Georgia is a facinating country with a long history, torn between east and west, at the literal crossroads of Europe and Asia. As a part of the Russian Empire and later the USSR, Georgia kept its destinct character. After gaining independence at long last, Georgia is a special mix like no where else. There are four books I recommend to those who are visiting Georgia or those would like to learn more about Georgia.
BREAD AND ASHES: A WALK THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS OF GEORGIA
Tony Anderson
Tony Anderson set out in the summer of 1998 to walk through Georgia. He wanted particularly to visit the Georgian mountain tribes – Tush, Khevsurs, Ratchuelians and Svans – to discover if they shared a common mountain culture, and to test the old idea of the Caucasus as an impenetrable barrier from sea to sea. From Azerbaijan to Svaneti, Anderson found communities where the old customs and beliefs still triumphantly survive, despite years of Communist oppression and the terrible uncertainties since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
EDGE OF EMPIRES: A HISTORY OF GEORGIA
Donald Rayfield
Georgia is the most Western-looking state in today’s Near or Middle East and, despite having one of the longest, most turbulent histories in the Christian or Near Eastern world, no proper history of the country has been written for decades. Donald Rayfield redresses this balance in Edge of Empires, focusing not merely on the post-Soviet era, like many other books on Georgia, but on the whole of its history, accessing a mass of new material from the country’s recently opened archives. The book begins with the first intimations of the existence of Georgians in ancient Anatolia and ends with today’s volatile President Saakashvili. It deals not only with the country’s internal politics, but with its complex struggles with the empires which have tried to control, fragment or even exterminate the country. All the world’s history – Xenophon’s Greeks, the Arabs, the invading Turks, the Crusades, Chingiz Khan and Timur Lang, the Persian empire, the Russian empire, Soviet totalitarianism – is reflected in Georgia’s history.
STORIES I STOLE
Wendell Steavenson
Fed up with working for Time magazine in London, Steavenson moved to Georgia on a whim. Stories I Stole relates her time there in twenty vodka-fuelled episodes drawn from all over the country – tales of love, friendship and power cuts, of duelling (Georgian style), of horse races in the mountains, wars and refugees, broken hearts, fixed elections, drinking sessions and a room containing a thousand roses. Stories I Stole is a wonderful example of a writer tackling an unconventional subject with such wit, humanity and sheer literary verve that one is unable to imagine why one never learnt more about Georgia before.
YOUNG STALIN
Simon Sebag Montefiore
What makes a Stalin? Was he a Tsarist agent or Lenin’s bandit? Was he to blame for his wife’s death? When did the killing start?
Based on revelatory research, here is the thrilling story of how a charismatic cobbler’s son became a student priest, romantic poet, prolific lover, gangster mastermind and murderous revolutionary. Culminating in the 1917 revolution, Simon Sebag Montefiore’s bestselling biography radically alters our understanding of the gifted politician and fanatical Marxist who shaped the Soviet empire in his own brutal image. This is the story of how Stalin became Stalin.
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