the_unlettered_tellurian

Georgia just cropped up in my radar because of the extensive media reports about its ongoing skirmishes with Russia. Very interesting events happening out there, but I was in a bit of a quandary because of my lack of understanding of the history and politics (yes, there is a difference between the two) of the country.

I needed something that is not-too-recent yet not-too-old. Got a bunch of pages on BBC that were put up starting 2005, and seem to have been updated regularly (wherever necessary) after that.

1. A profile of the country.
2. A fairly comprehensive timeline describing key events in Georgia’s history.
3. Kind of an FAQ on Georgia-Russia tensions posted on 10th May 2005.
4. Another FAQ-style article on Georgia-Russia ties posted on 30th April 2008.
5. A very brief article on how the Rose revolution happened.
6. An article, Power games in the Caucasus, posted on the BBC news site on 7th May 2006.
7. A news article, dated 22nd Dec 2006, on Georgia agreeing to pay more money for Russian gas.

These were enough to give me a basic idea of the country and its historic relations with Russia…hope it helps other uninformed souls too.

I just found this beautiful passage in one of my old backups. The text is from a book written by the legendary journalist Louis Fischer. I fell in love with this para describing Russia the very moment I read it…

Russians have ever loved their country and hated their governments. Even the Jews and others who fled from persecution in the nineteenth century remembered Mother Russia with tender longing. They felt a nostalgia for her steppes, rivers, and trees, for her language and literature. They recited her poetry and sang her songs. Russia has a savage strength, the frustated power of a giant chained. The nation possesses some uncertain, dark, brooding quality, like a volcano always threatening to vomit forth black lava. The giant can murder and weep, burn and build, worship and scoff, obey and obstruct. Bolshevism undertook to tame him, gouge out his eyes and cut out his tongue, and hitch a red cart to him so he would drag it under the knout. Russia is big and heavy and her roads are rutted and muddy. Men must have mighty wills and little squeamishness to budge her great lumbering body. Now they have discovered that the giant has kept part of his sight and can mumble and think. He will work when whipped and work when rewarded. The age of the jet and the age of the knout are in conflict. Power without people is an anachronism, an impossibility.

I don’t have the book anymore so I can’t confirm this, but I think it was on page 83 of RUSSIA, AMERICA AND THE WORLD (Fischer, Louis, Bombay 1962. 230 pages, Paperback)