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Tornike Metreveli
Last Name
Metreveli
First name
Tornike
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tornike.metreveli@unisg.ch
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PublicationRhyming the National Spirit: A Comparative Inquiry into the Works and Activities of Taras Shevchenko and Ilia ChavchavadzeThe article is a comparative inquiry into the roles of Ilia Chavchavadze (1837–1907) and Taras Shevchenko (1818–1861) as national poets and anti-tsarist intellectuals within the context of their respective national traditions (in Georgia and Ukraine). During the period of their activity (19th and the beginning of 20th century), both Ukraine and Georgia were under tsarist imperial rule (albeit the two poets lived in different periods of Russian imperial history). Through their major works, each called for their communities to awaken and revolt against oppression, rejected social apathy caused by tsarist subjugation, and raised awareness about the historical past of their nations. By comparing the works and activities of the two poets and examining their impact on national mobilization in tsarist Ukraine and Georgia, this article argues that (lyric) poetry rather than prose (novel) constituted the agency of common national imagining. It was lyric and not epic poetry or novel, this article shows, that laid the foundation of nationalist mobilization as it framed the revolt of the “I” against colonialism as a revolt of the “I” against an oppressive society under which the cultural grounds for common imagining had been constructed.Type: journal articleJournal: Nationalities PapersVolume: 47Issue: 5
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PublicationThe Making of Orthodox Church of Ukraine: Damocles Sword or Light at the End of the Tunnel?( 2019)On 6 January 2019, the Ecumenical Patriarch (EP) of Constantinople Bartholomew signed a decree on autocephaly that allowed Ukraine to have its canonical independent church a separate from the Russian one. This marked a monumental event for Orthodox Christianity in general and the beginning of a new era for religion in Ukraine in particular. This article briefly examines the process of the making of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) as reflected in the politicization of religion in Russo-Ukrainian relations and conflict between the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and EP. Before moving to the contextual part and an argument, however, it worth defining a few central terms and concepts used during this article.Type: journal articleJournal: Religion & Society in East and West
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PublicationAn undisclosed story of roses: church, state, and nation in contemporary GeorgiaSince the Rose Revolution (2003), Georgia has encountered an unprecedented scale of institutional reforms concomitant with the rise of American and European involvement in the “democratization” process. Various scholars have suggested that Georgian nationalism developed from an ethno-cultural basis to a more civic/liberal orientation after the Rose Revolution. This paper analyzes Georgian nationalism under President Mikheil Saakashvili to demonstrate the significant divergence between political rhetoric on national identity, the selection of symbols, and state policy toward the Georgian Orthodox Church versus state policy toward ethnic minorities. The aim of this article is to examine the at times conflicting conceptions of national identity as reflected in the public policies of Saakashvili’s government since the Rose Revolution. It attempts to problematize the typologies of nationalism when applied to the Georgian context and suggests conceptualizing the state-driven nationalism of the post-Rose Revolution government as “hybrid nationalism” as opposed to civic or ethno-cultural.Type: journal articleJournal: Nationalities PapersVolume: 44Issue: 5
Scopus© Citations 20 -
PublicationA Way Forward or Glimpse Back? Reflections on International Cooperation in South Caucasus( 2012)This article critically reflects on the unintended consequences of international projects in Georgia.Type: journal articleJournal: Atlantic Voices
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PublicationThe EU’s Normative Power – Its Greatest Strength or its Greatest Weakness?( 2012)The growing influence of the European Union (EU) on the international political arena and at the same time its “particular kind” of characteristics as an international player appears to be a widely debated issue among various scholars of social sciences over the last decades. During this period a wide range of theories and concepts have attributed various epithets to the EU and tried to explain its power in different, sometimes controversial ways. Consequently the descriptions of the EU in international relations vary from it being a “Kantian paradise” (Kagan, 2004), a “vanishing mediator” (Manners, 2006:.174) to “an economic giant, a political dwarf, and a military worm” (Eyskens, 1991). For some scholars the concept of the EU goes beyond the bold epithets and is analyzed from the critical-social theoretical perspective, where the latter was hypothesized as an actor that spread its own norms beyond its borders and whose power lies in its system of values and forms of relations with the outer world (Manners, 2002). Having said this, the article tries to focus on this theoretical approach while addressing this “unique political animal” (Piris, 2010: 337).Type: journal articleJournal: Atlantic Community
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PublicationIn the Name of God and Nation: The Rise of Right-Wing Populism in Contemporary Georgia( 2018-03-28)The scene of tens of thousands of young Georgians (mostly males) together with phalanges of clerics running after a few hundred students and a dozen of LGBT activists of the International Day Against Homophobia on 17th of May 2013 in central Tbilisi - armed with chairs, sticks and stones - echoed, in a primordial déjà vu, the persecutions of infidels during the Dark Ages. Hundreds of reporters were injured and the LGBT community members severely hurt. Main organizers and perpetrators of the violence - clerics of the Georgian Orthodox Church - remained unpunished. Less than four years after these events, the crowd of several thousand took to the streets of central Tbilisi in the most radical, xenophobic and ethno-nationalist rally since the collapse of Soviet Union. The so-called ‘March of Georgian Men’ marched against ‘illegal immigrants’- essentially against anyone non-Christian, non-heterosexual and non-white. Following the march, the group continued a series of violent attacks on civil activists, feminist NGOs and a captain of the Georgian national football team for wearing a rainbow armband while playing for his club in Europe. The events surrounding the International Day Against Homophobia and the ‘March of Georgian Men’ on the one hand illustrate how tremendous is the mobilization power of organized religion, how violent this mobilization can turn and how fragile the secular identity of the post-communist state is. By focusing on these two perhaps most divisive events in recent Georgian political history, this paper examines sociologically misunderstood phenomenon picking up steam in the post-communist context: the radicalization of Eastern Christianity and its peculiar alliance with extreme right-wing groups. What has triggered, proliferated and ‘normalized’ the xenophobic, ethno-nationalist and homophobic discourses, why have these discourses re-emerged and gained popular appeal in Georgian society, and most importantly, why have these discourses started to translate into violent political action?Type: conference paper
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PublicationThe Bishop’s Gambit: Contrasting Visibility of Orthodox Churches in Serbia and Georgia( 2018)Both in Georgia and in Serbia, Eastern Orthodox Christianity is closely linked to - and at times intertwined with – the concepts of national identity and belonging. Despite an increased visibility of religion in the two states which manifested itself in a boom of religious architecture and symbolism after the collapse of communism, this paper shows that being a priest carries a different meaning and status in the two societies. In Georgia, my research shows, political influence of priests manifests itself in power to mobilize large-scale public protest and influence public opinion and even election results, whereas in Serbia political influence and mobilizational power of a clergy strikingly differs. The Georgian clergy often “preaches politics” from the altar as opposed to the Serbian church’s more “social discourse”. Given that the two states share religion and religious traditions and an experience of communism, this divergence is puzzling. Based on ethnographic work (participant observation and interviews with clergy) conducted in Serbia and Georgia, this paper asks why being a priest has a powerful cultural, social and political capital in one society while not in the other? The paper follows the sermons and narratives of the prominent Georgian and Serbian priests.Having similar hierarchical position and parish, the priests enjoy different social standing, demonstrate contrasting views on national belonging, the role of church in society, the threats and fears and other socio-political themes. By intertwining the interviews with prominent priests, participant observation in 15 orthodox churches around Georgia and Serbia and recent survey data, this paper shows that Orthodox clerics in Georgia tend to exploit an increasingly uncertain public opinion about the role of the church in democracy by interpreting political events during the church sermons and communicating their political views to the parish. Yet this brings another important question which this paper addresses in greater detail – when, how and why has this divergence occurred in the first place? Here the paper employs process-tracing and content analysis triangulated with an archival work to explain why churches which employed similarly ethno-cultural and politically motivated discourses in aftermath the collapse of communism suddenly shifted in opposite direction.Type: conference paper
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PublicationOrthodox Christianity and the Politics of Transition: Ukraine, Serbia and GeorgiaThis book discusses in detail how Orthodox Christianity was involved in and influenced political transition in Ukraine, Serbia and Georgia after the collapse of communism. Based on original research, including extensive interviews with clergy and parishioners as well as historical, legal and policy analysis, the book argues that the nature of the involvement of churches in post-communist politics depended on whether the interests of the church (for example, in education, the legal system or economic activity) were accommodated or threatened: if accommodated, churches confined themselves to the sacred domain; if threatened they engaged in daily politics. If churches competed with each other for organizational interests, they evoked the support of nationalism while remaining within the religious domain.
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PublicationReligion and Forced Displacement in GeorgiaThe chapter focuses on religion-state relations in Georgia and argues that competition between the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church and the Muslim community have had an impact on state involvement with humanitarian programmes. The Georgian case stands out as the country experienced three waves of internal forced displacement. Each wave has shown that religious identity and state-building processes have been interlinkedType: book section
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PublicationThe State’s Guardian Angel? The Georgian Orthodox Church and Human SecurityGeorgian state faced a threat of territorial collapse after the Russian invasion in August 2008. A five-day war accompanied by Russia’s unilateral recognition of independence of the two Georgian break-away territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia put the Georgian government under an existential pressure. To rebuild public morale and maintain legitimacy in the eyes of disappointed electorate the Saakashvili government opted to seek an alliance with the most trusted public institution – Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC). This alliance manifested itself in two-fold increase in state’s funding of GOC after the war, immense donations of movable and immovable property and luxurious gifts to church officials (Metreveli 2016). Certain conditionality attached to these practices of clientelism was an assumption on behalf of the Georgian ruling elites that church will collaborate with the government in (re)building civic (territorial) nationalism in defence of Georgia’s contested sovereignty. Despite government’s efforts, the discourses of civic/territorial nationalism (e.g. ongoing occupation, creeping borderization of Georgia) did not trigger any large-scale protest inside the GOC against Russian policy towards Georgia after war. The chapter focuses on three largest protests led and organised by GOC during the last 10 years (from August 2008 to August 2018): The Law on Registration of Religious Minority Organizations (2011), the Law on Self-governance (2013) and violent rally against LGBTI activists on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia on 17th of May. In all instances, GOC justified massive mobilization as a response to the threat to “Georgianness, Georgian identity and family values.” Against this background this chapter asks why does GOC interpret religious, gender or sexual liberties as more threatening to “Georgianness” than Russia’s ongoing borderization policy under which Georgia lost 151 settlements (135 in Tskhinvali region and 16 in Kodori Valley) since the end of 2008 war? To address this question, the chapter triangulates between legal and policy analysis, interviews with clergy and state officials and content analysis of public statements of the church officials.
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