Abstract:

Like most of modern European nations, also modern Georgians emerged during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when a number of distinct ethnic groups sharing larger or smaller cultural similarities were integrated into a single self-conscious nation. This process has been already investigated by a number of authors. In this paper, we will focus on four specific groups who are typically considered as part of the Georgian nation and at least at some point identify themselves as Georgians. These are the Megrels, Svans, Ajarians, and Tush. Both the academic and popular literature mostly refer to these peoples as sub-ethnic or ethnographic groups. While there is a relatively large bulk of literature studying Georgia’s ethnic minorities, above all Armenians in Javakheti and Azerbaijanis in Kvemo Kartli regions, and their inclusion into the Georgian political nation, significantly less is known about the situation of Georgia’s subethnic and ethnographic groups, their self-perceptions and relations to the Georgian nation in political or ethnic sense. The proposed paper presents the results of long-term fieldwork among Megrels, Svans, Ajarians, and Tush.