The Second World War in the Political Discourse of Contemporary Georgia

Abstrakt

This article deals with political decisions and public discussion related to the memory of World War II in Georgia. This issue does not attract much public attention, which may be explained by the fact that the war was not fought on Georgia’s territory and did not lead to any change in its status. The few debates that are there are linked to the contemporary political issues, such as attitudes to the West and Russia. As the Russian leadership under Putin has intensified its efforts to use the memory of World War II to project its ‘sharp power’ in Georgia and in other places, the pro-western part of the society responded by demands to make the commemoration of the war more ‘European’, for instance, by moving the date of the official Day of the Victory over Nazism from 9 to 8 May. The Georgian origin of Joseph Stalin, the architect of the Soviet victory over Nazism, further complicates the issue.