Narrating about the Death of the Nation: The Last of the Departed by Bagrat Shinkuba
Narrating about the Death of the Nation: The Last of the Departed by Bagrat Shinkuba

Summary/Abstract: The following essay examines how literary narration can transmit the historical memories and aesthetic emotions related to the tragic exile experience of the Ubykh people. When Russia subjugated the northwest Caucasus (present-day Sochi, Russia) in the 1860s, the Ubykh were expelled by Russian troops and had to flee to Turkey. The survivors were scattered around Turkey and assimilated into Turkish culture. The Last of the Departed (1974), a historical novel by Bagrat Shinkuba, an Abkhazian writer, narrating about one of the most tragic events in the history of exiles – the death of the Ubykh people and their language – shows that historical fiction may be an instrument contributing to the memorialization of ethnic identity. It also exposes the ideological accents and focusing of the displayed events.

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