Monday Respected 18 2008
I departed a abstention generation in Georgia in the 1980s -- forward the Soviet League warped, but to the same degree it was very obviously in ebb -- and notion it a highest moral pomp.It was Italy on the Caucasus, and the Georgians seemed be inclined to the Italians of Asia: a enticing, merry, friendly event, who played accordian music in the respect and sat out on their verandahs and flower-bedecked balconies be inclined to Sicilians.
Changed Russia, whose par gasp is Nordic and habitually dark -- be inclined to the writings of Dostoevsky, Chekov and Gogul -- Georgia was a land of sun and wine.
The after Sean MacReamonn, sparkling TV big mouth and scholar of the Irish native tongue -- who subsequent to explained to me, with out of this world cogency, how Irish and Welsh had chunk notwithstanding in the 12th century -- knew and esteemed Georgia and was wise person about the Georgian native tongue.
He besides introduced me to Georgian sparkling -- not inflexibly allowed to be called sparkling for instance of the French copyright on the word -- but in my burning up days I found it every bit as acceptable as "the sparkling wine of eastern France".
Georgian vibrant is a lot sweeter and a lot cheaper, but that fair me virtuously fine: some French sparkling is so dry it is to all intents and purposes acidulous.
You cannot know a pomp rise in a fleeting notice, but you can get a thought for a place. The Georgians were proud of their ache traditions of nationhood -- they resist been recognised as a nation equally the fourth century; proud of their exclusive native tongue, their words -- they put up boss statues to poets than to politicians, bless them, and their art. Tbilisi has an rewarding homeland art loggia which is very unequivocally Georgian.
Their religion, the Georgian Even Church, has been a strong aspect of their nationhood equally the dawn of Christianity. Over and done with the definitive periods of Communist abolition of religion -- Khruschev bulldozed hundreds of terrific gold-plated onion-domed basilicas all boring the USSR -- Georgia kept back its monasteries, churches and seminaries open. The priests, who may, of course, say "I do", were universally the highest academic element in Georgian paint the town red.
Stalin's mother pulled every established in the book to get young Stalin dressed in a Georgian institution, not particularly for reasons of thanks but for instance it was the solitary place to get a decent facts.
But if the Georgians, who are solitary five-and-a-half million in figure -- were proud of their ache tradition of nationhood, they were besides shrewd of their feebleness.
Freud superbly made-up that anatomy is destiny; it can be on top that for a nation, geography is history. Georgians may be a visible event, but their frontiers resist been touchy to occupation by Monguls, Persians, Turks and, of course, Russia. Western Georgia was engaged by the Ottomans and Eastern Georgia by Persian orbit until fixed by Russian occupation in the 1820s.
At this crest I remembered my English partner saying, slightly heedlessly, at a building encounter in Dublin: "Ireland never was fixed -- on the contrary under the wreath." Effortless, but inadequate. But dissimilar fact which reminds us that "geography is history".
The put yourself out Georgia has with South Ossetia besides has some parallels with Northern Ireland. The enclave, with its strong Russian element, has continually been angled to turning down from Tbilisi.
Late lamented activities are comparatively as if Dublin had critical to teach a lesson to the Shankill Trail, Portadown and the Ards item, craft them to order as an intrinsic part of Ireland.
And as if these aggressively Tawny communities turned to London for relieve, which was hastily, and hideously, talkative. (Isn't it favorable that we are governed by wiser and cooler heads than post in the Caucasus?)
Evidently, to the same degree it comes to the Caucasian skirmish my sympathies are with the analytical and sympathetic Georgians: they not solitary resist a tradition of nationhood, but equally 1991 they resist a well enough operational state.
They resist the approve of the Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic states, and highest of the in the beginning Warsaw Deal lands in the West; but therein lies the difficulty, too.
Russia, equally Tsarist grow old, has continually been expansionist, and its venture to turn its nuclear military hardware on Poland if pressed is alarming. The USSR may resist fallen, but the Russian rostrum ancient artifact rasping and green with envy of its dominance in the prefecture.
We essential as anticipated offer Georgia cultural and genial approve, and effective one of the highest noisy channels of discourse is in the midst of the churches. Tons of the oldest architectural churches and monasteries in Georgia capture pecuniary approve and other Christian organisations resist been stimulated to help.
The Georgian Even Church is accord of other faiths and existing is a burgeoning evangelisation doings, importantly of Baptists.
A Georgian Baptist ecclesiatic, Archbishop Songulashvili, in a minute got wedded in Georgia -- yes, to a woman! -- and the wedding band together was attended by Georgian, Ukrainian and Armenian bishops; the Papal Nuncio pro the Pope; a Jewish rabbi; and the arrogant imam of Tbilisi from the Islamic community, as well as natives from other faiths and none.
In one stick of the Caucasus nicely, it can be said: "See how these Christians love one dissimilar."
mkenny@independent.ie
