Tamaz Kandareli (Tbilisi State University – Georgia)

“Memory identities and imagination, inquiry into the living past of Eastern Europe”
Synopsis

In the modern globalist literature great significance is attributed to the place and role of Eurasian sub-continent for the formation of the new world order. "Eurasian space becomes the determining area for the modern world geopolitics" and this process makes actual the role and significance of the Caucasus. If we review the far historical epochs we'll see that the "Caucasian-Iberian" phenomenon bears actual character from the very antique era. Old Greeks called the Caucasus the "forehead" of the globe. After disintegration of the former Soviet Union the region of Caucasus has turned into one of the most complex regions and if ethnic, religious-cultural, economic and military-political confrontations existing in this region are not resolved timely, we can become witnesses of a new great blood shedding process in the nearest future. Caucasus is a poly-ethnic region. Georgian, Armenians, Azerbaijanians, Ossettes, Abkhazians, Chechens, Ingushs and Kabardinians, Lezghins, Cherkezs and others, live in this region, side by side, who alongside with the lingual difference have different life modes, cultures, traditions and beliefs. There were conflicts between these peoples earlier which was based on tribal hostility. It can be called "Conflict per se" since it factually existed beyond political reality. But today neither in Georgian-Abkhazian, Georgian-Ossetian, Armenian-Azerbaijanian, Ossetian- Ingush, nor Russian-Chechens conflicts is observed anything which could refer to similar type traditional tribal hostility. Therefor the term itself "Ethnoconflict" is to be interpreted anew and it consists of many aspects. Namely such an aspect is the religious factor. In modern conditions religious faith as the internal human orientator acquires the progressing social charge. Religion, due to the fact that it is one of the most principal elements of structure of ethnic self-cognition is the factor of inner ethnic consolidation and simultaneously that of differentiation between ethnoses, and in some cases the factor of conflicts. In such a situation, in the process of interaction of differing cultures, the problem between religions may become essential and may become the real condition for peaceful coexistence of the groups of different ethnic confessions.