იოჰანა შტიგლერი – საქართველოს მკვლევარი

Abstract

Johanna Stigler (1962-2007) was an Austrian anthropologist who studied at the Universities of Innsbruck and Vienna. In 1982-1983, she studied the Georgian language at Tbilisi State University. In the 1980s and 1990s, she conducted field researches in Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Israel. Johanna Stigler died at a young age and did not manage to complete her latest study with the working title: “Ethnicity as a Regulator in Multinational Georgia: The Relationships between Georgians, Georgian Jews, and “Russian” Ashkenazis”. J. Stigler’s scientifi c interest was concentrated on the problems of the ethnic integration of Georgian Jews. However, the main topic for her, together with the problems of ethnic integration, was kinship systems. Some of J. Stiegler’s ethnographic works are collected in the monograph “Verwandschaft, Kultur, Religion: Beitrage zur Sozialanthropologie Gorgiens”, which was published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OAW) in 2011 after the author’s death. The book is based on ethnographic material and scientifi c literature. The foreword is written by Stefan Krist and Andrea Strasser-Camagni. J. Stiegler was interested in historical anthropology. The main subject of her research was the Georgian kinship system. “Gens, Clan and Patronymy: Soviet Concepts of Kinship System and Kartvelian Kinship Terminology” is a paper that thoroughly discusses the existing scientific literature on the kinship system, including the works of the Georgian authors (S. Makalatia, R. Kharadze, A. Robakidze, V. Itonishvili, G. Gasviani, N. Javakhadze, S. Bakhia, N. Mgeladze, etc.). The study of the kinship system is one of the main fields of ethnological research. Studies on the Georgian kinship system were conducted during the Soviet period and several important works were created by Georgian ethnologists, ethnographic material was collected and the decisions were made. However, the only theory of that period was the evolutionary theory, which, of course, determined the choice of classification systems. The system of Kartvelian kinship was considered in the Soviet literature as a type of bifurcative-collateral and Sudanese-Eskimo system type. Based on the analysis of Svan-Khevsurian and Laz material, J. Stiegler states that such a classifi cation does not refl ect reality as in the Soviet ethnography the data were analysed within the framework of the theory of unilinear evolutionary development of mankind. In her work, J. Stiegler explicitly discusses Soviet theoretical approaches, analyzes Georgian data, in particular, issues of patrilineality and exogamy, cites ethnographic material from Khevi, Mtiuleti, Khevsureti, Svaneti and Adjara; discusses the forms of patronymy, inheritance, forms of close and external kinship group members and terminology, presents the nomenclature of the old Georgian and modern Georgian kinship systems. Based on the analysis of the terminology and methodological approaches established in the Soviet space, J. Stiegler concludes that the system of kinship and the system of kinship terminology were equated in the Soviet scientific literature. J. Stiegler raises the question of reconsideration of the issue. The paper is noteworthy, the data from the works of various authors are accumulated and the attempt of analyses with the new perspective is carried out. It seems important to take into consideration J. Stigler’s work for further analytical discourse on the kin system and kinship terminology.