The othering and exclusion of religious minority groups in Georgia is often understood through the prism of religious nationalism, which is argued to have developed as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the respective need to fill up the leftover systemic void. Ethno-national and religious identity markers were used to create the image of true, pre-Soviet Georgian – Christian, ethnically Georgian group. Although, this understanding offers an explanation for the current social position of religious minority groups of the country, it fails to account and understand the link with and the impact of the Soviet regime, and how the collapse of a secular system produced highly religious discourses. Therefore, the work presented here seeks to understand the role and impact of Russian/Soviet colonization on the current social position of religious minority groups in Georgia. In order to answer the research aim, this thesis employs a decolonial approach and situates Soviet Russia as a colonial power, a successor of Tsarist Imperial Russia and its colonial practices of subjugation, classification, and social hierarchies. The empirical focus of the study is Adjarian Muslims, as they constitute ethnically Georgian religious minority, therefore holding a peculiar place of intersection of identities. The primary sources of the research are dialogical interviews with self-identifying Adjarian Muslims, while the secondary sources, such as the existing publications and research surrounding the social position of the group are analyzed by utilizing the ethnographic content analysis method. The findings of the study suggest that the remnants of colonial past still have an effect on the current social structures and social developments. The exclusion and othering of Adjarian Muslims in Georgia is similar and can be traced back to the practice of ethnicization of Islam, which is rooted in the Soviet/Socialist modernity and the enactment of Muslim groups as the inherent others to the civilized Russians. Due to this, Adjarian Muslims are marked by Islam notwithstanding their personal religious affiliation, and are thus excluded from the dominant understanding of Georgianness and the respective discussions. In addition, the study findings suggest that the region of Adjara is often regarded as the orient to the capital, and Adjarian Muslims are viewed as objects to be saved and civilized, rather than the equal subjects of the state.

This dissertation deals with the concepts glasnost and perestroika during the Gorbachev era 1985–1991. It offers an explanation to the rise and fall of these concepts and casts light on their modern and postmodern implications, as well as their historical and generational preconditions. In light of the Soviet and Russian conceptual history, Gorbachev’s articulation of glasnost and perestroika is contrasted with the reception of these concepts in what at that time came to be called Russian postmodernism. Glasnost and perestroika both confirm and transcend Soviet modernity. They are both future-oriented but at the same time possess retrospective anchorage. The present study reconstructs the experience encapsulated in the concepts, the expectations they unleashed and the tensions they triggered. The Gorbachev era signaled a rupture in the temporal order of modernity. During this time Soviet modernity lost confidence in its self. With glasnost and perestroika a suppressed past opened up which blocked the futurist potential inherent in the present. The concept-theoretical perspective assumed in the dissertation helps explain essential aspects of the dramatic turn of events. Postmodernism’s relationship to the concepts is mainly antagonistic. At the same time glasnost and perestroika were essential to the self-identity creating process of postmodernism and its development of an understanding of a specific late Soviet postmodern situation. Beneath the surface a conflict evolves, constituted in intergenerational terms. The vast differences in deployment of the two key notions appear related to generation specific historical experiences. This is apparent in the glasnost- and perestroika discussions of the 19th and 20th centuries. In several respects the 20th century discourse reflects that of the 19th century. The analysis in the present dissertation demonstrates how Gorbachev, on the basis of his generation-specific experience as a man of the 1960s actively sought to articulate an alternative reconstruction (perestroika) and did so with a distinct ideological accent. The postmodernists, the last Soviet generation, bore the imprint of the stagnation of the Brezhnev era and had no ideal past to resuscitate. Instead of reconstructing social reality they tried to place themselves outside it. This apolitical stance however embodied both anti-political and political implications.