On a chilly afternoon of December 2010, a group of ten Georgian intellectuals took a special trip from Tbilisi (Georgia’s capital) to Lake Bazaleti,1 where the Free University’s off campus training center is located. They gathered around the table in a small classroom and remained there for about five hours deliberating on the history textbook they were venturing to write. Their discussion concerned historical events spanning the last 200 years and their aim was to think of a better way in which to tell a story of 200 years of Russian occupation. What this “better” implied has to do with a particular memory discourse and the political reasoning from which this memory discourse emanates; but it also has to do with how this group envisions Georgian identity, how it critically reflects upon “Georgian mentality” and how it foresees the “recovery” of the nation.
The discussion was sporadic, imbued with humorous tales about mothers and wives of Georgian kings, anecdotes of Georgia’s daily political life, or sarcastic tales about Georgian historians who like to write “myths” about “how we [Georgians] survived because every single Georgian fought till the last drop of blood.”. For the members of this group these myths represented notions of “exaggerated Georgianness.”2
“We have to finish this textbook as soon as possible,” said Kakha Bendukidze, the founder and the owner of the university, a right-wing neoliberal, a venture-capitalist, a millionaire, who made his fortune in Russia and came back to Georgia to serve as a minister of economy. He was simultaneously called a “Judas” and a “guru of the Georgian economy.” He acquired most of his capital as a businessman in Russia (where he started his career as a biologist). In 2005, he was asked to join the government of Georgia to serve as the Minister of Economy in an economically degraded and impoverished country.3
Upon his arrival in Tbilisi from Moscow, one of the first things Bendukidze declared to the press when asked about his vision of economic policy was, “You cannot sell conscience, everything else that is made of rock and brick can be sold” (personal communication with the journalist who asked him the question). This was a dramatic statement in a country with a law regulating “units of special importance and strategic significance.” Georgian law defines these as “units (building constructions) that in functional and strategic terms influence the country’s defence and security, territoriality, cultural heritage, economy, environment and natural resources” (e.g., hydroelectric stations, pipelines, or medieval cathedrals).4
But in the eyes of Bendukidze, investments from any source were more than welcome. It came as no surprise that a man who had been living in Russia and made statements of this sort, and who went so far as to express cynicism toward nationalist sentiments, became mythologized as a Goliath who would clandestinely sell Georgian rivers and mountains (in fact, one respected talk show host actually asked him this question: “Did you sell rivers and mountains?”). He was called Judas in some circles and in fact had permanent protestors, rallying and shouting “Judas” outside of his office windows for months.
Later on, the nickname came to simultaneously embody remnants of distrust of him but also a humorous take on that sentiment, something that reflected a major shift in his public activity and public perception. In 2007, Bendukidze quit politics and by acquiring and merging two institutions—the European School of Management and the Institute of Asia and Africa—founded a new private university, later on establishing a consortium of Free and Agricultural Universities. Subsequently, Bendukidze spent time advising the Ukrainian government along with many other Georgian ex-officials. In November 2014, he died unexpectedly at the age of 58, in London where he moved shortly after Georgia’s new government, led by Bidzina Ivanishvili (another venture capitalist and a billionaire), opened a criminal investigation against him (including the charges of mismanaging the Agricultural University). His life story is part of the greater narrative about Georgia’s unending and insurmountable internal rivalries, factionalism and civil hostility.
That day, in Bazaleti, Bendukidze urged the group to finish the textbook “because there is another group working on the same thing. Their version is how Georgians fought relentlessly, shedding blood and all that,” he noted with a glimmer of humor everyone enjoyed. “We have to distance ourselves significantly from the stereotype that exists which involves a confrontation of refined, God-loving, brave and educated Georgians with the savage and uneducated …”
“…rest of the world,” Leri,5 a professor of philosophy in his seventies, teaching at Free University, helped him finish the sentence.
“Yes, the rest of the world,” agreed Bendukidze.
“So we are not writing a ‘mother history’ [Georgian deda-istoria]?”, queried Giorgi, a 27-year-old poet, founder of a renowned website for literature and poetry and someone who a few years later was appointed Director of the Georgian National Library.
“Just like Argo mounting a siege of Colchis,”6 said Gaga, a psychologist in his fifties teaching at the Free University as he took an even more humorous tone to “mother history.”7 Everyone laughed.
“Treacherously, the ship of Argo treacherously besieging the Colchis,” added Bendukidze, enjoying such caricaturization of the “stereotype” he brought up himself. A few minutes after entertaining the version of the ancient Greek myth of the Argonauts twisted in the spirit of “mother history,” Bendukidze continued: “The thing is, if we don’t employ some other angle, any one of troublesome events from the twentieth century will turn out just as Temur8 said to me once. He was the head of the committee and gave me a small green book on the history of Abkhazia9 and told me that this book is not only historically right,” and here Bendukidze paused briefly to accentuate the end of his sentence, “but politically right as well.” A giggle and amusement went around the room, and he concluded: “…so we will end up with something like this.”
“You can’t trust any of the books published by that government,” pointed out Lali, a professo...