CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Lolua, Ana |
|---|---|
| Title | A true face of a Soviet dictator: Representation of Stalin and his legacy in contemporary Georgia |
| Summary | Abstract The following research looks at the state policy towards Stalin and his legacy on the example of I.B. Stalin State Museum in Gori. The Restored Museum of Avlabari Underground Printing House named after Stalin and associated with Bolshevik heritage in Georgian public memory is brought as an asymmetric comparative case. The question is raised in this paper on why the state not a homogenous actor itself remains passive vis-à-vis Stalin State Museum while the concept and the structure of the Restored Museum of Avlabari Underground Printing House will soon be revisited. Through interviews, ethnographic observation and the analysis of the preliminary concepts on the future of Stalin State Museum the following conclusions were drawn: state actors variously appropriate arguments on the necessity to (re)contextualize the exhibition in order to protract the transformation of the space and to keep the site as an important landmark of Gori. At the Museum administration and the ordinary staff level these visions are further reappropriated in the complex internal process of meaning making. Due to its different function and modes of representation, Avlabari Underground Printing House Museum is a historical but a nationally void place in contrast to the Stalin State Museum. Therefore, it now needs to be transformed into the true site of national memory telling the progressive history of typography in Georgia. In both cases we witness the attempts to alienate the dark sides of the communist past. |
| Supervisor | András László Pap |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/lolua_ana.pdf |
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