Renegotiating the empire, forging the nation-state: the Georgian case through the political economic thought of Niko Nikoladze and Noe Zhordania, c. 1870–1920

Abstract

This article begins with an observation of a contemporary and yet reoccurring political dilemma that small nation-states face with respect to larger states in being either inside or outside of supranational political entities regarding political and economic asymmetries. Employing an intellectual history approach, the article explores this dilemma with reference to the Georgian nation in late-nineteenth century Tsarist Russia and the early twentieth century, when that territory briefly became a nation-state: It explores this through the language of political economy articulated in the thoughts and actions of two founding Georgian national intellectual and political figures, the statesman Niko Nikoladze and Noe Zhordania, who was one of the first prime ministers. It argues that conceiving of the nation(state) primarily in economic terms, as opposed to exclusively nationalist ones, was more conducive to the option of remaining inside a supranational space.

Keywords:

• Georgian nation-state
• political economy
• Russian empire
• small versus large nation-states
• Nikoladze
• Zhordania

Notes

1. This became particularly evident in the wake the 2008 Euro and sovereign debt crisis, when smaller and poorer member states contemplated exiting the Union and the UK sought to renegotiate its relations with the Union if not leaving it (Ash 2011).

2. See Keating and Harvey (2014), whose comparative research shows that small states, mostly in northern Europe, can thrive within a hierarchical global market system, provided that the state itself takes a bigger role in the economy.

3. This is part of a larger comparative study entitled “Renegotiating the Empire, Forging the Nation-State: Habsburg Bohemia, Ottoman Albania and Tsarist Georgia, c. 1870s to 1920s”.

4. On the Cambridge School approach see Pocock ([1975] 2003, 554).

5. I would like to thank one of the reviewers of this article in helping me to crystallize this point.

6. The Treaty of Paris ended the Crimean War (1856) with a European coalition including the Ottoman Empire, and limited Russia's military presence in the Black Sea.

7. Zhordania was the first within the Marxist discourse to articulate the notions of “people's struggle” as opposed to “class struggle” and “the hegemony of working people's democracy” (Jones 2005, 65).

8. Forced to discontinue studying as a law student at the University of St. Petersburg in the early 1860s, he graduated with a doctoral degree (the first Georgian to do so) in political economy at the University of Zurich in 1868.

9. This period of nation and state building is avoided in Georgian historiography “because of an ideological distaste for socialism,” even though Zhordania's government was national and pragmatic when in power, and did not follow through on its initial socialist orientation (Jones 2014, 3–4).

10. See Avalishvili ([1924] 1990), 15).

11. Sakartvelos sakhelmtsipo saistorio arkivi (SSSA) [The Georgian State Historical Archive], The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Democratic Republic of Georgia, 1918–1921, Tbilisi, Fond 1864, Doss 42, p. 3.

12. This Treaty is controversial in contemporary Georgian historiography for being concluded by Zhordania's government in the First Republic – seen as a Marxist state that betrayed national interests, as opposed to those who see Zhordania's “middle of the road pragmatism” in sacrificing his “left wing sympathies” for institutionalizing diplomatic relations with Russia to ensure stability at home (Jones 2013).

13. See Kvaratskhelia 2014, 97–99.

14. Sakartvelos sakhelmtsipo saistorio arkivi (SSSA) [The Georgian State Historical Archive], The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Democratic Republic of Georgia, 1918–1921, Tbilisi, Fond 1864, Doss 398, 1–9.

15. Sakartvelos parlamentis ervonuli biblioteka (SPEB) [The National Parliamentary Library of Georgia], Tbilisi, Niko Nikoladze's Private Collection, Fond 61/66.

16. PEB, Niko Nikoladze's Private Collection, Fond 63/65.

17. SPEB, Niko Nikoladze's Private Collection, Fond 21/66.

18. SPEB, Niko Nikoladze's Private Collection Fond 21/127.

19. SPEB, Niko Nikoladze's Private Collection, Fond 21/128.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Charles University Research Development Schemes, Program P17 - Sciences of Society, Politics and Media under the Challenge of the Times.