Zaal Andronikashvili: Georgian Modernities: National, International, Soviet

Lecture as part of the conference Armenian Modernities. Mores and Politics”, 18–19 Nov 2022

What was the relation between modernism and nationality and how it changed from the 1910s to the 1970s? How did the assessment of the First and the Second Modernisms change during the last hundred years? Can we speak about Georgian Soviet modernism and if we can, how and on what grounds do we assess it? The paper assumes that national, international and Soviet modernisms co-existed in Georgia from the 1910s up to the 1930s and at times, despite the heated polemic, even collaborated. After Stalin’s anti-modernist stance (1932), headed by Lavrenti Beria in Georgia, Georgian art was forced to adopt Socialist Realism, which rejected modernist forms of expression and depended upon the classic and academic styles in all artistic directions.

Literary scholar Zaal Andronikashvili is a research associate with the project Literature in Georgia. Between Small Literature and World Literature.