The Political Influence on Ibsen's Reception in Georgia

The topic of my thesis is the political influence on Ibsen’s reception in Georgia. The political phases that Georgia has undergone since the 1890s, when the first paper on Ibsen was published, are dramatically different from each other. In my thesis I have presented three periods of Ibsen’s reception in Georgia: 1. when the country was a part of the Russian Empire. 2. when the country became a part of the USSR and 3. in the Democratic Republic of Georgia, since 1991. Obviously, the prevailing political winds were different within Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union and in the Democratic Republic of Georgia. Therefore, in my thesis I have not only given a chronological history of Ibsen’s reception in Georgia but, while focusing on different fields within different historical phases, such as the printing press, translations and theatre performances, I have examined how the evaluation of Ibsen’s plays altered alongside the ideological changes taking place in the country and how they acquired different significance during the various political eras. In order to research how and to what extent Ibsen’s reception in Georgia was influenced by the political regimes, I have analysed 1) the reviews of the texts / translations of Ibsen’s plays and 2) performances together with their reviews. The theoretical framework that I have applied to my thesis is a reception theory. My research led me to the conclusion that ruling regimes and ideologies have had an obvious influence on Ibsen’s reception in my country and, moreover, Ibsen’s works were often used as a weapon for fighting against political injustice