Frontier Orientalism and the stereotype formation process in Georgian literature
Frontier Orientalism and the stereotype formation process in Georgian literature

Summary/Abstract: Georgian identity and social consciousness have been formed in the context of political andcultural resistance to the Muslim world. Taking into account this difficult historical experience,the goal of the present paper is to analyze to what extent the characters of the OrientalMuslim community are reflected by the Georgian literary texts. It discusses whether theirperception in literary texts is constrained by the frontier Orientalist stereotypes and the comparisonbetween the perceptions of the Russian colonizer and the Eastern Muslim colonizeris given. The paper discusses these issues based on Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism andAndre Gingrich’s concept of frontier Orientalism. It shows that in Georgian literature, therelationship with the Muslim space is determined by the existential fear that has emerged asa result of historical experience. However, in the modern and contemporary period, there isan evidence that such a frontier-Orientalist feeling towards the Muslim community is graduallyweakening, but it is strengthening towards the Russian space.

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