The issue of ethnic identity and aspects of cross-cultural orientation of the Greeks in Georgia (the example of Ts’alk’a Greeks)
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Liana Melikishvili
and
Natia Jalabadze
Abstract
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the issue of ethnic identity has gained in importance among Georgia’s multiethnic communities. Groups of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds faced the challenge of choosing a common language of communication, and they must address issues related to their ethno-cultural preferences. Using the example of Ts’alk’a Greeks – the largest Greek community in Georgia – this article discusses aspects of maintaining an ethnic identity in a multiethnic environment, and identifies visible trends of cross-cultural orientation. How do Greeks manage to preserve their ethnic identity, and what is their strategy based on? What determines the orientation of Greeks towards the different groups? The present study argues that culture (i. e. language, religion, traditions, customs, etc.) is crucial in this regard.
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©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Urum and Pontic Greeks: Communities and language situations
- Greeks of Georgia: Main factors and motivations of emigration
- The issue of ethnic identity and aspects of cross-cultural orientation of the Greeks in Georgia (the example of Ts’alk’a Greeks)
- Group belonging beyond language boundaries: Language, religion and identity in the multilingual Greek community of Georgia
- Us and them: Inter- and intra-communal ethno-linguistic borders within the Pontic Greek community in Cyprus
- Morphological integration of Russian and Turkish nouns in Pontic Greek
- From double to dependent marking? An investigation of possessive constructions in Caucasian Urum
- From syntagmatic to paradigmatic spatial zeroes: The loss of the preposition se in inner Asia Minor Greek
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Urum and Pontic Greeks: Communities and language situations
- Greeks of Georgia: Main factors and motivations of emigration
- The issue of ethnic identity and aspects of cross-cultural orientation of the Greeks in Georgia (the example of Ts’alk’a Greeks)
- Group belonging beyond language boundaries: Language, religion and identity in the multilingual Greek community of Georgia
- Us and them: Inter- and intra-communal ethno-linguistic borders within the Pontic Greek community in Cyprus
- Morphological integration of Russian and Turkish nouns in Pontic Greek
- From double to dependent marking? An investigation of possessive constructions in Caucasian Urum
- From syntagmatic to paradigmatic spatial zeroes: The loss of the preposition se in inner Asia Minor Greek
