An undisclosed story of roses: church, state, and nation in contemporary Georgia

Abstract

Since the Rose Revolution (2003), Georgia has encountered an unprecedented scale of institutional reforms concomitant with the rise of American and European involvement in the “democratization” process. Various scholars have suggested that Georgian nationalism developed from an ethno-cultural basis to a more civic/liberal orientation after the Rose Revolution. This paper analyzes Georgian nationalism under President Mikheil Saakashvili to demonstrate the significant divergence between political rhetoric on national identity, the selection of symbols, and state policy toward the Georgian Orthodox Church versus state policy toward ethnic minorities. The aim of this article is to examine the at times conflicting conceptions of national identity as reflected in the public policies of Saakashvili’s government since the Rose Revolution. It attempts to problematize the typologies of nationalism when applied to the Georgian context and suggests conceptualizing the state-driven nationalism of the post-Rose Revolution government as “hybrid nationalism” as opposed to civic or ethno-cultural.

Keywords:

• Georgia
• nationalism
• Orthodox Church
• Rose Revolution
• national identity

Notes

1. Kymlicka defines the latter as “a territorially-concentrated culture, centred on shared language which is used in a wide range of societal institutions, in both public and private life – schools, media, law, economy, government etc. – covering the full range of human activities, including social, educational, religious, recreational, and economic life” (2001, 17).

2. As one of Saakashvili’s close aides described to me in an informal setting, radical reforms were aimed at the “social engineering of Georgian mentality.”