Authors

Malkhaz Toria¹;  ¹ Ilia State University, Georgia

Discussion

The conference paper proposal focuses on a historical-sociological reconstruction of the escalation of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict during in summer of 1989, drawing upon oral histories and personal recollections. My aim is to highlight how Georgian and Abkhaz participants of the time constructed competing historical narratives and how these narratives manifested in a daily life.
Following the microhistorical framework (Ginzburg, 1992), I will delve into the emotions and “collective creativity: (Sewell, 1996) that characterized public spaces during this period—public meetings, protests, TV marathons, street-corner conversations, and more. I intend to breathe life into “the past dead” (Appuhn, 2001) by reconstructing the unique atmosphere and lived experiences of this turbulent time, capturing the perceptions, emotions, and assessments of both participants and observers.
Additionally, I will examine the personal and biographical consequences of these political events (Fillieule & Neveu, 2019). I aim to analyze how individual involvement in these events unfolded within a complex web of interactions between individuals (historians, party members), organizations (autonomous groups, public associations, student bodies), and broader contexts (the geopolitical situation and political-economic crisis of the Soviet Union in the 1980s).
As part of a larger research project, the study demonstrates how oral history can broaden the scope of historical inquiry by revealing the depth and nuances of lived experience captured in personal recollections.