Remembering Homeland In Exile: Recollections of IDPs from the Abkhazia Region of Georgia

The Georgian-Abkhazian conflict (1992–1993) resulted in the displacement of thousands of ethnic Georgians from the Abkhazia region of Georgia. IDPs as a “mnemonic community” have a shared experience of hardship from civil wars and forced migration that somehow serves as common source of their memories of homeland. To illustrate the recollections of IDPs, the author interviewed 20 IDPs (in January 2014) living in collective centers in Tbilisi and nine IDP historians (in September 2014) affiliated with Sokhumi State University (in exile). He proposes to analyze all gathered accounts within the theoretical framework that is a useful research strategy to reflect on nostalgic idealization of pre-war Georgian–Abkhazian relationships, reconstruction of supposed reasons for the conflict, and imagining the future of reconciliation with Abkhazians. All these key elements of IDPs ’ recollections and expectations generally fit into Georgian “memory project ” and “national narrative”, which stress Russia’s role in fueling, escalating and maintaining the conflict. Apart from this, the author employs the theory of “communicative ” and “cultural ” memories to mark typically different sources of IDPs ’ recollections – on the one hand, personal experience and on the other hand, institutionalized national narrative