Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Georgian-Abkhazian confrontation
Eduard Shevardnadze (left) and Vladislav Ardzinba
Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities
Cambridge University Press, 1998
By Graham Smith, University of Cambridge, Vivien Law, University of Cambridge, Andrew Wilson, University of London, Annette Bohr, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, Edward Allworth, Columbia University, New York
Part 1/3.National identity and myths of ethnogenesis in Transcaucasia
The Georgian-Abkhazian confrontation
In attempting to understand the role of mythological struggle in the Georgian-Abkhazian case, the following five aspects of the distant past are especially pertinent: the question of who was the first to develop iron production, the origins of local statehood, the dispute over the ethnic composition of the ancient and medieval population of the Colchis Lowland, the question of who founded the Abkhazian Kingdom in the eighth century AD, and finally the manner in which Christianity came to the region.
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The full book: Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands