The bivocal nation: memory and identity on the edge of empire

Convener: Professor Roy Allison (St Antony's)

Speaker: Dr Nutsa Batiashvili (REES & Free University of Tbilisi)

How is a nation imagined in a place that exists on the “Edge of Empires?” Or what is nation-ness like in a place that is construed as an ambiguous point between “east” and “west?” Or prevailing in a liminal state of becoming and unbecoming: European, Soviet, postcolonial, developing, modernizing and so forth? Georgia is one of such countries: on the edge of the Russian Empire and Eastern Europe, on the brink of becoming European and unbecoming Post-Soviet. Many of its headaches stem from the challenge of making these geopolitical, cultural, and historical leaps in order to accomplish the task of becoming and unbecoming and to exist as a nation and a nation-state.