The Historical Representation of the Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918–1921) in Late 1980s Georgia

Abstract

In contemporary Georgian scholarship, considerable attention is devoted to challenging and deconstructing the distorted historical narratives formed during the Soviet era. Within this context, the study of the First Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921) holds a particularly prominent place. For seventy years under Soviet rule, the short-lived independence of Georgia between 1918 and 1921 was either erased from public memory or portrayed in a negative light. In the second half of the 1980s, as political, economic, and social tensions weakened censorship within the Soviet Union, various publications began to appear more freely in Georgia. A substantial part of this literature was dedicated to the events and figures associated with the First Republic. Newspapers started to publish articles, archival materials, and memoirs concerning the Democratic Republic of Georgia, which in turn profoundly influenced the collective memory of Georgian society.This study explores the ways in which history was represented in Georgia during the late 1980s and early 1990s, with particular focus on the portrayal and interpretation of two key subjects: the First Democratic Republic of Georgia and the Treaty of May 7, 1920. The research is based primarily on memoirs and contemporary newspaper publications from the period under study.