Making of Modern Georgia, 1918-2012

Stephen F. Jones is Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies, Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, USA

'Stephen Jones has brought together a collection of informative and perspicacious essays which restore to history a forgotten episode, one of the most extraordinary, if doomed political experiments of the twentieth century: the Georgian Democratic Republic of 1919-21. More important still, this book gives us a salutary reminder: the failure of the victorious allies of 1919 to support, recognize and save from Russian conquest a remarkable young republic must not be repeated by the victorious allies of the Cold War a century later, when a newly independent Georgia faces subversion and coercion from a revived Russian empire.' – Donald Rayfield, Emeritus Professor, Queen Mary, University of London'Georgia, and the whole of the Caucasus, is geopolitically an extremely complicated region. The Making of Modern Georgia, 1918-2012: The First Georgian Republic and its Successors is a unique book that gives the reader the possibility of comparing two models of the post-imperial Georgian state – 1918-1921 and 1991-2012. The book will be of enormous relevance and importance to all those interested not only in the history and geopolitics of Georgia, but of the Caucasus as well.' – Vladimer Papava, Professor of Economics, Rector, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia'The Making of Modern Georgia, 1918-2012 is an essential guide to one of eastern Europe's most fascinating and strategically significant countries. Stephen Jones has assembled a who's-who of specialists on Georgian politics, economics, and history. This international team traces the country's fractious politics and fraught foreign policy back to the Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921) and reveals the enduring legacies of Georgians' first modern experiment with national self-government.' – Charles King, Georgetown University, USA, author of The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus

• Preface Introduction Part 1: Good Neighbors, Bad Neighbors 1. The Role of Geopolitics and Foreign Powers in the Modern History of Georgia: Comparing 1918-1921 and post-1991 Periods 2. The Russian-Georgian War and its Implications for Georgia’s State-Building 3. Georgia's European Aspirations and the Eastern Partnership 4. Georgia as a Geographical Pivot: Past, Present, Future 5. Georgia’s Military and Civil Security Challenges Part 2: Creating Democracy, Building States 6. Georgia’s Ethnic Diversity: A Challenge to State-Building 7. The Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921) and the Search for the Democratic Model of Georgia 8. The Democratic Republic of Georgia: Forgotten Lessons for our Democracy 9. March of the Goblins - Permanent Revolution in Georgia Part 3: Home for Whom? 10. A Fateful Moment: Ethnic Autonomy and Revolutionary Violence in the Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921) 11. "From Words to Action!" Nationality Policy in Soviet Abkhazia, 1921-38 12. Unpacking the Meta-Conflict: Claims to Sovereignty, Self-Determination and Territorial Integrity in the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict Part 4: The Power of the Past 13. The Young Stalin and Revolution in Georgia 14. "The Russian Occupation in 1921" and the "Russian-Georgian War of August 2008" – Historical Analogy as a Memory Project