The Chronotopos of the 1990s: Trauma and Triumph in Georgian Literary Texts

Abstract

A collective trauma established in the cultural memory can function as a unifier of the in-group for a long time. The objective of this article is to clarify how April 9, 1989 and 1991, the Tbilisi War and civil confrontation, and a stressful series of sudden and intensive changes are analyzed, conceptualized, and interpreted in the fiction and memoirs created after Georgia became independent, to what extent the use of the notions of trauma and triumph are appropriate for Georgia, and whether the reality of the 1990s can be assessed as the trauma of victory. We believe that fiction and memoirs play a major role in constructing an event as a cultural trauma. On the one hand, literary texts determine the meaning of an event and shape it as a trauma and on the other hand, narration is an important method for overcoming a trauma. A trauma can be overcome through constantly conceptualizing and analyzing it, not through repression and hushing.