Rally in Tbilisi

“No to annexation”

Today, on November 15, the central Rose Square and Rustaveli Avenue i Tbilsi, were  closed for traffic. From the morning police vehicles and hundreds, or most probably several thousand, policemen lined up along the avenue, blocking off side-streets. 15nov1By 3 o’clock the square was packed with demonstrators, gathering with flags and banners. Among the Georgian flags were many EU flags, US and UK  flags, Ukrainian flags. The banners carried slogans such as  “Stop Russia”, “Russian troops – get out of Georgia”.

15nov2

The rally is a protest against “Russia’s occupation” of Georgia’s breakaway regions. It is organized by the opposition party United National Movement, which criticises the current Georgian government for  not being sufficiently active in countering this development.

Some news links on the event

Civil.ge: PM on UNM’s Planned Rally
http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=27820

Georgian Journal: Tbilisi prepares for the protests: blocked off streets and police patrols
http://www.georgianjournal.ge/society/28753-tbilisi-prepares-for-the-protest-blocked-off-streets-and-police-patrols.html

BBC: Georgians protest against Russia-Abkhazia agreement
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30071915

Civil.geAt ‘No to Annexation’ Protest Rally UNM Slams ‘Collaborationist’ Govt
http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=27824

Photos & video  by Karina Vamling

Lars Funch Hansen defended his PhD thesis on the Circassians

larsLars Funch Hansen defended his PhD thesis circThe Circassian Revival: a quest for recognition on October 23 at the Department of Crosscultural communication and Regianal studies, Copenhagen University. The thesis focuses on the Circassians, a North Caucasian people that fiercely resisted the conquering of their lands by the Russian Empire in the 19th century. Following their final defeat in 1864, most Circassians were forced into exile and today their descendants live in large diaspora groups in Turkey and neighbouring countries in the Middle East.

IMG_2277Having been the focus of the Russian and Western European romantic imagination in the 19th century, in the 20th century the Circassians fell into nearly complete oblivion. In Soviet times the remaining small Circassian communities in the North Caucasus were divided into Adygs, Cherkess and Kabardians. Having lived in authoritarian societies with restrictive minority policies over several generations, in recent decades Circassians
have been experiencing a revival which comprises the main focus of the thesis. Lars Funch Hansen sets out to explore the conditions of this revival and the ways in which Circassians both in the North Caucasus and in the diaspora are being mobilized to participate in it. In the author’s own words, the main aim of the thesis is “to unveil, present and discuss the rising transnational revival of the Circassians” (p.9) which emerged in the mid-1990s and continues today.

Photo: Supervisor Helen Krag giving a speech to Lars Funch Hansen at the reception after the defence

PhD Committee:
– Ildikó Bellér-Hann, Associate Professor, ToRS, University of Copenhagen (Head of PhD Committee)
– Wulf  Köpke, Professor, Direktor des Museums für Völkerkunde, Hamburg
– Karina Vamling, Professor of Caucasus Studies,  Malmö University

IMG_2281

 

Photo to the left: Lars Funch Hansen and the 1810 map of the Caucasus, presented to him by Helen Krag 

De-facto Entities in the Post-Soviet Space: Dynamics and Prospects

Web/campus seminar

At our third webseminar this semester Märta-Lisa Magnusson mlm– based on a paper presented at the international conference “De-facto Entities in the Post-Soviet Space: Dynamics and Prospects”, Sevan, Armenia, Sept. 4-5 – will discuss the different outcome in terms of political status obtained by post-Soviet Abkhazia, Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia. 

The web-seminar on October 22 starts at 16.15 (Studio at Kranen). Welcome!

Link to the seminar

The international conference ‘De-facto Entities in the Post-Soviet Space: Dynamics and Prospects’ was organized by Caucasus Institute (CI) Yerevan, Armenia  (www.c-i.am)

 

 

defacto

The Circassian Revival: A Quest for Recognition

circThe Circassian Revival: A Quest for Recognition. Mediated transnational mobilisation and memoralisation among a geographically dispersed people from the Caucasus is the title of the PhD thesis that will be defended by Lars Funch Hansen on October 23, 13.00 at the Faculty of Humanities, Copenhagen University.

Lars Funch is known to Caucasus Studies students from lecturing at the course module “The Caucasus region: Causes and consequences of migration”.

 

1st International CUA Conference on Endangered Languages

img389Professor Karina Vamling participates in the 1st International Caucasus University Association (CUA) Conference on Endangered Languages, organized in Ardahan, Turkey, by Caucasus University Association, Ardahan University. Dates: October 13-16, 2014.

The title of her paper is “Internet as a tool for language development and maintenance?”, where she discusses Megrelian as a case in point.

Read more:
https://ardahan.edu.tr/cuaconference2014/

The video below shows very short climpses from the different papers with a focus on languages of the Caucasus, presented at the conference.

 

Alphabet Shift in the Caucasus: Motivations and Implications

Prof. Zaal Kikvidze, Chikobava Institute, Tbilisi State University (Georgia): Alphabet Shift in the Caucasus: Motivations and Implications. Visiting lecturer Aytan f7Sadigova, Azerbaijan Technical University, Baku (Azerbaijan), discusses Alphabet shifts in Azerbaijan.

When? October 1, 16.00–ca 17.30.
Where? Kranen studio

Participation online
You will be able to follow the seminar on video at the course site. Join us on skype caucasusstudies, where you will be able to pose questions to the lecturers.

Participation on campusazeri
Students and staff in Malmö/Lund are welcome to attend the web seminar at Malmö University campus. We will meet at the entrance to “Kranen” at 15.45 and go to the studio together.

How to get there: Walk from the Central station or take bus no 5 (stop Ubåtshallen, 5 stops from the railway station).

 

 

 

 

Map: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Östra+Varvsgatan,+Malmö,+Sweden/@55.615436,12.9843924,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x4653a405f533c13b:0x6854890c07ff54c6

 

Caucasus academics gather in Malmö

News article at Malmö University Web

EDUCATION. The field of Caucasus studies is growing stronger at Malmö University. A new course with case and field studies is introduced, and the university has been playing host to three visiting experts specialising in Caucasus.

The trio are made up of Georgian professors Alexandre Kukhianidze and Zaal Kikvidze who have been joined by Aytan Sadigova, a lecturer from Azerbaijan. Getting the three together is quite a feat as the courses themselves are taught completely online.

“As our courses are multi-disciplinary covering politics, culture and history it is very important for us to have strong contacts with scholars from the region. For area studies and to establish connections for field work then it is vital,” says Karina Vamling, Professor of Caucasus Studies, at the Faculty of Culture and Society at Malmö University.

Read the whole story:

http://www.mah.se/english/News/News-2014/Meeting-of-minds-as-Caucasus-academics-gather-in-Malmo/

Visiting professor Alexandre Kukhianidze

Websem11

Alexandre Kukhianidze is professor in political science of Tbilisi State University, Georgia. His visit to Malmö University and Caucasus Studies at the Faculty of Culture and Society is funded by a Linneaus-Palme grant.

Professor Kukhianidze has been a frequest visitor to Caucasus Studies in Malmö and this time he stays for three weeks (September 1–23).

During his visit he has given the web/campus seminar: Georgia after the Soviet collapse. What is Georgia today?

Void Pasts and Marginal Presents

New publication in Slavic Review. Interdisciplinary Quarterly of Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies. (73, 2)

Katrine Bendtsen Gotfredsen: Void Pasts and Marginal Presents: On Nostalgia and Obsolete Futures in the Republic of Georgia

Abstract

In contemporary Georgia and beyond, nostalgia for the Soviet past is often ridiculed and dismissed as a reactionary wish to turn back time. In this article, however, I explore generational nostalgia as temporal displacement of present political struggles. Drawing on life story interviews with middle-aged and elderly people in the provincial town of Gori, I argue that nostalgic longings may be understood as active attempts to presence personal pasts and futures that have publicly been rendered absent by an official rhetoric and practice that explicitly rejects the Soviet past. From this perspective, post-Soviet generational nostalgia temporally connects several dimensions of absence: the experience of one’s personal past being publicly cast as void; a perceived lack of social security, influence, and significance in the present; and a dynamic whereby these two dimensions render former dreams and visions for the future obsolete.

http://www.slavicreview.illinois.edu/current/abstracts732/index.html#gotfredsen