Page 39 - Potocco, Marcello, ed. 2018. Literatura v preseku družbe, družba v preseku literature. The Crossroads of Literature and Social Praxis. Zbornik povzetkov. Book of Abstracts. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem
P. 39
a Ratiani the crossroads of literature and social praxis, ljubljana, 2018 37
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
From War to Peace: The Literary Life of Georgia after
World War II
After World War II, significant political changes occurred in the So
viet Union. Trench mortars were silenced; in 1953 Joseph Stalin,
originally a Georgian and thus the embodied symbol of the coun
try, died; soon followed the much talked about XX Assembly of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union headed by Nikita Khrush
chev (1956). Khrushchev’s speech against Stalin sparked in Geor
gia a serious political unrest with casualties which ended with the
tragic events of March 9, 1956. It is still unclear whether the events
were the result of a political position or the demonstration of in
sulted national pride.
However, soon afterwards the so called Otteppel (“the Thaw”) was
established in the entire territory of the Soviet Union; the thunder
ing of trench mortars was substituted by the rhythmic twist whirl
ing from the West. The literary process of the “thaw” period (Ilia
Erenburg’s term) yielded quite a different picture from the one that
described the previous decades of Soviet life; in conditions of po
litical liberalization, new tendencies were noticed in Georgian liter
ary space: on the one hand – the obvious nostalgia for Stalin, on the
other – the onset of a specific model of neo-realism and, what is of
no less importance, the rise of women’s writing.
The paper deals with describing and analyzing all of these tenden
cies.
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
From War to Peace: The Literary Life of Georgia after
World War II
After World War II, significant political changes occurred in the So
viet Union. Trench mortars were silenced; in 1953 Joseph Stalin,
originally a Georgian and thus the embodied symbol of the coun
try, died; soon followed the much talked about XX Assembly of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union headed by Nikita Khrush
chev (1956). Khrushchev’s speech against Stalin sparked in Geor
gia a serious political unrest with casualties which ended with the
tragic events of March 9, 1956. It is still unclear whether the events
were the result of a political position or the demonstration of in
sulted national pride.
However, soon afterwards the so called Otteppel (“the Thaw”) was
established in the entire territory of the Soviet Union; the thunder
ing of trench mortars was substituted by the rhythmic twist whirl
ing from the West. The literary process of the “thaw” period (Ilia
Erenburg’s term) yielded quite a different picture from the one that
described the previous decades of Soviet life; in conditions of po
litical liberalization, new tendencies were noticed in Georgian liter
ary space: on the one hand – the obvious nostalgia for Stalin, on the
other – the onset of a specific model of neo-realism and, what is of
no less importance, the rise of women’s writing.
The paper deals with describing and analyzing all of these tenden
cies.
