Clientelism and Nationality in an Early Soviet Fiefdom

Timothy K. Blauvelt is Professor of Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia, and is also Regional Director for the South Caucasus for American Councils for International Education. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and is the co-editor (with Jeremy Smith) of Georgia after Stalin: Nationalism and Soviet power published by Routledge in 2016, and (with Adrian Brisku) of The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic of 1918: Federal Aspirations, Geopolitics and National Projects, forthcoming from Routledge in 2021.

• 1. Introduction 2. “Kiaraz” and the Formation of an Early Soviet Leadership Cohort 3. Consolidating Leadership in Soviet Abkhazia 4. The “Rif Revolt” 5. Patronage, Nationality, and Tsebelda Tobacco 6. The Mirzabekyan Commission, 1928-1929 7. The Deluge, 1929-1930 8. The 1930s and Changing Circumstances 9. Lakoba’s Last Trial 10. Conclusion

The achievement in this extraordinary book is the telling of an important story that has been obscured or avoided in earlier historical accounts. Blauvelt has recovered a lost history and written a new narrative against existing narratives, particularly nationalistic ones, that integrates the Abkhaz story into the broader Georgian, Caucasian, and Soviet stories. What looks like a micro-history of a small republic becomes here a deep dive into Soviet nationality policy and the fate of non-Russian peoples in the USSR that gives us greater immediacy and intimacy than we have had before. The Abkhazia case demonstrates how ethnicity was used to consolidate local control and build a patronage network so that a small people might survive in the fierce competition with stronger neighbors. - Ron Suny, University of Michigan