საქართველოს ანექსია და საბჭოთა წარსული, როგორც კულტურული ტრავმა

Abstract

A human, by nature, is a storyteller. In addition to describing, storytelling means interpretation too. Consciously or subconsciously, things, facts and events that happened in the past, gain meaning. This is done by a storyteller, as well as the audience (Neimeyer, 2006: 179). If the texts, that show trauma around the past events, are not created, however tragic the event may be, it will not be considered as cultural/collective shock, because modern society is not influenced by the past, but its representation, which is created, spread and taken into a specific cultural frame and political situation instead (Assmann and Shortt, 2012: 3-4). Collective trauma, established in the cultural memory , can function as a uniting factor for our group, for a long time. The goal of our paper is to see how the 1921 Annexation and the Soviet past is analyzed and interpreted in fiction and memoirs, which were written after Georgia gained back its independence. Chosen texts are not only recognized by critics but are also popular amongst the people. Ergo, their influence on structuring collective memory and trauma is strong. They were created from 1989 to today and show us the dynamic of narrative. As for the memoirs, in non-fiction, this genre is called “Life Writing”. This is a much broader concept, than (auto)biography. Life writing not only narrates, but it also analyses the process of forming a certain shape of identity. This is not just an analysis of “how”, but also why was this platform or paradigm, from where the author views the world, created. “Life is not what yo u lived, but it is what you remember and how” (Ghoghoberidze, 2019: 9). These words in director Lana Ghoghoberidze’s memoirs can be considered as the definition of this genre. We think that fiction and memoirs play a crucial role in forming an event as Cultural Trauma. On the one hand, literature pieces shape an event as trauma, and on the other, they present an important tool for overcoming the trauma. Overcoming trauma is possible with constant analysis and not with repressions and concealment.