Tariel Putkaradze
Georgia:
‘Separatism’, ‘Nationalism’ and our Martyr Church
‘Georgians declared Christianity as a state
religion 16 centuries ago and since then our pro-European choice has not been
altered; this very choice conditioned the country’s position in the epicenter
of geopolitical conflicts.
After 200
years of the Russian occupation, the Caucasus autochthonous peoples try to
return to the European subsoil; meanwhile, British professor George Hewitt constantly strives to spread
across the world pro-Russian and anti-Georgian ideologemes, which are far from being
scientific.
I hope that
‘old’ and comparatively peaceful Europe will once express interest and will
investigate Mr. Hewitt’s behavior and why he supports pro-Russian Abkhazians.’
Cooperation between the St. Andrew the First-called
Georgian University and Düzce University
cannot be prevented by disoriented slanderers. I am convinced that the
friendship of our universities will strengthen the friendship of Muslims and
Christians as well as mutually beneficial business relationships between Turkey
and Georgian with European orientations.
Turkey becomes more and more modern
state; recently, the country widely encouraged the idea of teaching and
learning ‘local languages and dialects’. Within the framework of this project and the support
of the Turkish Republic, I assisted the foundation of the Düzce University center of language and culture with
professional lecturers and academic program. Two of the three Georgian
professors are from one of the Georgian regions – Samegrelo: Prof. Nana
Katcharava and Prof. Maka Salia. Correspondingly, they can teach Laz people,
who are citizens of Turkey, Georgian literary language created centuries ago with the active participation and
contribution of the Laz-Megrelian people. Besides, they can teach Laz (one
of the Zan dialects according to the classification of academician Arnold
Chikobava). The abovementioned professors gave the exactly same answer to Mr. İrfan Çağatay, who attended the meeting with the rector of Düzce University Prof. Dr. Funda Sivrikaya Şerifoğlu on December 19, 2014[1]; sadly, instead of gratitude, İrfan ‘baptized’ my colleagues and me as ‘Georgian
Nationalists’.
This very
fact encourages me to answer one part of people (Turk Iunus Zeirek, Turk İrfan
Çağatay, Georgian Nugzar Nadaraia, pro-Russian correspondent of the newspaper ‘Gali’ Dito Urta…), who
have been calling me ‘a Georgian Nationalist’ and ‘chauvinist’ for the last few
years.
Provocative activities of the
abovementioned people are known for a lot of people: it is regarded that their
aggressive self-expression is the result of two major failures: lack of academic education and the loss (or absence) of function on the public arena;
Some of them are even known as ‘separatists’.
I have put both ‘separatism’ and ‘nationalism’ into inverted commas from the very beginning of the
letter as long as in fact neither I am a
‘nationalist’ nor they are ‘separatists’; I will try to justify my opinion.
In our
times, dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia
was the first person called a ‘nationalist’
because he wished the independence of Georgian then conquered by Russia (this
accusation was promoted by pseudo-liberal and pro-Russian parties).
In the
90ise of the previous century, Georgia
with its lost territories was declared as a ‘minor empire’ by politicians in
favor of maintaining the Russian Empire. President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who
declared the independence of Georgia and who strived for the European family,
was finally recognized as a ‘Georgian fascist’ and was expelled from Georgia
and eventually he was assassinated with the help of renegades; following the Krelmin-led military coup,
freedom-loving Georgia was de facto brought back into the Russian geopolitical
space.
The term ‘separatist’ has been actively and
wrongly applied since the period of Gamsakhurdia, for instance, while referring
to Abkhazians; whereas there are at least three types of an Abkhazian:
ü The Abkhazians who helped Russia to occupy the
north-western part of Georgia in 1992-92 and who until now assist the Russian
annexation of the north-western Georgia (they are conventionally known as Khajimba supporters);
ü The Abkhazians who were expelled from Abkhazia by
occupants together with Georgians for supporting the idea of the united Georgia
(conventionally known as Marshania supporters:
Abkhazians living in Adjara also belong to this category);
ü The
Abkhazians disoriented
by the information war waged against Georgia. These people support the Russian
occupation but they have to keep calm.
I
regard that none of the abovementioned types can be called ‘separatists’.
The first
group serves the Russian interests, the second one exercises its civic rights
and duties, while the third one is fully neutralized; cf. the definition of
‘separatism:
Separatism
– an attempt of a small nation densely populated on the territory of a
sovereign state, national and ethnic minority, to achieve the maximum political
autonomy within this state, the status of a separate subject in the federation
or an independent state separated from the given state[2]; e.g. an adequate terminological assessment is the
‘Basque separatists”.
As I have
already remarked, none of the abovementioned persons is a separatist; as we
will see below, they represent the Georgian nation as separated but they do not
raise any separatist demands; I will quote them below:
In the Russian annotation attached to the
letter by Dito Urtaia in the newspaper ‘Gali’ (December 4, 2014), we read:
‘’While revising the
Georgian press, an ancient wise saying comes immediately into your mind: ‘the
dog was barking, the caravan was going’; and a newly discovered writer Zaur
kalandia does not want to admit that Megrelian was a language and will remain
as a treasure of not Georgian people but the speakers of this language – the Mergelian people. This theme
‘sickened’ Zaur kalandia and Tariel Putkaradze, who was shedding crocodile
tears saying: ‘don’t touch the Georgian culture”!..
Dito Urtia writes in Zugdidi-Zamurzakano sub-dialect of the
Megrelian dialect: ‘We –
the Colchis people were once mere them 20 ethnic groups but thousands of years
and historical upheavals brought a lot of damage to the Colchis people and now
there are just three ethnic groups: Svan,
Megrelian and Chan’. Why were the Megrelian newspapers published beyond the
river Engluri, where the Russian troops were deployed? If the Russian troops
were the problem, it shows that we were even stronger being able to do so much.
Neither Russians nor Abkhazians hinder
us; we are interfered by Putkaradze and his Megrelian supporters… since the
late Kuji bowed his head, we have been bowed so far and Putkaradze even at
present prevents us from looking up’…
The address of Nugzar Nadaraia and his followers
towards the Council of Europe and the government is characterized by the
similar aspiration: ‘Tariel Putkaradze and his allies still continue their
struggle against Kartvelian languages – Megrelian, Laz (Chan) and Svan, leading these languages and their carriers
towards extinction… This is why their conduct is chauvinist, discriminative
and fascist… We urge you to speed up the ratification process of the European
Council convention and according to its requirements, to ensure the protection
of unwritten Kartvelian languages, namely of Megrelian, Laz (Chan) and Svan” (journal ‘Tsotneideli’, vol. VIII,
Part I, Tbilisi-Phazisi, 2015, pp. 384-385); in the same journal, N. Nadaraia
makes comparison between ‘Kartlis Deda’ (mother of Kartli) and ‘Kplkhi deda’
(mother of Kolkheti); Nadaraia has distinguished himself like Herostratus: it
is clear for everybody but him that the statue
of Kartlis Deda (Mother of Kartli) in the capital of Georgia is the mother
of all Georgians and it is the symbol of mother of Georgia; that is why it is
called Kartlis (Georgian’s) mother (and not mother of the ‘Kartli’ region) [3].
Cf. also, the quote by İrfan Çağatay, a
person striving to find his function (translated from Turkish)
[4]:
‘Kartvelologists, Georgian nationalists (prof. Tariel Putkaradze, Dr. Mikheil
Labadze…) do not stop and use all the options to undermine the cultural and
political achievements of the Laz. We fight not against Georgians but against
Georgian nationalists acting with the support of the church and we try to justify that their claims are incorrect… I
will explain to the rector of the Düzce University that everything this did
not start yesterday – Georgia claimed territories to us (Turkey) concerning
some territories; I have recalled the letters of Simon Sajaia and Niko
Berdzenishvili and have talked about the deeds of the church in 2002… I told
the rector that the support of the Georgian nationalism was outrageous and that
the Lax will never accept becoming Georgian; the process of building Georgian statehood is an artificially coined
theory regarding the Megrelian and the Laz as being Georgians and from our
side, we (Turkey) should see
everything this as the pretension of Georgians on Trabzon’.
In the
abovementioned three quotes, alongside a lot of other blunders there are three similar lies planned by the
center:
Ø ‘Tariel
Putkaradze and his associates are Georgian nationalists and chauvinists’;
Ø The Megrelian, the Laz and the Svan… are independent
people having no written language and they are not Georgians.
Ø ‘Georgians want non-Georgians to become Georgians’…
Conclusive remarks concerning the term
‘nationalism’:
1.
The uniting nationalism – a political movement which puts the national interests above
personal, tribal, class, religious or common mankind interests; this leads to
the creation of nation-states (see., German, Italian… nationalism).
2.
Liberating
(anticolonial) nationalism – a
political movement the aim of which is liberation from conquerors; e.g. the
nationalism of the Czech, Pole, Hungarian, Croatian, Greek, Serb, etc. people
living in Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.
3.
Self-determining nationalism – movement focused on the interests of one ethnic group, the aim
of which is self-determination via declaring independence, irredentism and
secession; one of the sub-types of this kind on nationalism is mini-nationalism i.e. separatist nationalism.
4.
Aggressive nationalism – political movement oriented on the interests of one
nation (ethnos), the aim of which is to reach the national uniformity within
the given state via assimilation of other ethnicities. This type of nationalism
often takes the form of chauvinist, fascism and Nazism.
5.
Pan-nationalism – supranational
movement the aim of which is creation of a big political unity via binding the
people related by ethnicity, race and religion.
6.
Ideological Nationalism – ideology and politics based on the claims of
superiority if one nation over the other which finally leads to the intra-national
hostility.
There
exists not a single quote neither by His Holiness and Beatitude, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, the Archbishop of Mtskheta-Tbilisi and Metropolitan bishop ofBichvinta and Tskhum-Abkhazia nor by any bishop of the
Georgian Church which would imply anything that could remind a sane person of
the ‘ideological nationalism’,
‘pan-nationalism’, ‘aggressive nationalism’ or any other type of
nationalism; nothing of this kind can be found neither in my colleagues’ nor in
my writings. We try to save the
endangered common literary Georgian language and dialects (Megrelian-Laz,
Svan, Kartl-Kakhetian, Adjarian-Imerkhevian-Tao, etc. dialects) and to reveal
to all the goodwill people the following truth suppressed
by the Communists:
3000
years ago, Colchis-Koban culture involved the whole historical Georgian (including a large part of the North Caucasus) and not
only the so-called Lazika. Centuries-old Georgian literary culture was created
in the area of Colchis in the ‘all Georgian’ common language – the old Georgian language, which is the
successor of the common Kartvelian language and the language of the first
liturgical translations and original works. In the second half of the first millennium BC, the rulers and residents of the ancient
Egrisi i.e. current Samegrelo-Svaneti distinctively contributed the revival and
creation of the century-old Goergian culture: Kuji Eristavi, John Laz (one
of the first Georgian scribes), John Minchkh (martyr, founder of the Georgian
hymnography), the Tchkondidelis, Great John Petritsi, King Bagrat and other
Bagrationis… the Dadianis, Ambrosi Khelaia, St. monk Aleksi Shushania, Tedo
Sakhokia, the Gamsakhurdias, etc. Therefore,
citizens of the central part of the western Georgia – Samegrelo – are integral
part of the Georgian nation, which is the owner of great literary culture, and
not just the ‘minority having no written language’ (as I. Chagatia, N. Nadaraia
and others regard); Georgians from various regions – Megrelians, Lazs, Svans, Adjarians, Imeretians, Meskhetians, Taoans,
Shavshetians, Livanians, Matchakhelians, Ingilos, Rachvelians, Kartlians,
Kakhetians, Khevsurians, Pshavians, Tushs, Mtiuletians, Mokhevians,etc.
equally contributed the creation process of the great Georgian literary
culture. For the last 150 years, the Russian Empire has been
trying to break up the nation and eventually conquer Georgia; this is the
reason why the heads of this empire declare the dialects of small ethnicities -
Megrelian, Svan, Laz, Adjarian, Meskhetian, Khevsurian, Tush, etc. as
independent languages.
Highlighting this historical truth confirmed justified by numerous facts and
balancing the existing Soviet ideologemes, the aim of Georgian scientists today
is to defend Georgia from the
informational attacks and ideological diversions imposed by imperial forces;
we do not care if our activity will be named as ‘nationalism’ or ‘chauvinist’:
it will soon become evident for literary people that slanders against us is just a part of anti-Georgia propaganda and not
the reality.
Finally,
my main message:
As
we have seen in the quatations above, İrfan Çağatay above encourages the Turkish government
against its strategic partner in the region – Georgia; simultaneously, he
blames the Georgian church, which strives for self-survival, for being ‘nationalist’.
Unlike
the Armenian church, the Georgian church was fought against by not only the states
having different religion (Persia, Arabia, Mongolia, Seljuks Empire, Turkey,
Iran, etc.), but also the ones aiming to conquer Caucasus, even Byzantium;
according the number of martyrs
killed by the conquerors, Georgian church is on the first place among the
world’s confessions. It
should be highlighted that Russia was the only conqueror to have abolished the
autonomy of the Georgian church (1811); later, the Russian communist empire (of the Soviet Union) completely
destroyed the century-old legacy of the Georgian church (church literature,
values, property…).
Our church strives for revival in the post-soviet period. After the
collapse of the atheist Empire, lots of Georgians willingly return to the faith
of their ancestors. This fact does not mean that wither İrfan Çağatay,
who is supporting confrontation between Georgia and Turkey, or anybody else has
any reason to curse the Georgian church and St. Andrew
the First-called Georgian University founded by the head of the Georgian
church. Like its tolerant founder, this university teaches its students as well
as others the following:
-
‘Know thyself’!
-
Receive academic education;
-
‘Devil separates, God unites’; ‘he who does not seek a
friend is the enemy of himslef’…
I will conclude with what I have started:
Cooperation
between the St. Andrew the First-called Georgian University and Düzce University
cannot be prevented by disoriented slanderers. I am convinced that the
friendship of our universities will strengthen the friendship of Muslims and
Christians as well as mutually beneficial business relationships between Turkey
and Georgian with European orientations.
p.s.
Confrontation between Georgia and Turkey today can
only be beneficial for the Russian
empire dreaming to finally conquer the Caucasus; this empire has occupied a
quarter of the world-recognized Georgian territories for the last 23 years,
later it has carried out Georgian
genocide and displaced half a million Georgians from their houses… Against
this background, I am sorry for the Caucasian who decided to be the ‘Russian
ax’ (according to the Georgian saying).
January 10, 2015
[1]
Apparently, the former Minister of Foreign affairs of
Turkey Mr. Iashir Iakish, who now lives in Germany, helped İrfan Çağatay to meet the rector. (See the link: http://lazoba.blogspot.com/2015/01/duzce-universitesi-ziyaretim.html?spref=fb.
[2] Dictionary of the civic education: http://www.nplg.gov.ge/gwdict/index.php?a=term&d=6&t=6649; See also:
Dictionary- reference book of the social and political terms/editorial board:
Eduard Kodua et al.; publisher: Lasha Beraia/ - Tbilisi: Logos Press, 2004;
officer’s dictionary/United Nations Development Program; /compiler: Samson
Uridia et al; Editor: Vazha Gurgenidze/ - Tbilisi, 2004.
[3]http://ka.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%83%A5%E1%83%90%E1%83%A0%E1%83%97%E1%83%95%E1%83%9A%E1%83%98%E1%83%A1_%E1%83%93%E1%83%94%E1%83%93%E1%83%90; cf.: historiographic book by Georgian historians
‘Kartlis Tskhovreba’ (Georgian Chronicles)
implies ‘chronicles of all Georgian and not the life of Kartli: in the
old sources ‘Kartli’ referred to ‘all Georgia’; its historical borders almost
coincided with the Colchis archeological cultural borders.
[5]Dictionary of the civic education: http://www.nplg.gov.ge/gwdict/index.php?a=term&d=6&t=6649; See also: Dictionary- reference book of the
social and political terms/editorial board: Eduard Kodua et al.; publisher:
Lasha Beraia/ - Tbilisi: Logos Press, 2004; officer’s dictionary/United Nations
Development Program; /compiler: Samson Uridia et al; Editor: Vazha Gurgenidze/
- Tbilisi, 2004.
No comments:
Post a Comment