Issue 7, Spring 2005:

Notes from the Executive DirectorSanjyot Mehendale..................................................................1

Griboedov�s PianoDaniel Brower.........................................................................3

A Culture of Corruption? Anti-Corruption Rhetoric andRevolution in GeorgiaErik R. Scott............................................................................7

Modes of Contemporary Central Asian CultureProgram.................................................................................13

Modern Art of MongoliaTs. Uranchimeg.....................................................................14

Faculty and Graduate StudentNews.....................................................................................19

Caucasus and Central Asia ProgramUniversity of California, Berkeley260 Stephens Hall #2304Berkeley, CA 94720-2304http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~bsp/caucasus/

Editors: Sanjyot Mehendale and Andrée KirkContent and Design: Kalynn Yastro

Please send suggestions, corrections, or inquiries toccasp@berkeley.edu.

This publication is made possible by funding from the NationalSecurity Education Program.

Caucasus and Central Asia NewsletterThe Caucasus and Central Asia Program

at the University of California, BerkeleyIssue 7 Spring 2005

We have come to the end of another exciting, butsomewhat quieter than usual, spring semester. As someof you may have noted, this year CCAsP did notpresent its annual conference in its usual March time-slot. After some deliberation we decided to move ourconference to fall because the academic calendar ofevents at UCB in general, and ISEEES in particular, isextremely crowded during the spring semester.

The postponement of CCAsP�s conference, how-ever, did not mean a dearth of programmatic activitieson Central Asia and the Caucasus. In addition tovisiting speakers and the monthly gatherings of theIdentity in Central Asia working group, on March 4ththe XXIXth Annual Berkeley-Stanford Conferencetitled �The Caucasus: Culture, History, Politics�brought together a number of scholars to discuss recentresearch on the region. Two of the excellent paperspresented at this conference are included in this issueof the CCAsP newsletter: �Griboedov�s Piano� by DanBrower (Professor of History, UC Davis) and �ACulture of Corruption? Anti-Corruption Rhetoric andRevolution in Georgia� by Erik R. Scott (Ph.D. candi-date, Department of History, UCB).

We are now very much looking forward to our fallsemester. In this regard, we are pleased to announce anew Central Asia course to be taught by Dr. EdwardWalker, through the Political Science Department: anupper division undergraduate course titled �Challengesof State and Nation Building in Post-Soviet CentralAsia.�

As mentioned above, CCAsP�s fifth annual confer-ence titled �Modes of Contemporary Central AsianCulture,� will be held on September 24-25, 2005 as partof a larger program on Central Asian culture which willblend the creative work of contemporary artists witharts and humanities and social science scholarship.

Notes from the Executive DirectorSanjyot Mehendale

Most of the few Central Asia arts and humanities programs in the U.S. have tended to focus on the region�spre-Islamic periods, in particular on the ancient Silk Roads, with an emphasis on Buddhist and �traditional�culture of the region. The social sciences, on the other hand, have tended to concentrate on Soviet and post-Soviet Central Asia�s political, economic and strategic transformation, without scrutinizing the cultural arenasin which these changes are reflected. The Modes of Contemporary Central Asian Culture (see program on p. 13)program, however, seeks to examine the cultural manifestations of Soviet and post-Soviet transformation inCentral Asia in several different ways. First, in collaboration with the Pacific Film Archive at UCB, a series offilms produced in Central Asia will provide audiences with a glimpse into filmmaking during the Soviet andpost-Soviet periods. Secondly, exhibits of contemporary art will provide a venue to discuss recent culturalmanifestations in the region. In particular, the ways in which the fall of Communism has shifted the parametersfor creative endeavors will be examined. Finally, a two-day symposium will bring together scholars, visualartists, film directors and students to participate in an innovative forum on contemporary Central Asian culture.

To introduce our audience to some of the �modes� of Central Asian modern art which will be featured duringthe fall program, we have included in this newsletter a brief article on modern Mongolian painting by UCBerkeley Ph.D. candidate Ts. Uranchimeg, who has been instrumental in the organization of the Mongolianpainting exhibit as part of the larger Modes of Contemporary Central Asian Culture program.

For updates on the Modes of Contemporary Central Asia Culture program, please check the CCAsP websiteover the summer.

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 2

Meeting in Gobi, Sodnomin Tugs-Oyun

later she died in the typhoid epidemic that sweptTiflis.

Perhaps the guide�s story of the piano-wedding giftbelongs to local folklore. I�ve found no evidence thatGriboedov actually gave his bride such a cumber-some wedding gift, and even if he did, there�s goodreason to think that the piano (if indeed it was atTsinandali) disappeared in the 1854 fire, set by theraiders, that destroyed the mansion. Still, I�m suffi-ciently freed from objectivist, factological prejudicesto be ready to use the story for my own inquiry. It isrich in romantic overtones (inspiring at least oneopera, and numerous semi-fictitious retellings). Icome to the field of Caucasian history after spendingyears conducting research, and writing about Russiancolonialism in Turkestan. I don�t think it�s stretchinga point to view early 19th century Transcaucasia asanother colonial territory of the empire, presenting itsnew rulers with immensely challenging tasks ofgovernance, and perhaps becoming a trying-groundfor new ideas about ruling a multiethnic,multireligious population. For Russians at the time,the land was �Asian� as were most of its peoples. TheGeorgian people occupied to be sure a special, in-between site between �East� and �West��close toRussia by their Orthodox religion, the long wars withthe Persian and Ottoman enemies, and the thousandsof exiles who had lived in Russia prior to annexation.Still, I�m prepared to include the Georgian populationin this colonial category for two reasons: because oftheir isolation from Western cultural movements�theRussian Empire was an occupying power from analien world; and because, from the Russian perspec-tive, this people was an unknown and backwardsociety somewhat like the Turkish peoples in theeastern regions. Thus from both sides I find it usefulto think of the cross-cultural encounter of Russiansand Georgians (and of Alexander Griboedov andNina Chavchavadze) in the imperial terms ofmetropole and colony.

With that premise, then, I propose to makeGriboedov�s piano a colonial symbol�to explorebriefly the context, implications, and meaning that we

The piano stands against a wall in the large receptionroom on the second floor of the Chavchavadzemansion at Tsinandali. Just outside this room is along porch, where the visitor has a spectacular viewof peaks of the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range,twenty miles to the north beyond the valley of theAlazan River. In 1854, a raiding party from mountaintribes allied with Imam Shamil descended from thosemountains to capture there in a celebrated�or notori-ous�exploit the Princesses Orbeliani andChavchavadze, most of their children, their Frenchgoverness and their servants. Prince DavidChavchavadze raised the enormous sum needed toransom the hostages from Shamil only by mortgagingthe Tsinandali estate to the tsarist government. Hewas unable to repay his mortgage and the estatepassed into the hands of the state twenty years later. Itstill is public property, now a Republic of Georgiamuseum and shrine to the memory of theChavchadaze family.

That�s why, I presume, my guide stopped duringour tour in front of the piano, explaining that it was awedding gift from Alexander Griboedov to his 16-year-old bride Nina Chavchavadze. The wedding, atthe cathedral of Sion in Tiflis in August 1828, oc-curred only four weeks after she accepted his pro-posal, as he was on his way to Teheran with plenipo-tentiary powers of ambassador to conclude the finalarrangements for the Turkmenchai Treaty, ending thebrief Russo-Persian war. Their honeymoon, if that�sthe word, was spent in Tabriz, which they reachedafter stopping in Erevan, where her father AlexanderChavchavadze was governor of the newly conqueredterritory. She stayed in Tabriz while her husbandproceeded to the Persian capital. There, in February1829, he was assassinated by a mob in circumstancesthat are still obscure. Nina survived, but shortly afterher return to Tiflis lost the infant that she had beencarrying. She never remarried, but did adopt in 1850the youngest daughter of her brother David. At thetime of the hostage raid in 1854, she had left theestate with her adopted daughter to spend time withfamily elsewhere in Georgia; otherwise, she toowould have become a prisoner of Shamil. Three years

Griboedov�s PianoDaniel Brower

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 3

might attribute to it and to the two individuals di-rectly involved. I have three hypotheses to suggestalong these lines: that Griboedov fit so well (andquickly) into the Chavchavadze family becauseGeorgian society permitted him to experience �per-ceptions of affinity� (the term is from an Englishhistorian writing of the British Empire) betweenhimself, a young Russian aristocrat, and that princelyfamily; that he sought through his abortive �Russian-Transcaucasian Company� to bring his superiorknowledge and imperial backing to remake thisTranscaucasian land into a better (and profitable)place�a civilizing mission; that Nina made of her-self�and her imageamong Russians be-came�an iconic figurewhose symbolic behaviorwas understandable in theempire�s cultural environ-ment of the years after herhusband�s death.

The ease with whichGriboedov moved intoGeorgian high society isnotable. Like GreatBritain�s overseas Empire, Russia�s occupation ofGeorgia lent itself to illusions of social similarity.David Cannadine�s book Ornamentalism: How theBritish Saw Their Empire (Oxford, 2001) is myinspiration here. Key to his argument is that nine-teenth-century Britishers, in India as elsewhere,viewed their subjects �on the presumption thatsociety on the periphery was the same as, or even onoccasions superior to, society in the metropolis�(p.9). That Griboedov shared the repugnance of otherliberal nobles toward his caste-ridden, obsequiousRussian peers seems a very plausible assumption.This attitude emerges in the words of Chatsky, thealienated hero from his play �Woe from Wit,� whofinds on his return to Moscow �enthusiasts every-where for acting viciously� (Sochineniia [Moscow,2001], 40 [Act II, Scene 2]. One could say ofGriboedov, as did Chatsky of himself, that this�homeland� was not a place for him.

The Georgian territory had, in this light, a specialattraction. The Russian state had already decreed thatthe Georgian upper class had legitimate claim to

noble rank (that is, occupied a similar rank in thesocial hierarchy of their country as Russian nobles inthe metropole) and had set up schools for them inTiflis. That this congruence of social hierarchy mightnot have actually been the case is irrelevant. It suitedRussian purposes that this be so, and the imperialauthorities �constructed social affinities��in this caseby law� to make it so. Griboedov reached Tiflis firstin 1818 on his way to Teheran and his diplomaticpost. In the ten years that followed, Tiflis was for himpartly a way-station, partly a residence. He rented anapartment in the center of town next door to theOrbeliani brothers, bought a piano (he was an accom-

plished pianist), and wasreported seen during hislong stay there from late1821 to early 1823�dressed in native robes[arkhaluk], while he was athome composing his play,as well as playing thepiano.� He had no troublefeeling at home �in all thearistocratic homes ofTiflis,� including theChavchavadze residence

(D. G. Eristavi, Tiflisskii vestnik, 1874 [#24], quotedin Tam, gde v�etsia Alazan�, ed. T. Buachidze [Tbilisi,1977], 32-33). He might even have been flattered tobe accepted by a princely family, outranking by titlehis own, and best of all to have been accepted byAlexander Chavchavadze as son-in-law. He wasbetween two cultures, between Asia and Europe.

This manner of interpreting Griboedov�s attractionto Georgian society has implications beyond his ownpersonal development. I believe that it gives his planfor rational, progressive rule of the region its fullmeaning as a colonial project. His proposed joint-stock company, the Russian-Transcaucasian(Rossiiskaia Zakavkazskaia) Company, has beensomething of an embarrassment for Russian literaryscholars, for whom the author of �Woe from Wit�ought to have possessed a cultural outlook worldsapart from colonial profit-making. Recent Westernauthors have taken a more broad-minded view ofGriboedov�s colonial vision. Harsha Ram suggeststhat his approach to reforming the Caucasian border-land was a form of �progressive imperialism� (The

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 4

Tsinandali,courtesy of author

Imperial Sublime: A Russian Poetics of Empire[Madison WI, 2003], 137-42). A close reading of theproposal suggests that Griboedov, like other Russianadherents to Enlightenment theories of humanity,possessed an awareness of culture (civilization) as amoral imperative, which, I believe, implied in hismind a uniquely Russian imperial mission to reformRussian society as well as the colonial peoples.

His proposal, read as a European colonial text,yields all the catch words and symbols typical of thecolonial hierarchical ordering of humanity, andevolutionary vision of human progress, expressed interms adapted to the Russian encounter with theCaucasus. The brief text constructs a picture of the�natives� of Transcaucasia that includes �mountainpeoples who reach out to their lowland neighborsonly to destroy their peace,� traders notable mainlyfor their �hunger for profits,� and Muslim and Geor-gian warriors, �hostile to Russians,� who �on returnfrom their campaigns, place their swords in theirscabbard, and refuse any other occupation.� Allsuffered from �ignorance [neprosveshchenie],� buttheir new rulers were eliminating this �darkness[mrak�]� thanks to �statistics, ethnography, adminis-tration, financial order, [understanding] the people�sneeds and [providing] the means to meet them.� Thepromise of his proposed �agricultural, manufacturing,and trading company� included, beside the obviousprofits for its shareholders (including Griboedov) andincreased taxes for the state, the improved �wellbeing� and �reconciliation� among the peoples of theCaucasus (�Zapiska ob uchrezhdenii Rossiiskoizakavkazskoi kompanii� in Sochineniia [Moscow,1959], 472, 483, 490, 492, 494). It was a utopianproject, especially for the time and place, far removedfrom the realities of General Paskevich�s rule. His�Russian-Transcaucasian Company� remained a deadletter.

But Griboedov was, in my opinion, a precursor.His formula for colonial development echoed later inthe words and deeds of Count Vorontsov whenviceroy of Caucasia, and Governor General vonKaufman in Turkestan. One can even find in hisproject a precocious awareness of the links betweenprogressive imperialism and reform for Russia,anticipating efforts of subsequent generations to bringto life a reform agenda for the metropole. A compa-

rable, and in their case real, effort at using �knowl-edge for the benefit of society� appeared in the lastdecade of Nicholas I�s reign among the �enlightenedbureaucrats� (Bruce Lincoln�s term), in the ImperialGeographical Society, and in their ministries ofInternal Affairs and State Domains (In the Vanguardof Reform: Russia�s Enlightened Bureaucrats, 1825-1861 [Dekalb Ill., 1982], esp. ch. 2 & 3). Griboedovin his capacity as colonial official could promiseimprovements in the life of Caucasian natives, in amanner that he (alienated yet liberal by persuasion)could imagine suitable for the homeland. His pianowas one minor part of a larger civilizing undertaking.

According to memoirs of the time, Tiflis had in the1820s three pianos: one in Griboedov�s apartment(that he purchased from a fellow officer), another inthe Chavchavadze residence, and the third in theAkhverdova home where Nina (as well as her sister)learned the piano and dancing, and became fluent inRussian and in French. Her father AlexanderChavchavadze, following the example of his ownfather (who had been Georgian ambassador to Russiaunder Catherine II), made a concerted effort to openhis family to Western culture (and became a valuedcollaborator in the Caucasian administration). Hisdaughters� upbringing was modeled on that of thewell-brought- up young women of Russian aristo-cratic families. Griboedov had sarcastic words on thisupbringing in �Woe from Wit,� placed in the mouthof the compliant Famusov speaking of his daughterSofiia:

�We�re all too precocious, all too clever... We teach our daughters everything�,Dances and songs, gentleness and sighs,As if we mean them to be strolling actors� wives.�(Griboedov, �Gore ot uma,� Sochineniia, 23-24

[Act I, Scene 4].As a portrait of Nina Chavchavadze, we might easilymake of her life story a model of idealized Romanticwomanhood: At age 16 a bride, then within a fewmonths a widow, mourning her husband and verysoon afterwards her son. A few months after thewedding, Griboedov offered his own vision of her ina letter written to a St. Petersburg friend, suggestingthat, if he wished to see her �likeness,� he should goto the Hermitage to contemplate a painting, by the17th century Spanish artist Bartolome Murillo, whichhe described as the �Virgin in the garb of a shepherd-

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 5

ess�that�s her� (Letter of 24 December 1828 to B.S.Miklashevich, in A. S. Griboedov v vospominaniiakhsovremennikov, ed. V. E. Vatsura [Moscow, 1980],355 [n. 13]). I doubt that the ideal of Romantic lovecould be visually encapsulated in a more vivid man-ner.

But I�d like to suggest another way (or perhaps anadditional manner) to view her, particularly in theyears that followed her husband�s death. Her owneducation and family upbringing placed her betweentwo cultures, and her dramatic encounter withGriboedov, first in real life and then under his shadowas his widow, made her an emblematic figure cer-tainly for those Russians whom she met, and I believefor herself. Iurii Lotman is my guide here, in particu-lar his essay �The Decembrists in Daily Life� sub-titled �Everyday Behavior as a Historical-Psychologi-cal Category.� His argument that the liberal noblemenof the Decembrist generation created a particularstyle of �signifying behavior� relies on Griboedov�scharacterization of Chatsky for keys signifying traits.I don�t think that I�m stretching a point to suggest thatGriboedov embodied in his own conduct elements ofthat unique �behavioral style� whose �severe lookand sharp tone� (Sofiia�s description of Chatsky)sought to bring qualities of civic virtue, indepen-dence, and sincerity (and much more) into everydaylife (The Semiotics of Russian Cultural History, ed.A. Nakhimovsky [Ithaca, 1985], esp. 135-45).

Nina had known Griboedov since she was 10 yearsold; in the intervals when he was in Tiflis, he fre-quently spent time in the house where she and severalother girls received private lessons, dancing withthem, giving her lessons in piano playing, and insist-ing on speaking only French with her (D. F.Kharlamova, �Eshche neskol�ko slov o Griboedove,�in Griboedov v vospominaniiakh, 193-94.). Hiswritings and his conduct (as well as that of otherRussians whom she met) became for her a form ofcross-cultural education, before and after his death, inthe profoundly symbolic behavior that Lotmanassociates with the liberal nobles around theDecembrists.

Nina herself left few papers (almost entirely lettersin the published sources available to me), and noneprovide direct evidence to support my argument. My

only clues come from a few demonstrative acts on herpart that were recorded by contemporaries. Thesebear the mark of that �theatricality� that Lotmanargues was the characteristic of the liberal nobles ofthat generation, and�most suggestive to me�of theDecembrist wives. She recognized (as did others) thather person and her persona as Griboedov�s widowwere indissolubly united. In 1856 she attendedAlexander II�s coronation in Moscow, where a theaterhad already placed �Woe from Wit� on its repertory.She had never seen a public performance before and,though the director had not scheduled it to be playedat the time, he agreed to her request for a specialperformance. The presence of the author�s widow inthe audience turned the performance into a publicrecognition of her unique status in Russia�s culturalworld.

Her most theatrical gesture that I have discoveredwas her gift of a Georgian dagger to MikhailLermontov. Their meeting in 1837 left a powerfulimpression on the poet, who dedicated to her thepoem � The Dagger [Kinzhal].� She appears there as�dark eyes [chernye glaza]...filled with secret sad-ness,� and a �lily-white hand� whose gift was an actof �remembrance at the moment of separation.� Hisdagger�s blade was not streaked with the blood of itsvictims, but with her �bright tears�pearls of suffer-ing� (M. Lermontov, �Kinzhal,� in Tam, gde v�etsiaAlazan�, 70-71.) Romantic imagery, yes, but as wellhomage to her own dramatic presence within thecorpus of memories (and mythologizing) surroundingGriboedov.

Perhaps she did find in the dedication of theDecembrists� wives, accompanying their husbands toSiberia, a model of signifying behavior, transposed tothe Caucasian borderlands and recreated to fit herplaywright husband�s legacy of courageous intellec-tual protest. She was integral to memories of him,just as he was part of her persona as tragic Georgianheroine. If so, her persona was in that Georgiancontext an extraordinary creation, turning one briefmoment of cultural encounter under colonial rule

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 6

Daniel Brower is a Professor of History at UC Davis.Paper presented at XXIXth Annual Berkeley-Stanford Conference,March 4, 2005: �The Caucasus: Culture, History, Politics.�

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 7

A Culture of Corruption?Anti-Corruption Rhetoric and

Revolution in GeorgiaErik R. Scott

The Rose Revolution

In November 2003, thousands of Georgians took tothe streets to protest rigged parliamentary elections.Demonstrations grew as the television networkRustavi 2 beamed images of them throughout Geor-gia. Rallied by a disciplined coalition of oppositionpoliticians, including the �troika� of MikheilSaakashvili, Nino Burjanadze, and Zurab Zhvania,the non-violent protestsculminated in theresignation of EduardShevardnadze, who hadled Georgia first in theposition of CommunistParty chief from 1972to 1985, and then as thesecond president of anindependent Georgiafrom 1992 onwards.

At the time ofShevardnadze�s ouster, Iwas working for Ameri-can University�sTransnational Crimeand Corruption Center,a Washington-based NGO dedicated to conductingresearch on organized crime and corruption. For theprevious fifteen months, I had collaborated with agroup of Georgian scholars and activists to establishGeorgia�s first think tank on corruption, moneylaundering, and organized crime. During the time Ispent in Georgia, I was struck at how effectively theopposition utilized anti-corruption rhetoric to indictthe ruling government and gain popular support. Thisled a colleague and me to label the peaceful over-throw of Shevardnadze as an anti-corruption revolu-tion in a Washington Post op-ed piece publishedshortly thereafter. As we saw it, the rhetoric of anti-corruption had succeeded in achieving a seemingly

impossible goal: of uniting Georgians across thepolitical spectrum to seek the overthrow of theirpresident, a bloodless revolution in a country with along history of political violence.

To many familiar with Georgia and the Caucasusin general, the idea of an anti-corruption revolution inTbilisi might raise a few eyebrows. However the

concept is defined, thelevel of corruption inGeorgia is one of thehighest in the world.According to Trans-parency International�s2003 CorruptionPerceptions Index,Georgia ranked in124th place out of 133countries in terms ofperceived corruption.This is not a newtrend. In his study ofthe Soviet Union�s�second economy� inthe 1970s, UCBerkeley�s Gregory

Grossman noted that when it came to illegalityGeorgia had a �reputation second to none,� and thatblack market activity there seemed to be �carried outon an unparalleled scale and with unrivaled scope anddaring.� Shevardnadze himself first came to power inthe early 1970s as a campaigner against rampantcorruption in Georgia.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, corruptioncontinued to be a defining factor for Georgia. Somemight argue that this was due to poor leadership, or tostructural or institutional factors. Others might takeanother view, and speak of a culture of corruptionthat pervades every aspect of life in Georgia. In such

Thousands protested rigged elections and demanded the resignation of PresidentShevardnadze. [photo: Civil.Ge]

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 8

a culture, clientelism and patronage determineoutcomes, and informal norms of reciprocity holdmore sway than the rule of law. Although somemight argue that clientelism is a much differentphenomenon than corruption, both create a closedsystem where the rules of the game change depend-ing on the actors involved. While one should be waryof historical determinism, looking at Georgia�shistory of invasions and rule by foreign powers, it isnot surprising that a culture of �getting around therules� might arise. The state was never seen asconstituted by or for the people but was instead aforce imposed from the outside. Was it corrupt tocheat such a state? Well, perhaps corrupt, but maybenot immoral.

How could an anti-corruption revolution takeplace amidst a culture ofcorruption and/orclientelism? If we take acloser look at how thephenomenon of corruptionis understood in the formerSoviet Union�particularlyin Georgia�and how theterm was used in publicdebates leading up to theRose Revolution, we cansee the emergence of anti-corruption rhetoric as apowerful political tool.The potency of such rhetoric in Georgia, and mostrecently in Ukraine, begs further examination.

Defining Corruption

While few would seriously argue that the states ofthe South Caucasus are not deeply corrupt, definingwhat this means is a tricky matter. The term ofcorruption carries with it heavy normative connota-tions. As Akos Szilagyi has commented: �corruptionexists in the way, at the time, and to the degree that itis openly brought up in conversation or rather�asoften as it is exposed. The question actually is inwhat way, for what reason, by whom and when is theword �corruption� brought up.�

Let us begin by looking at how the term is usedand defined by what might be described as the

international community of Western donor govern-ments, multilateral institutions, and internationalorganizations, who see corruption as an obstacle toprescribed notions of good governance and economicand political reform. Here the most appropriatedefinition is the one used by the World Bank, whichdefines corruption as �abuse of public office forprivate gain.� However, this depends on how onedivides the public from the private, bringing us tosome of the problems with this definition. What ispublic office�can it include the leadership of majorcorporations whose decisions affect the lives ofmillions�and what is private gain?

Corruption and Anti-Corruption in Georgia

Debates over the dividingline between public andprivate space are crucial tounderstanding the dis-course of corruption,particularly in the formerSoviet Union, where thecollapse of the Sovietproject to render every-thing public has led to anemphasis on privatization,civil society and privatesector development.People in the former SovietUnion have appropriatedthe discourse of corruption

used by the international community. Back and forthcharges of corruption are part of almost any politicalcampaign in the region. Terms like �mafia� arefrequently used in popular parlance. Corruption is inthis sense a moral judgment, and a battle with corrup-tion, if won, would mean the realization of ideals ofsocial justice.

Perhaps nowhere was this more the case than inGeorgia. In public debate, in the press, and in conver-sations, corruption was framed as the main impedi-ment to the achievement of a �normal� and �civi-lized� society. A number of developments wereeffectively joined together under the rubric of corrup-tion. These included both the illegal acts committedby government officials, including bribe-taking,participation in smuggling, and links with organized

[photo: Civil.ge]

The flag of the opposition National Movement party hangs over thePresidential Office. The new leadership adopted this design, originallyemployed by medieval Georgian kings, for the national flag.

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 9

crime, as well as acts that were not always illegal,such as the massive accumulation of wealth by asmall elite and the cutting of public services. How-ever, many practices common in Georgia that wemight describe as clientelistic were not exposed ascorrupt, such as helping relatives get jobs. Nor wasthe paying of bribes to �get by,� to avoid payingtraffic tickets, or to secure one�s child�s admissioninto university. Instead of the bribe-givers, the bribe-takers were targeted. Over time, charges of corrup-tion seemed to focus more and more on the smallcircle of people ruling the country. Domestic politicaldebates were framed in terms appropriated from theinternational community.

During my time in Georgia, I held numerousmeetings with Georgian anti-corruption activists,government officials, and prominent oppositionmembers. Doing so gave me a chance to witnessfirst-hand the increasingly heated debates overcorruption taking place there, and its relationship tothe atmosphere of lawlessness and decay in thecountry.

The sense of decay in Georgia was almost pal-pable. Years of asset stripping and corrupt energydeals led to frequent power outages that disruptedeveryday life and demoralized the population. In thecountry�s second largest city, Kutaisi, cattle roamedthe streets, no longer confined to their grazing areas.The country�s roads were in various states of disre-pair, and traffic police collected bribes in the open.The country�s institutions of higher education werehampered by bribe-taking and the misuse of univer-sity property and assets. In one case, a restaurant andcasino were built illegally on university ownedproperty. The country�s decline could also be ex-pressed in human terms. Over a ten year period, overtwenty percent of the country�s population hademigrated.

Corruption came to be seen by the population asthe root cause of Georgia�s decay and decline. It wasoften framed in pathological terms, as an illnessafflicting the country, causing stagnation and leadingto a �rotten� system. Over time, Georgians began toassociate this pervasive corruption with leadership atthe top. The discussion was set in terms of a parent-child relationship. If those at the top set a bad ex-ample, the rest of the population could not help but

follow. If corruption was to be stopped, thoseresponsible (at the top) needed to be punished. Theproblem was that despite repeated governmentpromises to �get tough� with corruption, the worstoffenders went unpunished. Even governmentofficials linked with violent practices, such askidnapping and arms smuggling, were left un-touched.

The anti-corruption revolution that overthrewShevardnadze was facilitated by two major factors.The first is the role of popular expectations; thesecond is that of nationalism. As for popularexpectations, it is important to remember thatGeorgia was relatively prosperous in the Sovietperiod, enjoying a standard of living just behindthat of the Baltic republics. At the outset of inde-pendence, many Georgians felt that they wouldenjoy continued economic prosperity, along withthe benefits of independence and national sover-eignty. Instead, the Georgian economy collapsedand the Georgians faced civil war and entrenchedconflicts.

Despite the hardships of independence, Geor-gians retained hope that their nation was bound fora brighter future. Part of this hopefulness wassustained by massive Western assistance for thesmall South Caucasus nation. In recent years,Georgia became the third largest recipient of percapita assistance from the United States. Thou-sands of young Georgians studied and participatedin training programs in the US. The current presi-dent of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, received aUS-sponsored fellowship to study law at Colum-bia University. Foreign assistance financed thecreation of hundreds of NGOs, which among otherthings employed what remained of Georgia�sSoviet-era intelligentsia, as well as their children.These programs created a new generation ofGeorgians confident that it possessed the skillsnecessary to lead their country toward integrationinto Western structures like the EU and NATO.

Education and training in the West helped theseGeorgians build contacts with Western colleaguesand created a certain cohesiveness among them.Bolstered by confidence that they possessed amore worldly perspective, they did not hesitate toconfront the authorities and claim that they knew

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 10

better how to build a prosperous and free Georgia.Although often trained in the West, they were seen asrepresentatives of a new Georgia, untainted by Sovietrule.

Nationalism is the second factor that facilitated theanti-corruption revolution. Corruption scandals weredepicted as evidence of national decline. The rulingelite under Shevardnadze, mainly composed of asemi-Russified, Soviet-era nomenklatura, was por-trayed as a bunch of corrupt stooges of Moscow.Many Georgians believed ties with Russia had pre-vented Georgia from taking its rightful place amongthe nations of Europe. The Rose Revolution was insome ways a self-conscious imitation of Prague�sVelvet Revolution that happened more than a decadeearlier. No longer a backward nation, Georgia was tobe at the vanguard of a �second wave� of revolutionin Eastern Europe.

The opposition that eventually replacedShevardnadze�s circle did an expert job of framing itscampaign against corruption in nationalist terms.Assuming the role of nationalist moral crusaders, theopposition spoke of restoring Georgia to its rightfulplace and rightful glory. It was the opposition thatdefined anti-corruption as a struggle against evil, as astruggle against the Soviet past, and as a struggleagainst an aggressive Russia that represented theworst of the Soviet past. It was the opposition thatsuccessfully defined corruption in terms of the systemof Shevardnadze�s regime, not in terms of culture.Instead, the opposition extolled the virtues of Geor-gian culture, while excoriating the �corrupt� elite thatprevented Georgia from realizing its potential. Capi-talizing on their prestige as Western-educated experts,they diagnosed corruption as the source of thecountry�s ills, and while its symptoms were perva-sive, its causes were ascribed to Georgia�s northerlyneighbor, as well as the Soviet legacy, and the rulingelite that embodied this legacy.

The anti-corruption rhetoric of the reformers,combined with an appeal to Georgian nationalism,formed a potent mix that would eventually lead to theouster of Shevardnadze and his entire ruling circle ina popular and non-violent uprising which, thanks to abit of flair on the part of its leaders, would soon afterbe known as the Rose Revolution.

Building Popular Support

The opposition was able to broadcast its messagethrough independent media outlets, often staffed byyoung Georgians who had received training in theWest. Foremost among these was Rustavi 2. Financedin part by international donors and featuring a qualityof production leagues ahead of other Georgian televi-sion channels, Rustavi earned a nationwide followingwith its hard-hitting investigative reports.

The network became seen as a bastion of freedom,an island of democratic expression. When, in October2001, the Interior Minister ordered the station shutdown, allegedly because it was about to expose hisinvolvement in contraband trade, thousands of Geor-gians, many of them students and NGO activists,rallied in front of Parliament. These protests led to theresignation of the President�s cabinet, including theInterior Minister. Meanwhile, Rustavi 2 remained onthe air. As a result of these protests, the population,and in particular young activists and students, had asense of their own power in the face of the authori-ties. No government crackdown had taken place, andsome results had been achieved as a result of theprotests. This sense of empowerment would greatlyinfluence the events of November 2003.

Again and again, the opposition proved itself moreskillful in utilizing the medium of television to buildsupport. Saakashvili stimulated public discussions byappearing on television and showing photographs ofthe private homes of top officials, homes whose costfar exceeded the officials� meager salaries.

The young generation of opposition politiciansrebelled more and more openly against Shevardnadze,who had once cast himself in the role of their mentor.Although many of them first gained political experi-ence as part of Shevardnadze�s government in the late1990s, they increasingly distanced themselves from it.When Saakashvili left his post as Shevardnadze�sJustice Minister in 2001, he stated: �I suppose Ishould resign because it is impossible to do anythingin the conditions of the present regime wheneverybody�s corrupted and no one desires to makereal steps.� This rhetoric of total corruption amongthe ruling class meant that cooperation was impos-sible. As Saakashvili went on to declare, �ahead there

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 11

is a decisive battle for forming a normal civilizedcountry.� The ruling class was cast as the mainimpediment to Georgia�s civilizational progress.What is perhaps more extraordinary here is the use ofthe term �normal country.� One might argue that ahigh level of some form of corruption, howeverdefined, is the norm in Georgia. As Saakashvilidefines corruption, however, it is synonymous withbackwardness and inaction, and thus an impedimentto Georgia�s �normal� place as a member of Europe.

Corruption�at least among those in positions ofauthority�was also labeled as treason. Corruptionneeded to be �rooted out,� and as Saakashvili stated,�as far as I am concerned, every corrupt official is atraitor who betrays the national interest.� Framingcorruption as treason was made easier byShevardnadze�s turn to Russia as domestic andWestern support for the leader dwindled. However,much as Putin�s interference in the recent presidentialelections in Ukraine galvanized the Ukrainian opposi-tion, Russia�s initial support for flawed parliamentaryelections in Georgia proved to be the kiss of death forShevardnadze.

The national prominence that Saakashvili hadgained through his prolonged anti-corruption cam-paign, his skills as orator, and his prominent role inthe demonstrations allowed him to easily gain victoryin the ensuing presidential elections. At his inaugura-tion, Saakashvili combined the promise of the newgeneration of Georgian leaders with an appeal toGeorgia�s past. While stating that the success orfailure of Georgia�s transformation would depend onthe �new educated, energetic, and patriotic genera-tion,� he took a �spiritual oath� at the tomb of one ofGeorgia�s national heroes, King David the Builder,whose rule in the twelfth century succeeded in creat-ing a united Georgia. The new national flag adoptedunder Saakashvili�formerly that of his party�features five red crosses on a white background andwas used by medieval Georgian kings. Through theuse of national and religious symbolism, Saakashvilihopes to frame development as the �restoration� ofGeorgia, a new �golden age.� A prosperous andcorruption-free Georgia is to be a re-assertion of theirnation�s greatness, which many Georgians see asembodied in the Georgian kingdom of the twelfth andthirteenth centuries, an era enshrined in Georgian

poetry and literature, a time before foreign invasionand foreign rule supposedly distanced Georgiansfrom their state.

Ironically�and perhaps this might not bode wellfor the new Georgian leadership�this concept of�restoring� Georgia�s honor through anti-corruptionmeasures was once held by Shevardnadze himself.During his campaign against corruption in the 1970s,Shevardnadze commented bitterly in a closed meet-ing: �Once, the Georgians were known throughoutthe world as a nation of warriors and poets; now theyare known as swindlers.�

How can we gauge the success of Georgia�s recentanti-corruption campaign? Many of the top offendersunder Shevardnadze have been called in for question-ing or placed under arrest by the new leadership.Some of those sought by the authorities, includingregional governor Levan Mamaladze and the oustedAdjarian leader Aslan Abashidze, fled to Moscow toseek refuge, confirming in the minds of Georgians thelink between the corrupt aspects of the Shevardnadzeregime and Georgia�s large neighbor to the north.

Yet, to the dismay of international advisors, theanti-corruption campaign seldom went fully throughthe courts. Instead, former officials suspected ofcorruption were held in pre-trial detention until theycompensated the state for the amount of money theywere accused of embezzling. Then, for the most part,they were let go. Meanwhile, Saakashvili�s approvalrating remained high. This might speak to the factthat for many Georgians, the anti-corruption cam-paign is not so much about the rule of law, but moreabout bringing those who abused power to justice.After several meetings my colleagues and I held withthe new administration, it became clear that the needto show results quickly in their anti-corruption cam-paign often outweighed for them the possible long-term benefits of taking everything through the courts,especially before the implementation of plannedjudicial reforms.

What the new leadership hoped to eventuallycreate was a new relationship between the Georgianstate and its people. Instead of being the representa-tive of a foreign power, the state was to be somethingwhich the Georgian people felt belonged to them.

They hoped to show that they represented a breakwith the past, a new era for Georgia and for state-society relations. They brought in new, young facesthat represented Georgia�s young generation. Thiswas noticeable from the very moment we arrived inthe �new� Georgia, and met with the 32-year-oldMinister of Justice, a graduate of American Univer-sity, and his team, largely composed of former NGOactivists. The new leadership also took several sym-bolic actions to bring the point home that there was abreak with the past. Alongside the new flag, the EUflag now flies from all government buildings�perhaps a sign of wishful thinking on the part of theleadership. The government also adopted a new stateseal, one which shed all vestiges of the Soviet-eraseal in favor of a modified version of the coat of armsof Georgia�s old ruling dynasty. Finally, they erected amonument to Georgians who had died in the en-trenched conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.This monument, attended by two Georgian soldiers inceremonial uniform, was placed prominently in thecenter of Tbilisi to instill a sense of pride in the newGeorgian state.

Now that the new leadership has been in power fora year and a half, we can cite a few major accom-plishments. The entire traffic police force has beendismissed, and cadres of newly trained and betterpaid officers have been recruited in their place. TheGeorgians are finding that fewer, but more highlypaid, officers can do a better job than a horde ofunderpaid ones. The system of permissiveness thatprevailed under Shevardnadze has been eliminated,and an important precedent has been set with therecent arrest of an MP of the ruling party for extor-tion, showing that members of the new leadership arenot above the law. Anecdotal evidence suggests thatcorruption has become more costly, and as a result,more rare.

Yet the structural factors that contribute to corrup-tion are still there. This is readily apparent if onelooks at contraband trade. Occurring sometimesthrough breakaway regions outside the control ofTbilisi, though also across the border with Azerbaijanand Armenia, contraband trade in basic goods contin-ues to flourish, as production in Georgia remains at astandstill and few alternate economic options existfor impoverished populations in these border areas.The work of my former colleagues in Georgia has

indicated that while the volume of contraband tradehas decreased, small-scale trading continues and newroutes have been found. The level of contraband tradeis an important gauge for measuring the success ofthe new leadership in addressing some of the underly-ing issues that give rise to corruption.

A year and a half after coming to power, the newgovernment has retreated from some of its moreradical rhetoric, with Saakashvili claiming that theyhave delivered and established the �cleanest govern-ment in the CIS.� Some more sweeping reforms thatcould impact Georgian society at a more fundamentallevel are being planned for the system of primaryeducation. Yet although this might indicate thatcorruption is somehow linked to the Georgian men-tality, Saakashvili has consistently denied that thereexists a �culture of corruption� in Georgia. Instead,the reforms are seen as a process of �de-Sovietiza-tion,� and the causes of corruption are blamed onstructural factors seen as arising from the impositionof outside rule, and not from the wellsprings ofGeorgian society and culture.

Conclusion

Despite the persistence of clientelistic attitudes inGeorgia, the nation stands as an example of thepower of anti-corruption rhetoric in the former SovietUnion, especially when combined with an appeal tonationalism. It is not purely by coincidence that someof the pro-Yuschenko protestors in Ukraine wavedGeorgian flags. In both cases, rigged elections servedas a trigger for longstanding public discontent, and inboth cases the rhetoric of anti-corruption played amajor role in garnering public support for the opposi-tion. Both countries had the advantage of definingthemselves, and defining corruption, vis-à-vis Russia.The discourse of corruption proved itself to be apotent force if wielded correctly, one which embracedmany of the social, political, and economic com-plaints of the population while framing the conflict interms understandable, and even encouraged, by theinternational community.

Erik R. Scott is a graduate student in History at UC Berkeley.Paper presented at XXIXth Annual Berkeley-Stanford Confer-ence, March 4, 2005: �The Caucasus: Culture, History, Politics.�

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 12

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 13

Conference (September 24 � 25, 2005)This two-day conference will provide a forum on contemporary art and filmmaking in Central Asia.

Although much interest has been shown in the political and economic transformations of CentralAsia over the course of the last century, very little attention has been paid to individual experiences

resulting from these trends and influences. Through an examination of the region�s arts and othercultural forms, an attempt will be made to take a different view of the changing realities of Central

Asian societies. Some of the questions the symposium will address are: What is the history andfuture of filmmaking in Central Asia? What are the trends in Soviet and post-Soviet filmmaking?

As the Soviet myths are discarded, what new archetypes are being created? Is there a Central Asianidentity and, if so, how does it manifest itself? What are some of the reflections of Islamic, Soviet,

ethnic, and national identities?

Film Series (September 1 � 30, 2005)Shown at the Pacific Film Archive, the Central Asia film series will include films producedduring both the Soviet and post-Soviet period, such as A. Ganiev�s Takhir and Zukhra(Uzbekistan, 1945); I. Ishmukhametov�s Tenderness (Uzbekistan, 1966); K. Narliev�s TheDaughter-in-law (Turkmenistan 1972); T. Okeev�s The Fierce One (Kyrgyzstan, 1973); A.Amirkulov�s The Fall of Otrar (Kazakhstan, 1991); and A. Aabdikalikov�s Beshkempir: TheAdopted Son (Kyrgyzstan, 1998).

Exhibits (September � October 2005)In collaboration with the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, CCAsP has planned aFall 2005 exhibit by Kazakh painter Saule Suleimenova. Ms. Suleimenova has exhibited workin Almaty, Kazakhstan, Russia, France, the UK, and the US. In addition, a second exhibit ofworks by three Mongolian artists, J. Munkhtsetseg, M. Erdenebayar, and S. Tugs-Oyun, hasbeen organized at the Worth Ryder gallery October 4 - 14. Through the work of these CentralAsian artists, the modern painting exhibits at Berkeley will seek to offer the American viewer anew way of looking at Central Asian culture. In addition, the artists� presence on campus willenable scholars and the general public to meet and discuss the recent dynamic changes in artand approaches to aesthetics taken by artists within a culture so little known in the West. It ishoped that this exchange of ideas will stimulate and enhance provocative cross-cultural think-ing about contemporary art.

For updates on the film series, painting exhibits and conference, please check the CCAsP website over thesummer, http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~bsp/caucasus/

J. Munkhtsetseg, Silence, 2000

Modes ofContemporaryCentral Asian

Culture

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 14

The Struggle Through �Socialist Realism�

During the socialist regime, so-called �socialistrealism� was the official style sanctioned by theCommunist Party. Although an important part ofMongolian art, �socialist realism� had never been theonly style artists chose to work with. The bold start ofMongolian modernism was a notorious exhibition in1968 when the First Exhibition of Young Paintersopened in the Exhibition Hall of the Union of Mon-golian Artists (UMA). This exhibition started a newpage in the history of Mongolian art, but it alsocreated a scandal. The Mongolian Governmentimmediately closed the exhibition with the accusationthat it was the �art of capitalists.� Both the partici-pants and the Chairman of the UMA suffered strictpunishments from the Communist Party. Youngartists who had studied in Eastern European coun-tries, notably in Czechoslovakia, were required toreside in Mongolia and prove their loyalty to theCommunist Party by painting socialist posters andportraits of socialist leaders.

The exhibition in 1968 displayed abstract paint-ings by such artists as G. Sosai, P. Baldandorj, and O.Tsevegjav, which were truly bold both in subject

matter and freedom of stylistic approach (ill. 1).There were manyother paintings andsculptures in theshow which, al-though realistic indepiction, did notfollow strict anduniform �socialistrealism.� In thehistorical context of�realism� broughtby the first genera-tion of Mongolianartists from Mos-cow in the 1950s,the 1968 exhibitionwas a new phenom-enon in both the intellectual and social life of thecountry. If political democracy started in Mongoliain 1990, freedom of thought, or �democracy� in art,commenced with this historical exhibition of 1968.

During the pinnacle years of socialism, manyartists produced works notable for their highlyindividualistic expression. Artists such as B.Chogsom and Ch. Bazarvaan, among others, wereespecially prolific in the 1960s-1970s and fosteredthe seeds of what can be seen as �Mongolian mod-ernism� (ill. 2). The emergence of graphic artistswas a significant step in the development of Mongo-lian modern art with D. Amgalan as a leading figure.Along with the regular techniques of printmaking,the graphic artists all worked extensively in oil,producing pictures with a flat and decorative quality,abandoning the academic conventions of socialistrealism.

Artists such as D. Amgalan, Ts. Enkhjin, Do.Bold, R. Duinkhorjav, and S. Tugs-Oyun played asignificant role in developing free depiction in thevogue of European modernism. In the autumn of1980, a solo show of Ts. Enkhjin�s work opened atthe Exhibition Hall of the Union of Mongolian

Modern Art of MongoliaTs. Uranchimeg

Ill. 2: Gobi, B. Chogsom

Ill. 1: Lake Huvsgul, P. Baldandorj

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 15

Artists. This display marked the unofficial end ofcensorship of art and was a first important step forboth the artists and the audience to comprehend thequalities and ideas of modern Western art shownexplicitly and blatantly in one place. Enkhjin�spaintings showed a style that was distinctly differ-ent�his paintings were inescapably �modern.�Years later, many artists would recollect that beingyoung at that time, they learnt new ways of expres-sion and depiction through this particular show.

Mongolian Modernism

The democratic reforms, hastened in Mongolia in thelate 1980s-1990, brought to an end �socialist real-ism,� prompting the artists to look towards the Westfor new modes of expression in the modern era. Asan echo of political turmoil in the late 1980s, whicheventually brought to an end the socialist regime inMongolia, the art association �Green Horse� wasestablished in 1989 to herald anti-realistic, anti-academic, purely �new� art. Highly influenced byWestern contemporary art, young artists of GreenHorse aimed at working exclusively in a non-repre-sentational (abstract) style of painting and concep-tual art, expressed through truly new-to-Mongoliamedia such as installations, Duchampian ready-mades, objet trouvé, assemblages and performanceart. Green Horse was soon followed by other art

societies with similar objectives, mainly to opposethe prevalence of the realist style in Mongolian art.These artists, calling themselves �Sita Art,� �Sky,�or simply the �Association of New Art,� had numer-ous important exhibitions in the 1990s, such as A

Lucky Dashnyam Day (1993) and Surlug (1998).Some of these were joint projects with German andDutch artists. O. Dalkh-Ochir, G. Erdenebileg, B.Gansukh, and M. Khuyag-Ochir founded these anti-realist art societies and all are important artists who

played a major role in bringing conceptual art intoMongolia.

Although Green Horse has now been inactive formany years, the ideas of conceptual art are rapidlydeveloping in Mongolia (ill. 3). In 2000, Mongolianartist S. Dagvadorj participated in the KwangjuBiennale of International Contemporary Art in Korea,winning a prize for his installation piece. S.Sarantsatsralt is another popular artist, who worksprimarily in conceptual art. Her most recent soloexhibition, Wrapped Thing, which opened inUlaanbaatar in June 2004, consisted mainly of instal-lations and assemblage works. Through contemporaryWestern media, the artist aimed at expressing her ownposition, �messages� in her own words, on differentaspects of modern Mongol society and general humanlife. Her subject matter varies from family and couplerelationships to Mongolian ethics and abuses of foodin modern society (ill. 4).

Despite the activities of the abovementionedartists, conceptual art is only a minor part of Mongo-lian art, practiced and truly understood by few artists.Precisely because Russia and Eastern Europe werefor Mongolia the sole window to the world for sevendecades, European modernism remains an influentialsource in Mongolian modern art, the artists persis-

Ill. 3: Installation, S. Dagvadorj

Ill. 4: Food Abuse, S. Sarantsatsralt

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 16

tently preferring to work in the styles of Europeanartists albeit using native motifs and depicting genu-ine Mongolian scenes.

The last decade of the twentieth-century bloomedwith new experiments in non-representational art inMongolia. Do. Bold and Ch. Boldbaatar are the twoartists who played a major role in the development ofabstract art. The process of moving from the repre-sentational picture to a complete abstraction can bevisibly traced in the oeuvre of Do. Bold. His earlyworks, such as Morning, and Starry Existence, pro-duced in the mid-late 1980s, show a blend of objec-tive figures with abstract forms. At the beginning ofthe 1990s, Do. Bold turned to complete abstractionand hence continues to be a major abstract artist inMongolia (ill. 5).

Ch. Boldbaatar�s turn to abstract style was rapidand self-confident. Even in his early works,Boldbaatar showed a deliberate and mature stylesalient with non-objective forms. The color, rhythmsand tones, as well as compositional devices havechanged over time, testifying to his artistic search andexperimentation on the canvas without aiming for therepresentation of the visible world. Boldbaatar�sresearch interest in Mongolian petroglyphs andprehistoric rock art influenced his new abstractcompositions and new treatment of the canvas. Hisexhibition Melody II, launched in 1999 together withthe sculptor G. Sereeter, was the most prodigiousshow of abstract art ever shown in Mongolia.

The restless nomadic spirit creates a distinctlyMongolian feeling with an outstanding, intense colorspectrum, and an ever-persistent sense of motion and

space. Even in peaceful landscapes, portraits, nudesand still-lifes, vivid colors are boldly juxtaposedcreating the rhythmic dynamics in the piece. Con-sider, for instance, M. Erdenebayar�s Portrait of aHorse (1999), an appealing idea in itself claiming torepresent the individuality of a horse. Horses shownen face or in profile, in full view or partially, vibratein his works with burning colors. Another artist tomention as a representative of new trends in Mongo-lian modern art is Ts. Enkhjargal, whose workbuzzes with dynamic motion created by whirls offorms and flaming tones of red and green (ill. 6). Theinstability of the transforming Mongol society, whichinevitably entails an anguished struggle for survival,is vividly depicted in numerous splendid works byEnkhjargal. He shows delicate, vulnerable peoplewandering through empty streets to essentiallynowhere; not grotesque and without distortion, hisidiosyncratic style, based on cold tones, serves as anexcellent means of revealing humanity�s stunning

fragility and the miserable absence of what weunderstand as social welfare.

The �surreal� works of Ts. Munkhjin, on the otherhand, are fraught with a most dazzling juxtapositionof cold and warm tones, behooving one to wonderwhether it is a boundary of conceptualism or mod-ernism that we encounter in his art. That is, althoughshowing some objective figures, Munkhjin chal-lenges the viewer with the modernity of his represen-tation, yet traps us in an alien, unknown ideology ofpictorial language. �It is a picture,� he says, so all hisworks are simply named �paintings� and numberedaccordingly (ill. 7).

Ill. 5: Do. Bold

Ill. 6: Camels, Ts. Enkhjargal

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 17

The open spatiality of Mongolia inspired by thesteppe and the sky�infinity of horizontal or verticalspace�is a frequent theme in Mongolian modernart. Thus, Ts. Enkhjin�s main objective is to capturethe dimensions of time and space in Mongolia�sensed both historically and somatically. He suc-ceeds in conveying the overwhelming scope of

Mongolian open space and time through seeminglysimple forms and clearly structured composition (ill.8).

This sense of movement and space, however, isnot unique to the Mongols. We recall an instancewith the French artist Yves Klein, who in the 1950swanted (or better, needed) a horse to circle the globe.He, like the Mongols, desired physical, visual andmental movement. Klein needed �Blue Void�,

revealed in his numerous The Blue Monochromes, asthe manifestation of infinity and void in order tomentally extend himself. In other words, what meantstrength and energy for Klein for his survival as anartist, is also true for Mongolian artists. TheMongols, who live under the �Blue Void� in thephysical infinity and timelessness of Mongolianspace, extend their minds in colors and space, asMongolian modern artists�such as Enkhjin�express remarkably.

The same ideas of void and infinity, albeit re-vealed through different styles, prevail in severalversions of Sh. Chimeddorj�s Blue Mongolia ex-pressed in purely geometric forms (ill. 9). Sh.Chimeddorj is an important artist in Mongolian

Ill. 8: The Land and the Sky, Ts. Enkhjin

Ill. 7: Painting - 70, Ts. Munkhjin

Ill. 9: Blue Mongolia, Sh. Chimeddorj

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 18

modern art, as he shows an elaborate, seamless blendof native motifs with European style. His works, suchas Yellow Day of the Autumn or Ger of the Father,include elements of Mongolian traditional paintingstyle known as Mongol Zurag. This style is character-ized by flat colors and shapes, with little attentionpaid to depicting linear perspective. Chimeddorj isone of the first artists to transform the Mongol Zuraginto what can be described as �Mongolian modern-ism.�

This style of �Mongolian modernism,� shapedunder the specific perceptual processes of nature bynomads, Mongolian history and nomadic sociability,in fact dates back to the time of strict censorshipduring the socialist regime.

Other Trends in Mongolian Modern Art

During the years of the socialist period, the majorityof the works were made in the style of realism. Suchsplendid works as Gers in Steppe (ill. 10), and En-semble of Clouds by N. Tsultem, After the Work by G.Odon, landscapes by G. Tserendondog and Yo.Ulziikhutag are fine pieces of refined artistry and areconsidered the masterpieces of Mongolian art. Thereare many contemporary artists who have inherited thetradition of realism and preserved it as a significantpart of modern art.

However, unlike the masters of traditional realismin Mongolia, whose art was derived specifically fromreality, contemporary �realist� works by Ch.Hurelbaatar and D. Erdenebileg, among others, showunreal, imaginary still-lifes or landscapes, which arecomposed and rendered exclusively in the manner ofFrench academism with dominant brown and darktones, strictly adhering to linear perspective and

Ill. 11: Queen Anu, Ch. Khurelbaatar

anatomic modeling of figures (ill. 11). The trend ismore inclined towards academism, bypassing thekernels of what is understood as �realism� in thehistory of Mongolian art.

The Mongol Zurag has an important stronghold inmodern-day Mongolian art as well. Oppressed andabandoned during the socialist era, the Mongol Zuragstyle resurged and developed into a higher criteria ofimage making. The Mongol Zurag style, originatedfrom petroglyphs and rock drawings, was used in theart of the steppe states, and later by the monk-artistsin Buddhist art. However, modern artists who chooseto work in the Mongol Zurag style aspire not only topreserve the traditional features of the Mongol Zurag,but also develop it with individual expression, andthus bring the tradition into a modern era (ill. 12).

Due to the democratic changes, Mongolian artistsgained complete freedom to exhibit and market theirworks in any country in the world. Group exhibitionsof Mongolian artists are regularly organized andfrequently shown in the Western galleries and muse-ums, while individual artists travel extensivelyabroad to have their solo shows.

Although the new situation has enriched Mongo-lian art with new genres and techniques, it has alsobrought serious obstacles for an artist�s survival in anew capitalist market. Yet the majority of Mongolianartists live and work wholeheartedly devoted to theirart. Notions of forgery, connoisseurship, auctions, artdealers, curators and art management find their placein the contemporary art world in Mongolia, giving art

Ill. 10: Gers in Steppe, N. Tsultem

CCAsP Newsletter Spring 2005 / 19

Harsha Ram, associate professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, had three worksaccepted for publication in 2004 - 05: �Ne ia pishu stikhi: Boris Pasternak�s translations from T�itsianT�abidze�, Conference volume, Hostage of Eternity. An International Conference on Boris Pasternak. �AndreiBelyi and Georgia: Georgian modernism and the reception of the �Petersburg text� in peripheral space.� RussianLiterature. �Pushkin and the Caucasus,� The Pushkin Handbook Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,forthcoming Fall 2005.

Erik R. Scott, a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department, attended a conference at the Center for SecurityStudies, Swill Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. The conference, �Russian Business Power: The Role ofRussian Business in Foreign and Security Relations,� is dedicated to bringing together academics from severalcountries and academic disciplines to develop a book of the same name. He presented a paper titled, �RussianBusiness and Conflicts in the South Caucasus: The Case of Georgia.�

As part of the fall �Modes of Contemporary Central Asian Culture� program (see p. 13), CCAsP has organized an exhibit of paintingsby well-known Mongolian artists Sodnomin Tugs-Oyun, Jalkhaajavin Munkhtsetseg, and Monkhorin Erdenebayar at the Worth RyderGallery, UC Berkeley, October 4-14, 2005.

Ill. 12, Camel, Sh. Baatar

Faculty & Graduate Student News

a higher esteem and a broader acclaim. Although the socialist education system has long collapsed and nowa-days the artists have less�if any�chance to study abroad, the nomadic spirit is always pushing and strugglingin a restless search for its bold and unique embodiment in the remarkable works by Mongolian artists.

Ts. Uranchimeg is an art historian and critic, and currently a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art Department at UC Berkeley.

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