Literary Reflections of Georgian Authors on the 2008 August War

Abstract

The article is focused on post-Soviet Georgian-Russian relations as reflected in Georgian fiction and essays, as well as on gender-related problems in literary texts created after the 2008 Russian-Georgian war. I draw on the post-colonial theory to conduct the analysis of the cultural turn occurring in post-Soviet Georgia, by examining a number of mental, political, and social problems, as well as ethnic conflicts within the country, as reflected in Georgian fiction and non-fiction. The post-Soviet/post-colonial goals and challenges for Georgian literature, as shown in the study, are related to several significant issues: rethinking the experience of Russian domination in the country, establishing a new understanding of Georgian national identity, rethinking Soviet stereotypes, detaching from the mentality of the subaltern, detaching from the status of postcolonial/post-Soviet nation, and establishing itself as a fully functioning society.