Bakar Berekashvili; Visiting Fellowship 2023/24
Biography
I am a Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Georgian American University in Tbilisi and a Political Analyst at the Georgian Public Broadcaster/First Channel. I have been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, at the Masaryk University in Brno and at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid. My research and teaching interests include qualitative research, critical sociology, Marxist thought in ‘Actually existing Socialism’, post-socialist politics and society, Soviet Union (life and social order), ruling class, problems of democracy, social & political theory, political sociology, state, power and ideology, nationalism, and politics of memory in Europe.
Visiting Fellowship in January 2024
Motivation
This is my pleasure to join the Institute for Contemporary History as a Visiting Fellow.
Currently, I conduct individual research aiming to investigate the traditions of Marxist social and political thinking in Soviet Georgia, with particular focus on post-war authors and texts. The objective of my research is to collect relevant sources and to prepare a reader on Soviet Georgian Marxist Thought. The reader will expose specific chapters from the books and other types of texts authored by Soviet Georgian Marxist scholars. Today, these authors are ‘forgotten pantheon’ of Marxist community. Their intellectual legacy is neglected by the dominant post-soviet liberal capitalist order. Therefore, my goal is to promote their intellectual life and legacy.
My interest to Marxist political thought is not limited with Soviet Georgian experience, but I am also interested in other geographical and cultural zones of ‘actually existing socialism’. East Central Europe is among them. The aim of my visiting fellowship in Slovenia is to comprehend with post-war Marxist thought in East Central Europe and with major intellectual topics and polemics popular among the Marxist circles in post-war East Central Europe. I am especially interested to compare Soviet Georgian and Slovenian Marxist thought. Such comparison is interesting and thought provoking as both states represented small states of big unity.
My fellowship at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana includes conducting the secondary research at the institute’s library, conversations with the researchers specialized in history of political thought in East Central Europe and a guest lecture on Soviet Georgian Marxist political thought.
Additionally, another purpose of my visiting fellowship is to establish and foster academic and intellectual collaboration between Georgian and Slovenian scholars.
Publications (a selection)
Bakar Berekashvili & Veronika Pfeilschifter, Contemporary left in Georgia: A Conversation with Bakar Berekashvili. New Eastern Europe, Issue 5/2022, pp. 119-125
Bakar Berekashvili, Ideological Dialectics of Post-Soviet Nationalism. Copernicus Journal of Political Studies, No. 2/2021, pp. 73-90
Bakar Berekashvili, After the Soviet Union: a melancholy of unwanted experiences. New Eastern Europe, Issue 6/2021, pp. 159-164
Bakar Berekashvili, Introduction: Train Lullaby. In: Bakar Berekashvili (Scientific Editor), Life by the Railroad: Memory and Contemporaneity of Chiatura and Zestaponi. Tbilisi: Forum for Intercultural Dialogue, 2021, pp. 9-26 (Available in Georgian Language).
Bakar Berekashvili, Notes of a Post-Soviet Researcher. In: Bakar Berekashvili (Scientific Editor), Chiatura and Tkibuli: An Attempt for Critical Understanding. Tbilisi: Forum for Intercultural Dialogue, 2020, pp. 9-33 (Available in Georgian language).
Bakar Berekashvili, Democracy and Liberalism: Crisis, Pathologies and Resistance. Copernicus Journal of Political Studies, No. 2/2018, pp. 29-59
Bakar Berekashvili, Nationalism and Hegemony in Post-Communist Georgia. Caucasus Edition – Journal of Conflict Transformation, Volume 3, Issue 2, 2018, pp. 67-79
Bakar Berekashvili, Georgia’s liberal transformation: An ongoing adventure. New Eastern Europe, Issue 6/2018, pp. 87-91
Bakar Berekashvili & Tato Khundadze, The long road to Democracy. International Politics and Society, 25 June, 2018
