Our Notes & References

First edition of this thin, fragile textbook of the Georgian language for minority schools in early 20th-century Soviet Georgia.

Extremely rare: we could locate only one example outside Georgia, in Germany (at the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle). No copy in America nor Russia and surprisingly no mention in Georgian scholarship, in spite of an apparent printrun of 10,000 copies. The website of the National Library of Georgia mentions 3 locations in the country: National Library, National Archives and in Kutaisi, apparently each having 2 copies.

Designed for students of the three largest ethnic minorities in Georgia at the time — Armenians, Turkish-Azerbaijanis, and Russians — this work stands as probably the earliest example of ‘Georgian-for-foreigners’ textbook. In the preface, Sikharulidze (most probably Ilia) writes: “The Georgian language has been taught in non-Georgian schools in Georgia for seven years now. However, our pedagogical literature lacks not only a manual but even basic methodological advice for teaching the Georgian language to foreigners” (our translation, here and elsewhere). Our researches couldn’t trace anything similar prior to 1925. We did find two other works published that same year however, but we couldn’t clarify the month of publication; if Sikharulidze’s preface is to be trusted, these two textbooks were published after ours.

The title indicates that this is the “Book one”, yet we found no subsequent ‘books’ to continue this work, nor any other re-edition. Sikharulidze and Metreveli went on to publish a short series of thicker, expanded textbooks in 1927, entitled Dzmoba [Brotherhood] but significantly different: apparently without illustrations and not specifically aimed at Russian, Armenian, or Turkish-Azerbaijani learners, but rather for “non-Georgian” students from the 3rd to the 7th grade.

The textbook is divided into 73 sections, each containing different verses, stories, and dialogues, many of which include exercises, games, and illustrations by the artist David Gvelesiani. Sikharulidze and P. Metreveli authored most of the texts, with the exception of a handful of verses and games by Simon Goglichidze, a prominent Georgian singer, educator, and folklorist. “He was the first to compile children’s games and rhythmic movements into stories with songs and music”; his work was published as a separate book in 1923, titled First attempt: Children’s Mobile Games with Songs and Stories (Imedashvili).

Our textbook concludes with a 40-page vocabulary of Georgian words with translations into Russian, Armenian, and Azerbaijani, organised into the same 73 parts as the text. The authors designed this work specifically for non-Georgian students, drawing on their own experience and incorporating vocabulary commonly used by children not only in school but also during outdoor play and at home.

Published a few years after the Red Army’s invasion of Georgia in February 1921, the textbook attests to the short-lived trend of consolidating Georgian as the main language as part of the Soviet ‘indigenisation’ (korenizatsiia) policy, officially launched in April 1923. “The 1920s witnessed a blossoming of native culture […] despite the growing strength of centripetal forces in Moscow […The new policies of] ‘affirmative action’ ensured that Georgians dominated the local political, educational, cultural and administrative apparatus” (Jones). Consequently, various national minorities, including Russians — who had benefited from Russian-centric language policies prior to the Russian Revolution — were now “under considerable pressure to adapt to Georgian customs in the 1920s” (Jones). The enforcement of Russian would gradually resurface in the following decade and persist until the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Bibliography

Jones, Stephen. “The Establishment of Soviet Power in Transcaucasia: The Case of Georgia 1921-1928.” Soviet Studies, vol. 40, no. 4, 1988, pp. 616–39; Imedashvili, Ioseb. Kartvel moghvatseta leksikoni, Tbilisi, Erovnuli Bibliotekis Gamomtsemloba, 2018. Referenced by National Parliamentary Library of Georgia (online).