The Problem of Ethno-Religious Nationalism in Georgia

Abstract

This research aims to demonstrate the range of Georgian Orthodox Church constructing the Georgian ethnoreligious nationalism. How ethnoreligious identity affects the functioning of a modern state? The pre-modern tradition of identity was based on religion and dynasty. Religious identity, under the church (mostly in eastern Christianity), could be associated with some ethnos. For example, Kartvelian”, in the middle ages, is determiner not for ethnos but faith. From this derived the term – Kartvelian (Georgian) by faith. Ethnoreligious nationalism and liberal nationalism are different. According to the tradition of state nationalism, religion is not a determinative factor for nationalism. Even non-Christian can be Georgian. The ethnoreligious nationalism is a non-modern project created during the modernity. In the period of nationalism religious identity, in some cases, was transformed into an ethnoreligious identity that contradicts a liberal understanding of the modern nation by which the idea of nation is not limited by religion or ethnos. Georgian Orthodox Church is an important factor forming Georgian ethnoreligious nationalism. Based on this, we can claim that the church’s anti-western trends, often, hinder the functioning of the modern state. This trend was formed in the period of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union. This point of view is dramatically different from the 1918-1921 years’ church’s aspiration for which western and liberal values were natural and vital setting.