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Paper short abstract

The paper explores the politics of identity, memory, and power relations in Telavi, Georgia, through its religious and sacred sites. It explores how the construction and neglect of these sites reflect both hegemonic narratives and grassroots solidarities, offering alternative political perspective.

Paper long abstract

Drawing on ethnography in the Georgian town of Telavi, the paper invites to think about the local politics of identity, historical memory and power relations through the town’s religious buildings (e.g. churches, chapels, shrines-nishi) and other sacred/spiritual sites (e.g. cemeteries, (anti-)Soviet memorial sites). Jan Assmann (1995) suggests that ‘objectivised culture’ plays important role in engaging with the past through the process of re-contextualising and re-embodying the memories of the past in the present. On the one hand, in the post-Soviet context of e-Christianisation, historical revaluation and decolonisation, the reconstruction of old and building of new churches is a statement of power on the part of individuals and groups initiating and sponsoring such activities. The locations and aesthetical dimensions of such projects carry references to the local and national past and therefore play important role in shaping hegemonic discourse within which collective identities of local residents are constructed. On the other hand, the sacred and religious sites which are neglected (e.g. some former Armenian churches) or marginalised in the town’s regeneration and cultural heritage projects (such as small neighbourhood chapels and shrines, old Soviet memorials) continue to be taken care off by the locals. These peripheral religious buildings often are the places where the grassroots solidarities are enacted through the informal socialisation and domesticated religious practises. The paper argues that sacred and religious sites become repositories of memories which are alternative to the hegemonic historic narratives. In the town’s power landscape, they are also material manifestation of non-realised (yet) political ambitions.