Russia’s Georgian Myth
The Sovietization of the Romantic Utopia
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In 19th-century Russian literature, Georgia was romanticised. Poets and writers of the Soviet period did not break with this tradition. This is seen in the works of Sergei Tretiakov, Konstantin Paustovskii, or Andrei Bitov. In poetics and imagery, they drew on the romantic Georgian myth. Despite the ideological transformations, their texts fed off the traditional arsenal of metaphors, themes, and symbols, which is why Russian imperial gestures and interpretations of Georgia remained recognisable. On the linguistic level, basic elements of Soviet ideology often collide with traditional romantic imagery and allow continuities or breaks to emerge.
(Osteuropa 7-10/2015, pp. 549–568)