Details: Category: Reviews

Central Asian Survey

B. George Hewitt

Published online: 08 Jul 2015

BOOK REVIEW

The making of modern Georgia, 1918-2012: the first Georgian republic and its successors, edited by Stephen F. Jones, London and New York: Routledge, 2014, xxviii + 363 pp., £95 (hard back), ISBN 978-0-415-59238-3

This volume arose out of a 2009 conference (postponed from 2008) celebrating the 90th anniversary of the first Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG, 1918–1921). It begins with a preface by Redjeb Jordania, son of Noë, Georgia's first democratically elected leader, followed by the editor's introduction. Contributions then divide into four parts: (1) Good Neighbors, Bad Neighbors, with five articles by Georgians; (2) Creating Democracy, Building States, with four articles by Georgians; (3) Home for Whom?, with three contributions by non-Georgians; and (4) The Power of the Past, where Ronald Suny's ‘The Young Stalin and the 1905 Revolution in Georgia' sits thematically uneasily alongside the others, whilst Malkhaz Toria's closing chapter addresses Soviet Russia's occupation of Georgia (1921) and the 2008 Russo–Georgian war. The appendices give extracts from the 1920 peace treaty with Russia, the never-implemented 1921 DRG constitution, and the 1995 constitution (amended 2006).

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