8 Orientalism and EmpireRussians from the German Romantics. Ilia Chavchavadze frequently
reviewed new trends in literature and the arts that qualified as some-
thing which served the “motherland, the people and the [fa-
ther]land” (samshoblo, khalkhi da mamuli).^27 He drew on his
educational experiences in Russia and his exposure to its own efforts
to clarify the nature of their unique and “original” (samobytnyi) con-
tribution to humanity. The depiction of the “genuinely national” and
uniquely “Georgian” for Chavchavadze in fact constituted a contri-
bution, to continue with these allusions to the Romantic tradition in
Germany and Russia, to humankind in general. Authentic and indig-
enous poetry, he argued, was the opposite of that which was “imita-
tive” (mibadzva).^28 Georgians viewed Russia as their bridge to Europe,
and themselves as the chief representative of the “West” on the
“Eastern” frontier of the Caucasus.
The shared cultural concerns among Russians and Georgians were
especially obvious when the topic at hand was the North Caucasus,
Islam, and the mountaineers. Georgians contributed to imperial de-
bates about the virtues of the cultivation of custom and native lan-
guage, the effectiveness of customary law, the remarkable story of
Shamil, the threat of Islam in the North Caucasus, the significance of
archaeological exploration, and other topics discussed in this study.
Eastern Orthodoxy obviously created some natural affinities between
Russia and Georgia, but the cooperation extended beyond matters of
faith and the church. From the work of Andreas Kappeler and others
we know about the multi-ethnic character of privilege and bureau-
cratic service in the Russian Empire, and Georgians too, of course,
were influenced by the primary avenues of social mobility and privi-
lege. The rhetoric of empire, however, was also a product of shared
cultural experience, and the Georgian experience and contribution
were crucial to the viability of a discourse that made colonial expan-
sion and control possible. And Georgians are not the only non-
Russian characters pertinent to the discussion that follows. Numer-
ous nationalities such as Ossetians, Abkhaz, Dagestanis, and others
worked as teachers, missionaries, and officials, and contributed to the
formation of empire on the southern frontier.
While Georgians shared many ideas and assumptions with Russians,
they also, along with other non-Russian educated communities of the
imperial era, stretched and defined for their own purposes the parame-
ters of debate.^29 If mountain peoples were often the savage “other” of
the presumably civilized and Europeanized imperial imagination,
mountain Georgians for Georgian educated society offered a glimpse
into the past of a historically hardy and enduring Georgian identity.
Aleksandre Qazbegi, who along with Vazha-Pshavela and others