Familiar Strangers: The Georgian Diaspora in the Soviet Union
Journal: eScholarship (California Digital Library)
Year: 2011

The experience of the Georgian diaspora in the Soviet Union is a story of the paradoxes of Soviet empire. On the one hand, the arrival of the Red Army in Tbilisi in 1921 brought Georgia's brief period of independence to an abrupt end. On the other hand, membership in the newly-constituted Soviet Union opened up new opportunities for Georgians and other ethnic minority groups. Such opportunities were seized upon most effectively by an internal Georgian diaspora within the Soviet Union, a small bu