Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T00:48:01.126Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Politics of Identity in Post-Soviet Abkhazia: Managing Diversity and Unresolved Conflict1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Rachel Clogg*
Affiliation:
Conciliation Resources, 173 Upper Street, London N1 1RG, UK. Email: [email protected]

Extract

The question of ethnic and national identity has dominated post-Soviet life in Abkhazia, which is situated on the Black Sea coast, in the north-west corner of the South Caucasus. Formerly an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, its status is now contested. Following violent armed conflict with Georgia over a period of 13 months in 1992/1993, Abkhazia became de facto independent. However, while not now under Georgian control, Abkhazia remains de jure part of the Republic of Georgia, which considers Abkhazia an integral component of its state. Abkhazia declared independence in 1999, a status that remains unrecognized by the international community.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abkhazia Today. Europe Report no. 176. Tbilisi and Brussels: International Crisis Group, 15 September 2006.Google Scholar
Abkhazia: Ways Forward. Europe Report no. 179. Tbilisi and Brussels: International Crisis Group, 18 January 2007.Google Scholar
Akaba, N.Mezhnatsional'nye otnoshenia v usloviakh perekhoda k demokratii.” In Aspekty gruzino-abkhazskogo konflikta (Materialy gruzino-abkhazskoi konferentsii: preemstvennost’ kul'tur v kontekste gosudarstvennogo stroitel'stva, Adler, 26–28 avgusta, 2000), edited by P. Garb, A. Inal-ipa, and Zakareishvili, P. Irvine: University of California Irvine Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Antonenko, O.Frozen Uncertainty: Russia and the Conflict over Abkhazia.” In Statehood and Security: Georgia after the Rose Revolution, edited by Coppieters, B. and Legvold, R., Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Broers, L.The Politics of Non-recognition and Democratization.” In The Limits of Leadership: Elites and Societies in the Nagorny Karabakh Peace Process, edited by Broers, L. London: Conciliation Resources, 2005.Google Scholar
Chirikba, V.Gruziia i Abkhaziia, predlozhenia k konstitutsionnoi modeli.” In Praktika federalizma. Poiski al'ternativ dlia Gruzii i Abkhazii, edited by Akaba, N., Coppieters, B., and Darchiashvili, D. Moscow: Ves mir, 1999. English version published as Federal Practice. Exploring Alternatives to Georgia and Abkhazia, edited by Akaba, N., Coppieters, B., and Darchiashvili, D. Brussels: VUB Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Cohen, J., ed. A Question of Sovereignty: The Georgia-Abkhazia Peace Process, London: Conciliation Resources, Accord Issue 7, 1999.Google Scholar
Coppieters, B. and Legvold, R., eds. Statehood and Security: Georgia after the Rose Revolution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Ethnic Composition of Georgia's Population. Statistical Data Collection. Tbilisi, 1991.Google Scholar
Lynch, D. Engaging Eurasia's Separatist States: Unresolved Conflicts and de facto States. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Nersesyan, M.Mezhnational'nye otnoshenia: real'nost’ i perspektivy.” In Perspektivy, edited by Tania, L. Sukhum: Izdatel ‘sko-poligraficheskoe ob'edinenie Respubliki Abkhaziia, 1999.Google Scholar
Olson, J. S. et al., eds. An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires. London: Greenwood Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Abkhazia, Georgia,” 26 June 2006, <http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/sgrep06.htm> (accessed 14 March 2008).+(accessed+14+March+2008).>Google Scholar
United Nations Needs Assessment Mission to Abkhazia, Georgia.” United Nations Development Programme, March 1998.Google Scholar
Venediktova, N. “O polozhenii natsional'nykh men'shinstv v Abkhazii.” Nuzhnaya gazeta, 1 October 2000.Google Scholar