Foreword
George Hewitt
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- Published: 14 August 2012
The first examples of Abkhazian proverbs to be recorded appeared in the first grammar of Abkhaz, published by the Russian soldier-linguist Pëtr Uslar in lithographic format in 1862. The three he cited were:
Georgi Derluguian
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- Published: 14 August 2012
The non-recognition of Abkhazia, ironically enough, extends to the analytical misrecognition of its taking part in the wave of East European 'colored revolutions' during the 2000s.
Ghia Nodia
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- Published: 14 August 2012
The conflict in or for Abkhazia is a hostage of conflicting orthodoxies, hypocrisies, and taboos. One cannot be “objective” about them, but one can try to be sober and realistic.
Irakli Kakabadze
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- Published: 14 August 2012
First of all I would like to recall the great initiative of the late Abkhazian President, Sergei Bagapsh, about the demilitarization of the entire Caucasus.
Irakli Khintba
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- Published: 14 August 2012
Abkhazia is increasingly attracting the attention of people from different corners of the globe. Much of this interest is due to the ongoing ethnic conflict related to the unwillingness of Georgia to give up their illegal and morally corrupt claims to the territory of Abkhazia.
Jade Cemre Erciyes
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- Published: 14 August 2012
On the 14th of August 1992, in Inegol [Turkey], a group of musicians from Abkhazia were performing at a concert in a culture festival when the word of ‘war’ fell into the scene like a bomb. There was war in the homeland. As the elderly were discussing what action to take, youngsters were already packing up to leave, collecting money and valuables to get passports and tickets to go and fight with their people.
John Colarusso
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- Published: 14 August 2012
The Republic of Abkhazia, factually an independent state with limited formal recognition, a client of Moscow, and unlikely ever to be a component of Georgia in any form, bears a mark upon it, “Made in the U.S.A.” Permit me to explain.
Kai Juvakka
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- Published: 14 August 2012
Abkhazia was cut off the rest of the world two decades ago, when Georgian troops marched on Sukhumi on 14th August 1992. After the war, an all-embracing blockade was imposed on Abkhazia as a punishment for ethnic cleansing of the Georgian population and to put pressure for Abkhazia to reunite with Georgia. During the first years of the blockade, only Abkhazian women, young boys and elderly men could cross the border even to Russia. The goods and products that they could bring home were restricted to a few. Russia participated in this blockade until Vladimir Putin’s election as president of Russia in 2000.
Karlos Zurutuza
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- Published: 14 August 2012
"You cannot leave Apsny without meeting Mr. Chirikba", Maxim Gunjia - Abkhazia´s former Foreign Minister- told me during my second and last visit to Abkhazia, back in 2007. He was absolutely right. I was lucky enough to meet Mr Viacheslav Chirikba, a linguist - among several other facets- who had devoted many years of his life to the study of my own language, that is Basque.
Karolina Stefańczak
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- Published: 14 August 2012
I’m often being asked by my friends – what is so special about Abkhazia? Why do you keep on returning there? Is it so much different from the other places you visit? Is it really worth walking through the Ingur/i river bridge or – even worse – using the horse carriage to get there?
Marco Siddi
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- Published: 14 August 2012
The origins of the Abkhaz conflict date back from the nineteenth century, when Tsarist Russia established a solid presence in the Caucasian region and sparked the demographic changes that have inflamed the debate between Georgians and Abkhazians up to the present.
Mark Brody
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- Published: 14 August 2012
It would be bold, or completely ignorant, the one who pretends assimilating the recent course of the two secessionist entities of Abkhazia and Chechnya, former Soviet federated subjects of wider Soviet Republics, Georgia and Russia respectively, historically rebellious, who have attempted to impose their independence on the wake of the Soviet bloc explosion in 1991.
Maurice Bonnot
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- Published: 14 August 2012
Veni, Vedi, Vici
The observation conducted on the ground of the presidential elections in Abkhazia on 26 August last, the fifth such process since the position was created by Article 49 of the 1994 constitution, allowed one to assess the degree of democratic progress, of popular support for the institutions throughout the territory, of the existence of independent political structures, all criteria serving the classic definition of a sovereign state.
The observation conducted on the ground of the presidential elections in Abkhazia on 26 August last, the fifth such process since the position was created by Article 49 of the 1994 constitution, allowed one to assess the degree of democratic progress, of popular support for the institutions throughout the territory, of the existence of independent political structures, all criteria serving the classic definition of a sovereign state.
Maurizia Jenkins
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- Published: 14 August 2012
Territorial Integrity of Georgia versus right of self-determination of the Abkhaz people is an unresolved dilemma, which, twenty years after the 1992-93 Georgian-Abkhaz war, Western countries and international organizations are still facing.
Mauro Murgia
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- Published: 14 August 2012
Can we define the European Union’s behaviour towards the Republic of Abkhazia by using the parameter of a people’s freedom to travel around the world as a form of objective racism, masquerading under geopolitical pseudo-regulations?
Maxim Edwards
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- Published: 14 August 2012
Descending from the ancient fortress of Anakopia, I met an Abkhazian soldier, in a jeep held together with duct tape and hope, who gave me a lift to the town New Athos.
Maxim Gundjia
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- Published: 14 August 2012
International recognition of Abkhazia became an immediate foreign policy agenda right after war with Georgia in 1993. The subsequent negotiation process and many (almost four Geneva processes) peace initiatives that swallowed most of the people’s romantic aspirations about conflict resolution and honest donors, had deepened mistrust in once so cherished idea that people can find understanding and stop fighting.
Michael Costello
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- Published: 14 August 2012
He was driving along the rutted village road in southern Abkhazia, somewhat merry and with a friend, when he hit a neighbour’s piglet. “What’s to be done?” they puzzled, and feeling sorry for the wounded animal, reversed over it to put it out of its misery.
Musa Shanibov
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- Published: 14 August 2012
Because of the poor state of Musa Shanibov's health he was unable to write anything specifically for this project, but he send a recent but unpublished work about a major figure in the Georgian-Abkhazian war: "Sultan Sosnaliev — First Commander of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus.”
Neal Ascherson
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- Published: 14 August 2012
The sea is Abkhazia’s destiny – the Black Sea. It is only by turning its back on continental inland powers – vast like Russia, smaller like Georgia - that this small country can rejoin the world on its own terms.