Exploring Ambiguity in Abkhazia

Abkhazia is a self-proclaimed, yet internationally unrecognized, republic which is de jure a region of Georgia (Elbakidze 2008: 37). This article seeks to elucidate the main issues and themes in the major anthropological literature on this region, and to indicate how they relate to, and influence one another. The issues of particular significance in this region include the practice of multiculturalism in Georgian society, the experience of being a minority within a minority for the Mingrelians of Abkhazia, the role of ethnogenesis in maintaining ethnic divisions in the Caucasus, and the representations of the 1992-3 war among the people of Abkhazia. In order to properly address these issues, it is necessary to first provide background on the influence of a history of Soviet policies on multiculturalism and the meaning of citizenship in a globalizing world. It will also be important to discuss the lived experiences of citizens and their relationship to an ambiguous state.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1049329/Russia-gives-fingers-continues-stand-West.html

The Caucasus region has a shared history of conquest by various empires, and despite the various ethnic groups differentiating themselves today, at one point the region possessed elements of a shared culture (Grant and Yalçın-Heckmann 2007: 3). Indeed, prior to the twentieth century, communities in the Caucasus were based more on kinship and religious affiliation than on ethnicity (Pilkington and Popov 2008: 13). Mühlfried (2010) and Pilkington and Popov (2008) discuss the importance of Soviet policies of indigenization (korenizatsiia) and research into ethnohistory and folklore in transforming the area from a region of porous interactions between individuals and communities into a region of ethnic divisions. Pilkington and Popov (2008) particularly emphasize the importance of Soviet multicultural policies in shaping the newly emerging states and ethnic identities after the fall of the Soviet Union. In the Soviet period, ethnographers were mainly encouraged to study the ethnic groups to which they belonged, providing no outside perspective and thus more clearly delineating differences between ethnic groups (Grant and Yalçın-Heckmann 2007: 4). This delineating approach has been noted by several researchers who also identify the influence of the Soviet hierarchy of nationality in promoting these differences and reifying ethnic groups (Gordadze 2001; Grant and Yalçın-Heckmann 2007; Kvarchelia 1998; Mühlfried 2010). This trend of differentiation led to the emergence of titular nationality as an extremely important factor in the Soviet era for legitimizing a nation in the political sphere, particularly in manufacturing a political and cultural elite, thus it was significant for Abkhazia's elite when the region gained status as an autonomous Soviet socialist republic in the 1960s (Gordadze 2001; Pilkington and Popov 2008: 8).

According to Garb (2009), most Abkhazians do not visit 'Georgia proper,' and do not engage in trade there (236). Also, the Abkhazian government has prohibited Georgian passports for its citizens, effectively denying Georgia agency in the region (Mühlfried 2010: 9). Conversely, Abkhazians' acceptance of passports and social benefits being given out to them by the Russian government begins to blur the borders of the former Soviet nations (Mühlfried 2010; Garb 2009). Mühlfried (2010) discusses the meaning of citizenship in this context, saying it should be viewed as a struggle between those who are excluded –or exclude themselves – and those in power who wish to extend their control over citizens, in this case the Kremlin looking to expand Russia's sphere of influence (13). An article for Radio Free Europe clearly illustrates Abkhazia's position as a pawn between Russia and Georgia on the international stage. Abkhazians are wary of their position between these two powers; however, Abkhazian passports are of no use outside of Abkhazia, a fact that clearly represents their aspirations to an independent Abkhazia yet shows how they are thwarted by a lack of international recognition (Sabirova 2008: 64). Additionally, despite accepting Russian passports, Abkhazians have no desire to join with their "ethnic cousins" the Kabardians, Adyghe and Abazinians in their neighbouring Russian republics, leaving them even more alone on the global stage (Garb 2009: 236). Garb (2009) emphasizes how many Abkhazians feel abandoned and ignored by the West, even in an increasingly globalized world. However, there are still some benefits to be reaped from such a world. As Seteney Shami explains in Goldmann, Hannerz, and Westin (2000), globalization has provided formerly unrepresented or "'new' peoples, whose histories were long subordinated to the dominant narratives of others that denied them peoplehood, statehood and nationhood," with opportunities to organize, such as the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) (104), of which Abkhazia is a member.

Formally, Georgia is a very liberal country that promotes equal rights and racial tolerance and it has been recognized as such on the international stage (Elbakidze 2008: 38). Indeed, Elbakidze (2008) discusses how, in her interviews with youth, Georgians viewed themselves as extremely tolerant towards others, pointing to such examples as an Orthodox church, synagogue, mosque, and Armenian church all standing together in the oldest district of Tbilisi as evidence of their tolerance (39). However, there is inherent in the dialogue a distinction between Georgians and the 'others' or 'foreigners', suggesting they tolerate others as visitors, but not as equal citizens in the Georgian state (Elbakidze 2008). This perspective can be conceptualized as the relationship between 'host' and 'guest,' where each has a prescribed role (Elbakidze 2008). When a member of an ethnic minority group steps beyond the boundaries of their stereotyped role – whether occupation, class, or another role – they are being ungrateful to their host and intolerance toward the guest then becomes more acceptable (Elbakidze 2008). Grant (2009) shows this patronizing, 'us' as benefactors to 'them' mentality as also coming from elsewhere in the Former Soviet Union, with his story of a Ukrainian friend who said "we gave them so much, and yet, everywhere you looked, you could see what they had done with what we gave them" when discussing the failing infrastructure in Abkhazia which had been built during Soviet times (ix).

It is this tendency to act patronizing that leads Pilkington and Popov (2008) to criticize multiculturalism in post-soviet society. Instead, they offer Mikhail Epshtein's more complex notion of 'transculture' as a better alternative that is less likely to promote ethno-nationalist state building because it does not have ethnicity or culture as central dividing elements (9-10). In light of the responses of Georgian youth to questions about tolerance and multiculturalism, Žižek's criticism of multiculturalism, as explained by Pilkington and Popov (2008), becomes extremely pertinent. This criticism describes "a Eurocentric patronising of the Other" inherent in multiculturalism, which is used as a way of remaining superior to those ethnic and cultural groups to whom one is 'granting' respect (Pilkington and Popov 2008: 10). Returning to the 'host' and 'guest' issue, Žižek identifies the 'other' which is so celebrated in multiculturalism as "the 'folklorist Other'" which is respected only as long as it fits with "the Eurocentric values of tolerance, human rights and democracy," suggesting that an 'other' that does not conform to these values, by becoming violent or fundamentalist for example, is not worthy of respect from its 'host' society (Pilkington and Popov 2008: 10).

Gordadze (2001) situates this 'us' and 'them', 'host' and 'guest' dichotomy in the main Georgian nationalist narrative by referencing a popular story written in 1924 by Georgian author Mikheil Djavakhichvili, in which, after the abolition of serfdom, an Ossetian serf leaves his noble Georgian master's family, who had generously taken him in as a labourer, and robs them of all of their riches (161). This story highlights a sore point in the Georgian national consciousness: the idea that non-Georgians have been 'invited' and 'allowed' to live on Georgian territory, and that Georgians are unnecessarily punished for their generosity by 'guest' nations wishing to secede (Gordadze 2001: 162). Kvarchelia (1998) links this 'host' and 'guest' narrative back to the 'Georgianization' policy of the Stalin era when Abkhazia was "demoted to a mere 'autonomous republic' to be incorporated into Georgia," after having held status as a full union republic for the first years of the USSR, and a new 'theory' was developed that "Abkhazians were 'newcomers' on Georgian land" (19). Pilkington and Popov (2008) discuss the realization of this narrative through Appadurai's 'hypothesis of treachery,' which explains that, while individuals may normally claim to be tolerant and have friends of different ethnic backgrounds, when this is combined with the politicization of ethnicity and the emergence of ethno-nationalist loyalties people suddenly 'discover' ethnic divisions among their friends and feel a sense of betrayal (13). Pilkington and Popov (2008) cite this hypothesis as pertinent to explaining ethnic conflicts such as the one in Abkhazia and elsewhere in the Caucasus (13).

Not surprisingly, minority groups in Georgia reject their role as 'guest' in this historical narrative (Gordadze 2001: 162). According to Gordadze (2001), it is possible to be both a citizen and a foreigner in Georgia, since their liberal citizenship laws allow most anyone on their territory, even if they do not speak the language, to be a Georgian citizen, yet at the same time these citizens can be called non-Georgian because they are not seen as autochthonous to the region (164). The term 'non-Georgian' is even used in media and political discourse (Gordadze 2001: 164-5).

Abkhazians are not an absolute majority in Abkhazia, totalling approximately 35-40%, and prior to the 1992-3 conflict and the mass departure and expulsion of Georgians from the area Abkhazians were actually a minority in the region (Gordadze 2001: 173). Despite this fact, Abkhazians comprise a vast majority of parliamentarians in the republic (Gordadze 2001: 173). Inside Abkhazia's borders live many minority groups from different ethnic backgrounds including Mingrelians, Russians, Georgians, Greeks, and Armenians (Sabirova 2008: 55). The Mingrelians mostly occupy the region of Gal/iⁱ and the Abkhaz generally have negative views of them (Sabirova 2008: 61). This is likely because Mingrelians consider themselves Georgians, despite speaking their own, linguistically unrelated language (Elbakidze 2008: 37). In Gordadze's (2001) work Abkhazians view minorities in their region much in the same way as Georgians view them, as 'guests' permitted to use Abkhazian land (174).

This sense of alienation is then not only significant for Abkhazians seeking an autonomous territory, but for the Mingrelians and other minorities living in the region as well. According to Matsuzato (2009), "Gal Mingrelians continue to identify themselves as Georgians in their Abkhazian passports and go back and forth across the Ingur river," which separates the Abkhazian territory from Georgia, for work and other activities (253). However, Georgians do not necessarily welcome, or recognize, Mingrelians as Georgians (Sabirova 2008: 61). From the Abkhazian perspective, Matsuzato (2009) discusses how Abkhazian authorities tried to distinguish Mingrelians from Georgians, in response to the international community's accusations of genocide during the conflict, by claiming they were native to southeast Abkhazia and that Georgians were the newcomers (253). Yet Gordadze (2001) mentions Mingrelians being expelled from Abkhazia as ethnic Georgians, and Garb (2009) describes Gal/i, the Mingrelian region in Abkhazia, as ethnically Georgian (242). Clearly there remains in both the international community and Abkhazia itself a strong identification of Mingrelians as Georgians. Mingrelians are thus in a liminal position, neither fully accepted by Abkhazia or Georgia, nor fully rejected as the same as the antagonistic 'other', be it Abkhazians or Georgians. Because of their situation, Matsuzato (2009) calls Mingrelians "typical transborder nationalities" (239).

In the face of this chaos and ambiguity of ethnicity, a few concepts become important. The first is the concept of ethnogenesis which, as explained by Arutiunov (1994), is a way of defining "ancestors, sources, routes, times, and places for the appearance of one people or another, for their settlement and so forth" (79). Ethnogenesis is also "an intensively flowing, dialectical process leading to the appearance of a new ethnos on the basis of predecessor ethnic groups, with new qualities characteristic of it, first of all with a new self-awareness and self-designation" (Arutiunov 1994: 80). The second, discussed by Gadjiev, Kohl, and Magomedov, is V. A. Tishkov's notion of "a requiem for the ethnos" (Grant and Yalçın-Heckmann 2007: 136). Here Tishkov advocates rejecting "the view of cultures as primordially formed and stable" since their early beginnings and suggests instead rethinking "the concept of a people" to see a more fluid, constantly changing and transforming group that can interact with and learn from its neighbours (136). Ethnogenesis appears to be the more dominant conception of the ethnicity process, while Tishkov's the more critical. These two concepts illustrate the complexities of the Abkhazian conflict and the limitations to prospects for peace, as ethnogenesis, though a fluid process, solidifies ethnic groups in the present instead of acknowledging their constant change and interaction with neighbouring ethnic groups, as proposed by Tishkov. From the perspective of ethnogenesis, it becomes necessary to find continuity with a past ancestor in the region in order to establish a legitimate claim to nationhood (Gordadze 2001: 171). Arutiunov (1994) takes issue with the use of ethnogenesis for such political ends, particularly since multiple ethnic groups can and do establish reasons for making a claim to a certain territory. In this respect, the divisions created by Soviet policies will perpetuate and cause continuing conflict among increasingly politicized minorities.

An important question then becomes, how do people in Abkhazia perceive the 1992-3 conflict and its effects? Sabirova's (2008) research examines the impact of this conflict on youth in Abkhazia through the use of narrative identity, which she explains as the way people understand themselves while they tell stories of their past, present, and future, which shows how the war is an everyday topic for young Abkhazians (52). She identifies three stances on the past conflict which are common among youth in the region: "'victimization', 'heroification' and 'romanticization', and 'patriotization'" (52). The victimization stance includes statements about Abkhazian youth in general "such as: 'We are psychologically disturbed'" and "we never had a normal childhood and are incapable of living a 'normal life'," and shows how their lives are different from their parents' generation (Sabirova 2008: 52-3). Sabirova describes the heroification and romanticization stance as youth possessing "a particular maturity, experience and adult quality" after experiencing the war (Sabirova 2008: 53). The patriotization stance demonstrates the extreme willingness of Abkhazian youth "to get involved in events that decide the fate of the country, including, if necessary, sacrificing their own lives" (Sabirova 2008: 53). In each of these stances there is a common thread of patriotism and unity, and the fostering of a positive national image (Sabirova 2008: 54-5). Sabirova (2008) cites adult narratives as one of the main influences of such representations of war among the youth in Abkhazia, first through feeling guilt that their children had to suffer through the war and post-war destruction, and second by a desire to cultivate a memory of the achievements by the parents' generation so that youth will meet the expectations of their parents in defending and honouring this memory (Sabirova 2008: 53). Alongside these representations of war lies the relationship between the Abkhazian people and the state. Sabirova (2008) describes this relationship in her assertion that "it is apparent that most young people already think about the Republic in which they live as an independent state in which the absence of individual attributes of a state is only a temporary circumstance" (64). In light of this possible future increased ambiguity in the conception of the state, the present ambiguity about the status of Abkhazia may become a more helpful, and interesting, case for exploring the influence of the state in everyday life, as Abkhazians live day-to-day stuck between the differing powers and influences of the Georgian, Russian, and Abkhazian states.

http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/breakaway/review.php

Given the ambiguity of the Abkhazian situation, it is evident there is a need for much more research into experiences of the Abkhazian people. The particular issues described in this article, those of the realities of multiculturalism, experiences of minorities overshadowed by a greater minority, impacts of ethnogenesis on ethnic divisions, and memories and interpretations of armed conflict in the region, are but a few of the main avenues for future research. In addition to these significant issues, Abkhazia's ambiguous status as a state leaves open the opportunity for research on people's experiences of the state in their everyday lives as compared with the formally recognized concept of what a state can or should provide.

ⁱThis orthography is used following Sabirova (2008) because it recognizes both the Abkhazian name (Gal) and the Georgian name (Gali).

References

Arutiunov, Sergei

1994 Ethnogenesis: Its Forms and Rules. Anthropology and Archeology of

Eurasia 33(1):79-93.

Elbakidze, Marina

2008 Multi-Ethnic Society in Georgia: A Pre-Condition for Xenophobia or

an Arena for Cultural Dialogue? Anthropology of East Europe Review 26(1):37-50.

Garb, Paula

2009 The View from Abkhazia of South Ossetia Ablaze. Central Asian Survey

28(2):235-246.

Goldmann, Kjell, with Ulf Hannerz and Charles Westin, eds.