The same argument on the abundance of the ideological undertones and selective approach regarding the time period and sources can also be applied to George Hewitt’s work Discordant Neighbours: A Reassessment of the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian Conflicts. The author mentions the neighboring region to Abkhazia, Megrelia, and argues that “every attempt should be made to encourage” Megrelians to “regain their self-awareness” as a distinct ethnic group since the Georgian identity has been forced on them in 1930s. In fact, a clear majority of Megrelians have never considered themselves as anyone other than Georgians and no evidence has been discovered so far that claimed the opposite. Also, for a scholar examining the Abkhaz-Georgian …show more content…
The first Georgian political formations such as Colchis and Diauehi or Daiaeni date back to 12-13th century BC and become the basis for the creation of unified Kingdom of Iberia in 3rd century BC. Christianity became the official religion of the country in the 4th century AC when the Georgian King Mirian decided to attest his pro Byzantine political stance. After being subject to the Irano–Roman geo-political rivalry and then to the invasions of Arabs, Georgian states were unified again in 11th century and reached the Golden Age in 12th and Early 13th centuries under King David IV and Queen Tamar. Weakened by the successive invasions of Jalal-ad Din, the ruler of Khwarezmian Empire, the Seljuqs, the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire and different dynasties of Iran, Kingdom of Georgia disintegrated in two major units: the Kingdom of Kartli and Imereti. In the late 18th century, the eastern Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti forged an alliance with the Russian Empire, which later abolished the kingdom and annexed both the western and eastern Georgia in the beginning of 19th century. After a hundred years of colonial experience, Georgia enjoyed brief independence from 1918 to 1921 when the Russian influence weakened in Transcaucasia due to the socialist revolution in 1917. However, during the civil war in Russian, it was the Red Bolshevik army which invaded Georgia in 1921. It was only in 1990s that the country gained independence from the Soviet Union and has been following pro-western policy thereafter. The country's Western orientation contributed to worsening relations with Russia and led to the brief Russo-Georgian War in August 2008. Georgia today contains two regions Abkhazia and Ossetia which make claims over statehood and cooperate closely with Russia. However, international community,
“The Sources of Soviet Conduct” Foreign Affairs, 1947, explains the difficulty of summarizing Soviet ideology. For more than 50 years, the Soviet concept held the Russian nations hypnotized, discontented, unhappy, and despondent confined to a very limited Czarist political order. Hence, the rebel support of a bloody Revolution, as a means to “social betterment” (Kennan, 567). Bolshevism was conceptualized as “ideological and moral, not geopolitical or strategic”. Hoover declares that… “five or six great social philosophies were struggling for ascendancy” (Leffler, The Specter of Communism, 20).
Sarah Davies*2(P11) observes that “there was little notion of what Russianness meant for ordinary workers and peasants.”(P23) What was missing from most Russian people was their sense of heritage, the pride in knowing where they came from and where they were going. They needed history a...
The stories “Shouldn't I Feel Pretty?” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” feature a dynamic protagonist who undergoes a character development which reveals the consequences of oppression caused by societal standards. Gilman crafted the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” with the purpose of exposing the tyrannical role of gender roles to women. In the story, the narrator suffers a slight postpartum depression in the beginning, but her condition gets progressively worse because her husband John believes “that there is nothing the matter with [her] but temporary nervous depression-- a slight hysterical tendency” (331). He concludes that the best treatment for his wife is for her to be “absolutely forbidden to ‘work’ until [she is] well again” (332).
When Russians talk about the war of 1812 they do not mean the war in which Washington was burned by the British, but the war in which, apparently, the Russians burned Moscow. This war between the French republican empire and the Russian Tsarist Empire was as remarkable a high - spot in the history of the latter as it was a low - spot in the history of Napoleon. For Russia, it was one of those rare moments in history when almost all people, serfs and lords, merchants and bureaucrats, put aside their enmities and realized that they were all Russians. Russia, sometimes called ‘a state without a people’, seemed to become, for a few precious months, one people, and never quite forgot the experience.
In 1905 , Russia had a prerevolution that was put down of the Czar. Instead of learning from this prerevolution, Czar Nicholas II, made a very big mistake by in not introducing some reforms to correct the problems. So because of his actions, the situation grew worse. In 1917, the Russians were fighting in World War I. A good majority of the Russian people were weary and uncontent with the way the war was going and with the Czar's rule. This uncontent along with economic hardships caused riots and demonstrations to break out. The Czar called for the army to put down the revolution as they did in 1905. But the army joined the revolt and the Czar was kicked out of power soon afterwards. A temporary government was set up to decide on what kind of government Russia was gonna set up. Two political parties were set up. The Bolsheviks were one of the two. The leader of the Bolshevik party was a man named Lenin. Lenin was a firm believer of the theories and ideas of Karl Marx. So with his slogan of "Bread, Peace and Land", Lenin gained the support of the peasants and gained control of Russia and setup a communist state.
Neighborhoods are comprised of communities of people who are closely related by either birth, heritage, clan, culture, tribe, or ethnic identity or language. Neighborhoods arose due to humanistic natural desires to socialize, associate and form relationships with others humans. The formation of a neighborhood is done to preserve their unique sense of identity, culture, cherished traditions, and common values. However, affordability is a huge element in determining the type of neighborhood a person might live, grow up and rear children. Choosing a neighborhood that will help foster positive, healthy children’s development is very important. A neighborhood that will help shield the child, help nourish positive growth and foster good education
The Yellow Wallpaper The story, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ is one of intrigue and wonder. The story was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and it happens to be the story under analytical scrutiny, hence the title as well as the first sentence. The characters in the story consist of the narrator, Jennie, the wet nurse, the narrator's husband John, and the women in the wallpaper. In the story, the narrator and her husband, as well as her newly born daughter and the nanny for the daughter, take a summer trip to a house away from the city.
As mentioned in Armenian Genocide and the Christian Existence, after more than 75 years, the Armenian people have still not healed and are faced daily with the effects of the past. The Christian religion in this group of people has been exterminated since 1915 to some. And not even just the feeling of religion, but something exterminated during this time was the culture. (Guroian, 1991) With the notion of being “Turkified” many lost a sense of who they were and what their ethnicity and culture was during this time of hopeful survival and forced
The last two decades of the twentieth century gave rise to turbulent times for constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, eventually leading them to split apart. There were a number of damaging aspects of past history and of the political and economic circumstances that contributed to the breakup and eventually caused the situation to snowball into a deadly series of inter-ethnic conflicts. Yugoslavia was reunified at the end of the war when the communist forces of Josip Broz Tito liberated the country. Under Tito, Yugoslavia adopted a relatively liberal form of government in comparison to other East European communist states at the time and experienced a period of relative economic and political stability until Tito’s death in 1980. In addition to internal power struggles following the loss of their longtime leader, Yugoslavia faced an unprecedented economic crisis in the 1980’s. As other communist states began to fall in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, some former Communist leaders abandoned communism and founded or supported ethno-national parties, blaming the economic suffering on the flaws of communism and other ethnic groups. The ethnic violence that followed would not have been possible without the willingness of politicians from every side to promote ethno-nationalist symbols and myths through media blitzes, which were especially effective due to low levels of education in the former Yugoslavia. Shadows of the events of World War II gave these politicians, especially the Serbs, an opportunity to encourage the discussion and exaggeration of past atrocities later in the century. The ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia can be traced back to a series of linked damaging factors such as the de...
Franklin, Simon and Emma Widdis, eds. National Identity in Russian Culture: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004.
Rothschild, Joseph. Return to Diversity: A Political History of East Central Europe since World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Print.
These Central Asian states that have now since newly emerged from the now broken Soviet Union for the first time had their language, traditions, and histories. Forced to practice their culture in secret under the blanket of Soviet equality and anti-cultural diversity, the Soviets called this nationalism. While all struggled, some to which still struggle to this very day, in creating a manageable economy, I believe that Kyrgyzstan has succeeded where all the other states had failed in creating a sustainable democratic community. We see this through the anniversary of Manas because not only did it open the world’s eyes to the culture of Kyrgyzstan, but also heavily influenced the Kyrgyz people who were able to realize how significant their history and culture means
Kuzio, T. (2001). Historiography and National Identity among the Eastern Slavs: Towards a New Framework. National Identities, 3(2), 109-132
The country of Azerbaijan is recovering from decades of Soviet control, reforming the country and culture that fought oppression for many years. Since the fall of the Russian Empire and Azerbaijan’s declaration of independence in 1991, the country has been stabilizing its cultural significance. Azerbaijan continues to strengthen its status in the world theater.