This project seeks to contribute to ongoing debates in the field of Russian and Soviet Studies concerning the nature of the Soviet Empire from the perspective of the so-called non-Russian periphery. Through a longue durée history of the Georgian State Museum’s exhibitions, it argues that Soviet Georgian nationalism was both imperial and anti-imperial, and that curators, objects, and exhibitions played an active role in reinventing the Georgian nation. 

The project first examines the Museum of the Caucasus and the imperial agents involved in constructing the region, setting the stage for the Georgian State Museum and its exhibitions under Soviet rule. Drawing not only on archival sources but also on oral history interviews and museum ethnography, it will demonstrate that exhibitions throughout the Soviet period actively engaged with the imperial framework of diversity and modernization. They recast the Caucasus as a distinct civilization blending the ancient Orient and Occident, with Georgian civilization.

In the post-Stalinist period, anti-imperial agendas and ownership disputes became more horizontally dispersed across local spaces of contestation over collections. This was particularly evident in the artistic engagement with the materiality of prehistoric grave goods, the so-called “treasure objects.” The late 1970s and early 1980s marked the introduction of the theme of national sacrifice within the broader framework of Peoples’ Friendship and socialist solidarity, a recycled imperial framework of “unity in diversity.” At the same time, curators began to place greater emphasis on the sensory experience of visitors in their decisions. Examining the curatorial practices of this period helps unravel the intricate ways in which local actors asserted their agency and sought to circumvent the Kremlin’s direct control through their engagement with museum objects and space.