Representing History 2014.pdf (original) (raw)

As it is well known, history is not only academic discipline, but also a form of collective memory.That is why history as knowledge of past plays great role in every nations’s life. It gives help to determine and maintain national identity. Georgian case is not exeption from this common rule and representation of past in Georgian reality has identity making function as well. Already in pre-modern period (in pagan as well as Christian era) Georgian historiography was quite distinguished field of Georgian culture. Variety of tasks related with general problems of historical representation were elaborated by that time. Modernity raised the Georgian historical thinking to higher level of its development. Theorizing the process of historical representation assumed more systematic character. For example, Georgian erudite Prince Vakhushti Bagrationi (1696-1757) in his work “The Description of Georgian Kingdom”, elaborated the general problems of history discipline, its objectives, forms of historical representation and study methods. Ivane Javakhishvili (1876-1940) - the eminent Georgian historian and one of the founders of Georgian studies, in parallel with investigating the concrete facts, paid great attention to the methodological aspects as well. In 1916 he published a book devoted just to general problems of history discipline. In Soviet period also the issues of methodology and history research methods were subjects of inquiries of many scholars. However, only limited number of themes were concerned as in non-pluralistic Soviet environment it was impossible for historians to choose methodology and base history representation on social theory other than Marxism. After the break-up of Soviet Union, new era in academic life began for all post Soviet (including Georgia) countries. Marxist approach was rejected by many historians, but as they actually were not able to introduce any new theory, in spite of anti-Marxist rhetoric, historiographical practice actually remained based on Marxian sociology. Because of above-- mentioned “theoretical emptiness” part of Georgian historians began avoiding more general topics and long-term processes (like ethno-genesis or nation-formation) and concentrated on more narrow research tasks and bring into focus of their inquiries short-term political incidents and facts. The academic inquiries for accumulating of knowledge concerning Georgian past were perceived by the general public (and by academic circles too) as favorable factor of forming collective memory, as mean for forging patriotic feelings and self-identification. In public perceptions the understanding of history as discipline was actually lost. Thus, in post-Soviet Georgian historiography occurred imbalance between researches devoted to the concrete facts’ representation and researches aimed at solving the theoretical problems of history discipline. This imbalance exists up to now. This situation, of course, could not be long stayed without special attention. The main goal of an international conference − “Representing History: Theoretical Trends and Case Studies” was to overcome the above problem. The conference demonstrated achievements of Georgian historiography. At the same time it made evident that Georgian historians are still in lesser degree concentrated on making socially oriented historical researches than their colleagues from abroad; theorizing history also occupies very little place in historiographical discourses. It is needless to say that history discipline in general, and Georgian national history in particular, cannot be considered seriously without theory. Theory should be basis not only research, but also for learning and teaching in field of history.