Description
The aim of this presentation is to shed light on the impact of the armed conflicts on the identity of sub-ethnic groups in the case of the Megrelians. The Megrelians are a sub-ethnic group of Georgians who inhabit the West Georgian region of Samegrelo and the separatist region of Gali in Abkhazia. The presentation is based on field research conducted in Georgia in October 2022. Our research has shown that Megrelians most often consider themselves as a community of people sharing mainly language, but also a common history, culture and regional identity. The internal perception of the demarcation of Megrelian versus Georgian is not in an ethnic sense, but rather only in a regional sense. And the two identities are thus complementary and overlapping rather than mutually exclusive. The efforts to separate the Megrelians from the Georgians are perceived as an old Russian approach of divide and rule. This perception of a strong sense of belonging to the wider Georgian family and, conversely, an awareness of external interference from Russia have been greatly amplified by the wars of the 1990s and the current war in Ukraine.
