Strangers in a Strange Land

Manning examines the formation of nineteenth-century intelligentsia print publics in the former Soviet republic of Georgia both anthropologically and historically. At once somehow part of &quote;Europe,&quote; at least aspirationally, and yet rarely recognized by others as such, Georgia attempted to forge European style publics as a strong claim to European identity. These attempts also produced a crisis of self-defi nition, as European Georgia sent newspaper correspondents into newly reconquered Oriental Georgia, only to discover that the people of these lands were strangers. In this encounter, the community of &quote;strangers&quote; of European Georgian publics proved unable to assimilate the people of the &quote;strange land&quote; of Oriental Georgia. This crisis produced both notions of Georgian public life and European identity which this book explores.