CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VII (1, 2) Contemporary-Eurasia-3new | страница 134

CONTEMPORARY EURASIA
feelings and any shifting or changing within can lead to signifi cant fl uc-
tuations of national body and even destruction of the political system. 2
Especially, in those cases, when above-mentioned attachments have been
formed La longue durée.
One of the strongest ideas in Georgian nationalism is the feeling and
belief that during the many centuries Georgians lived together with others
without any confrontation. The most extensive expression of this attitude
is the unity of the Caucasian people, formed by Leonti Mroveli 3 in the
11th century. 4 In the Soviet time, that became the main stronghold for the
Georgian national conception. After the controversy between the Geor-
gian-Abkhazians and Georgian-Ossetians, the equilibrium based on this
faith was broken. Today, the political crisis created by military actions
threatens the idea of Georgian statehood.
In this paper, we would like to fi nd some answers and clarify how and
when the confl icts began in Georgia? What was the real reasons behind
them? Does it truly have only political origins or we can fi nd ethnical and
cultural roots?
We are trying to do this by observing several notes preserved in Geor-
gian texts about Abkhazian and Ossetian peoples, e.g. in The Description
of the Georgian Kingdom by Vakhushti Bagrationi. This source is also in-
teresting as it was created in the eighteenth century in parallel with the
revival of the cultural movement.
Actuality
The main challenges to the modern Georgian society are confl icts in
Abkhazia and Shida Kartli, so-called South Ossetia. The 1990s, when it
escalated into an armed controversy, the confl ict became a watershed in
relationships between the Georgians, Abkhazians and Ossetians. Howev-
er, the topics about history of Abkhazia and Shida Kartli/South Ossetia
were not a novelty for the Georgian historiography. Important questions
are still unanswered. From the view of traditional perspective historians
and politicians simply could not explain the reasons of the confl ict.
According to absolute majority of the assertions, the confl icts are arti-
fi cially provoked, that was and is unambiguously associated with the de-
2
3
4
When we determining the nationalism, we rely upon A. D. Smith’s interpretation. Anthony
D. Smith, Nationalism.Theory, ideology, history, (Polity Press, 2001), 5-35.
Leonti Mroveli was 11 th century Georgian chronicler.
Simon Kaukchishvili, The Georgian Chronicles. The text established on according to all
main manuscripts by Simon Kaukhchishvili, volume, I. Sakhelgami, (1955), 3
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