cultural landscape of a country. davt’ari7 showed a village relation of the The cultural landscape can be understood as Ninotsminda and Akhalkalaki districts, in the late everything which is not considered part of the so- 16th century. called natural landscape. A man-made ‘paysage’, 11 In addition to these documents, official or ‘socialized nature’ which can be thought of decrees about re-naming or re-distribution of as the auto-biography of a country, depicting the territory issued by the Main Soviet Presidium of multitude of nation-building and collective the Georgian SSR, covering the years 1926 to memory construction processes that the territory 1991, the Kavkazski kalendar8 published in Tiflis has been through. This landscape can be by the Main Department of the Caucasian considered “(to those who know how to read it all governor each year from 1845 to 1917 which right) as the greatest historical record we 12 collected statistics, references and address possess” .