Jane Kitaevich
History that Splinters: A Study of Variation in Collective Memory Narratives in the Republic of Georgia
Prepared for the Post-communist Politics and Economics Workshop
April 8, 2013
Work-in-progress; please do not circulate
Note to the readers:
Dear Workshop participants,
Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this paper-in-the-making. I very much look forward to your comments—all comments, of both methodological and theoretical nature are welcome. I would, however, ask you to pay particular attention to the following questions:
1)Please note: this project is still in its early stages, and the draft is anything but finalized—in fact, some of the sections are still missing. This draft is based on the pilot project I have conducted in late 2012-eary 2013. The observations included here are valuable in their own right, but in order to claim they are representative of popular views across the nation, I will have to continue my fieldwork in the summer to expand my data pool( my hunch, however, is that my future observations will not be much different from the data I have already gathered).
2)What is in the paper and what is not there: the larger chunk of the paper tries to setup my theoretical framework, describe in general terms my case study, methodology, and locate my argument within the existing literature on the topic (the nature of the subject is somewhat interdisciplinary, and so are the sources in my literature review, which mostly cites works in political science and sociology, but one can also find an occasional reference to anthropology and comparative education literature.) Given the time constraints, the paper is lacking in the adequate development and discussion of the empirical findings.My write-up of the empirical findings is a work-in-progress, as such, I am still missing 2 sections out of 3—the most important and lengthy section, however, is there (I do, however, provide a brief overview of each of the missing sections.) The teachers discourse section currently includes the analysis of 3 out of4 general discourses but it should give you a good sense of how this section as a whole dovetails nicely with one of my arguments. I analyze the findings in the same section where I present the findings, but I will have one more section (eventually) where I’ll do a formal discussion of the findings and explicitly connect them to my arguments.
3)Comments/feedback: I am still working on the methodology part (especially, processing and systematically analyzing the data) and I’ll very much appreciate any suggestions related to these questions (especially, advice for good software packages to work with this type of qualitative data.) Literature suggestions for further reading are always welcome. I would also hope to write (eventually) a second part of this project that would offer an explanation for how different transitional countries manage these splintered memories differently. This would be a comparative project and my preliminary thoughts are outlined at the end of this draft—any thoughts on this subject would be much appreciated. Comments on if the first part of the project sounds too repetitive/what can be cut would be great as well! Please do not feel limited to commenting only on these 4 issues—I’ll be most glad to receive any feedback you might have for me! Thank you again for reading!
P.S. I’ll compile my full list of bibliography and referred works by tomorrow, if anyone would be interested in skimming it.
“I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Instead of Introduction
During the early years of the Soviet Union, the Communist party, in a remarkable feat of skillful propaganda, astute politicking, and timely opportunism, created a story of the history of mankind and a united vision for the bright future that resonated with myriad of private stories from the snowy slopes of Elbrus to the sunny steppes of Central Asia. Suddenly, as the lyrics of one popular Soviet song described it, the peoples of disparate nations became “united by a joint will…for a common fight for happiness… into a family of nations.[1]” With “unity [being] a great thing and a great slogan[2]”, all private aspects of human activity—including individual memories, visions, and narratives—were expected to yield to the supreme mission of the centralizing Soviet regime. The resounding and unexpected collapse of the Soviet juggernaut left behind economies in shambles, crumbled political systems, and people, bereft of the centralized system of meaning, confused and often incapable of making sense of the contradicting legacies of Communism, those stubbornly lingering ghosts of the past—the memories of the bygone era.
Fifteen newly emerged states, the hapless heirs to the Communist regime thus faced the unwieldy tasks of state-building and nation-building, with little or no experiences of independence—all, while also trying to find legitimacy in the eyes of international actors, as well as their own impatient mobs of constituents in the streets. The already difficult task of razing the now-obsolete institutions and building the new ones from scratch was further confounded by the fact that the new states inherited populations divided along multiple lines of ethnicity, language, territory, social capital, ideology, memories, and most importantly, diverging visions and understandings of statehood. Previously invisible due to the overwhelming dominance of the Soviet master narrative, multiple clashing conceptualizations of state and its history came to the fore of identity politics, demanding their place under the sun. Bizarrely, with the Soviet Union already gone, its “deconstruction…[still] remain[ed] an ongoing and potentially endless process…where cultural identities were inherently contested” (Beissinger), hindering new, often weak states from implementing their agendas and fulfilling their basic responsibilities, such as providing security and maintaining territorial integrity, collecting taxes, etc. Realizing that being an “incomplete nation” is “perhaps the most important threat” to the prospects of economic and political stability (Crawford, Liphart), the majority of state leaders turned to a formidable social glue—collective memory—“a navel” that ties the otherwise disconnected individuals and “without [which] the subjective element of being part of a nation would be absent” (Smith, 84). Thus, as states embarked on an uneasy journey to legitimize their existence internationally, while also fostering a unique national image domestically by forming distinct civic and ethnic parlances, they invariably turned to their historical past to explain and often mold the national present (Friedman).
The choice to revisit national history in an attempt to produce a master narrative can be understood in light of several reasons: 1) desire to “regain self-esteem by re-claiming the right to [write their own] national historiography…without the assistance of the elder brother” after 70 years of subordinating national histories to fit the Communist paradigm (Kuzio, 2002) 2) commanding loyalty from their citizens through evoking a unifying narrative[3](Gellner, 83; Smith, 86; Anderson, 91, Hobsbawm, 83) 3)soliciting legitimacy from the international community, often by establishing historical continuitypointing at the periods of history of statehood of the proto-state to which the modern state is a direct heir 4) using the past as a blueprint for establishing a new legal and institutional basis (in some instances, the states would even fully restore historical institutions—as was the case of Poland and Georgia[4]). This multifaceted utility of a common historical narrative unsurprisingly resulted in national fascination with the days of yore and mass-scale attempts to rewrite history to reflect the new social order, to shape a new state identity “by anchoring the present in a viable past” (Friedman). The proliferation of these nation-building projects sparked greater interest among the scholars of the region in memory studies, producing different strands of scholarship: some scholars addressed the role of memorials (Forest 2002) and political institutions and norms (Trenin 2011; Pain, 2009) in propagating a particular view of a nation and its history. Others focused on the processes that aided the states in “creating” compelling narratives of the modern nation-state to command the loyalty of its citizens. A particular attention was given to the changes in formal education as a primary vehicle for disseminating the new historical vision, often articulated in the process of (re-) writing history textbooks(Kuzio, 2002; Zajda, 2003; Janmaat, 2007; Wetsch,1999, Mendelson 2005, 2006; Nikolayenko, 2008.)
These fine additions to social science literature have greatly enhanced our understanding of the critical processes that shaped and continue to shape the post-Soviet developments. Yet, while the academic interest in collective memory’s role in both nation-building and state-building processes is sustained, two important questions remain unanswered. I now turn to the two main arguments of this work by contextualizing them within the existing theoretical debates on collective memory. Each argument will be dealt with separately. I will then provide the overview of the case study of memory politics in the republic of Georgia and explain why it is an interesting example for substantiating my arguments. After briefly reviewing the methodology applied during my recent pilot project in Georgia, I will present the findings—conceptually structuring them into three main collective memory discourses—those of the state, school teachers (a discourse that itself branches off into several sub-narratives, often along the generational cleavages), and students. My empirical findings will be followed by a concluding discussion and suggestions for future research.
Studying Collective Memory Narratives: Understanding the Agency
Despite the wide recognition of the salience of collective memory narrative formation for understanding the dynamics of nation-building, much of the research on collective memory has been strongly influenced by the academic penchant to imagine the collective memory discourse as largely hegemonic and content-wise orthodox. Formation of (national) identities occupies an important niche in such areas of research in comparative politics as the literature on social movements, identity politics, and institution-building. The main debate over identity is not over whether identity matters (a question more relevant to the IR domain) but whether it is inherited /primordial or constructed and how it becomes institutionalized (Laitin; Sikkink and Finnemore, 2001). The research agenda, thus, perhaps rather inadvertently is shaped by the question of how does identity (such as for instance, national/historical identity that is articulated in a shared collective memory narrative[5]) become institutionalized and formed into a power structure, a mechanism of coercion in the service of a state as the main custodian of this power (Gur-Zeeb, 2003, Neal 2005, Baumel 1997, Beblawi, Luciani 1987). Unsurprisingly, this interest in institutionalization and consolidation of historical identities has put a disproportionate emphasis on the study of the state as the main and often the only actor that has the power to define its historical identities (as expressed through state-generated collective memory narrative) through the means of state-created social institutions, such as schools, that support social cohesion. Consequently, much of the research on identity-building and collective memory narratives in the post-Communist space focused on the study of legislation on historical memories, public memorials, and history textbooks (Shevel, 2003; Forrest, 2002; Schessler, 1987; Mehlinger, 1985; Porat, 2001).
While this approach sheds much light onto the process of identity formation and memory politics, I identify two critiques of such treatment of the subject. First, the focus on the institutionalization of state’s historical identity is outcome-oriented, i.e. consolidation and homogenization of the discourse through the means of state-implemented policies, thus making it a teleological argument. Second, and related to the first argument, is the criticism that according to this approach a state is treated as the main source of preference formation for a particular collective memory narrative. While both of these qualities (outcome-driven and state-as-the main-agent assumptions) have advantages of parsimony and generalizability, they come at a price of reductionism.
The first proposition obscures the fact that it is unhelpful to think of historical identity (as well as other forms of identities) in terms of any (even short-term) permanency (which the assumption of consolidation through institutionalization implies). As Ted Hopf aptly put it in his Promise of Constructivism in International Relations , actors are rarely confined to the shackles of one particular identity; instead, even a single actor (such as a state) may wear multiple “identity” hats. Others, such as Alexander Wendt, echoed this concern by arguing that even individual states may have multiple identities that are in constant fluctuation—some are dormant, others active, and others evolving (1999).[6][7]Laitin, too, acknowledges that identity is normally inherently fluid—“there is fluid competition between them [i.e.] identities,” where neither primordial ethnic identities, nor the culturally and contingently constructed ones prevail.[8]Finally, Daniel, Heinlein, and Lars also questioned the validity of viewing identity (in particular, historical identity) as a firmly institutionalized/consolidated concept in their study of European identity; instead, they postulated that the national collective memory narrative is fluid (reflexive particularism) because of its malleable nature and interaction with the international structure (cosmopolitanization).[9]In sum, as the above authors suggest, collective memory/historical identity formation is “a non-linear, dialectical process in which the universal and particular, the similar and the dissimilar… are interconnected,” suggesting that what matters, given the transformative quality of historical identity, study of historical identity is not the end/teleology, but the process of changing itself.
My second criticism of the question of agency in the literature on collective memory narrative/historical identity formation is the disproportionate emphasis made on the study of state as the main and often the only actor that has the power to define its historical identities. Critical constructivists link formation of ideas and identities to “certain powerful groups [who] play a privileged role in the process of social construction” ( Weldes, 1999; Price, 1998).[10] This proposition that is too often accepted without due scrutiny, obscures the fact that collective memory processes often fail to achieve such monolithic form, since the space for history-making is an arena with multiple actors, where chaos—not order—especially, at the time of transition, is the modus operandi. The alternative Habermasian view, while assuming that the power to construct can be vested with a recognizable personal agency, acknowledges that preference formation is more dispersed than argued by critical constructivists.[11] I believe this debate stems from the challenge of defining collective memory as a social fact and a misinterpretation of collective memory as a unifying and uniform concept. Maurice Halbwachs distinguishes an autobiographic/individual and social/collective memory discourses, but he, too, agrees that these two categories hardly exist autonomously; instead, “collective memory is social in origin and influenced not only by dominant discourses, but also the faculty of individual minds” (Misztal, 2005). This definition brings into question an assertion that a state is the only power-wielding agency capable of constructing uncontested interpretations of history, suggesting instead that problematizing collective memory as a more pluralistic and mutually constitutive process, with multiple loci of collective memory production would result in a more nuanced and realistic research agenda. Admittedly, such an approach would entail much onerous fieldwork of various collective discourses, yet, only by problematizing the taken-for-granted socialization processes and calling for an energetic synthesis and interaction between different types of historical identities, different loci for preference formation we can bring something new to the table.
Identifying the foci of collective memory production within a state is a challenging enterprise given the infinitesimal possibility of identifying idiosyncratic discourses that are reflective of multiple political, economic, social, and cultural cleavages. For the purposes of establishing a research agenda that is both feasible and capable of providing a fairly nuanced and comprehensive treatment of such an abstruse topic, without getting mired in excessive reductionism, I consider a model discussed in “Reflexive particularism and comspolitanization: the reconfiguration of the national” that suggests an alternative way of operationalizing the sources of collective memory formation by introducing three categories: official forms of memory (represented by the state-centered discourses, such as parliamentary debates or legislative procedures, as well as official commemorative events, monuments, memorial days, foundations), public forms of memory (such as those narratives that are represented in the media, and that do and do not have to resemble the government discourse), and vernacular forms of memory that entail conceptualization of national memory on the grassroots level. This model addresses the question of agency for narrative formation discussed earlier by identifying several main “factories” of narrative production; however, to make the model more attuned to the Soviet reality, I introduce several modifications to the model by excluding the media variable (which, in the context of the former Soviet states is either a mouthpiece for the parties at power, or reflective of the debates within the society itself, subsequently prompting me to choose to focus on the state and “vernacular” narratives alone.) I choose the education sphere, schools in particulars, as the ultimate space[12] where the different societal views on history and statehood are played out. The important addition to the model is the distinction I make in identifying the different loci of vernacular collective memories based on the generational factor, to account for the difference in history education paradigm during and after the Soviet Union, which, I conjecture leaves a “generational imprinting” (Schuman, 2002) on the societal perceptions of statehood and its place in history and the world. Literature on collective memories and educational experiences suggests that it is specifically historical events and political regimes experienced during the early stages of an individual’s development (specifically, as argued by Schuman, the early adolescence through the early 20s period) that form “the existential fabric of our being in the world” and leaves an indelible impression on memory (Davis, 1979). It is the legacies of these collective memories that continue to inform the visions of statehood of the members of polity, who continue to respond to these memories (by opposing, agreeing, or constructing a middle-ground response) in the course of their lifetimes. I find this approach to be especially productive in the study of those societies that have experienced significant shifts in their political outlooks within a fairly short period of time (of which the post-Communist space is a perfect example) and where fluctuations and splintering of institutions, opinions, and norms is a rule, rather than an exception. The next section provides a brief introduction to the selected case study, as well as the reasons for the case selection and the added value it presents for the study of other post-Soviet states (and by extension, the countries outside of the post-Soviet space.)