Publication details
The Exhibition “Georgische Kunst” (1930) : Trace of a Cultural Exchange between Germany and the Georgian SSR in the Interwar Period?
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The focal point of the present paper is a traveling exhibition "Georgische Kunst: ihre Entwicklung vom 4.-18. Jahrhundert" co-organized by the People's Commissariat of the Georgian SSR and the German Society for the Study of Eastern Europe and held between July and October 1930 in several major Germanophone metropoles including Berlin, Cologne, Nuremberg, Munich, and Vienna. The main aim of this exhibition was to present selected Georgian monuments mostly displayed in drawings or photographic reproductions to the Western audience. The The exhibition might appear interesting from the point of view of the historiography of Georgian arts, especially for two reasons. Firstly, at the beginning of the 1930s, the Georgian national treasure was still kept in France. Secondly, it was the Georgian art historian Giorgi Chubinashvili (1885–1973) who, besides collaborating on the concept of the exhibition, was the author of the scholarly introduction. Born in St. Petersburg and educated at the universities of Leipzig and Halle, Chubinashvili had become a professor of art history at the Tbilisi State University after the Russian Revolution, significantly contributing to the development of art history in Soviet Georgia. His role in the elaboration of an exhibition presenting the Georgian material heritage in Germany must be, possibly, understood against the backdrop of his activities in Soviet Georgia and possibly due to his ties with Germany. At the same time, the exhibition and several events held next to it were openly presented as a series of steps aiming for consolidating the “cultural relations” between Germany and Georgia. These should have included, among other things, collaborative archaeological excavations on the Georgian territory. |
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