The murder at Mount Kangar: The oral narratives of the Caucasian ‘Schism’

The Mediterranean has long been a space of interaction between cultures which shaped and reshaped their identities and traditions. How these often competing communities questioned, structured and performed their own beliefs and religious practices by shaping their orthodoxies and disclosing heresies commends a persistent and multifaceted interdisciplinary research. The present volume gathers eleven selected papers from the fields of Late Antique, Byzantine, Ottoman, Western Medieval, Caucasus, and Jewish studies on themes that reflect on and address the complex formation and development of cultural, intellectual and religious identities in the Mediterranean

Making, remembering and forgetting the Late Antique Caucasus

The present thesis examines probably the ultimate focal point in the history of the Christian South Caucasian Cultures – the Caucasian Schism that occurred in the early seventh century – a major scandal that ended the ecclesiastical communion between the Georgian and Armenian Churches and gave impetus to the rise of the so-called national Churches. The schism became the central point of reference in both medieval and modern Caucasian historiographies. Modern scholarship has advanced different claims concerning the nature, reasons and results of the Schism, in many cases arguing that almost all aspects of the respective cultures have been affected by the Schism. As for medieval Armenian historical narratives, they made a good conceptual use of the schism, presenting the schism as a major interpretive schema for the explanation of all aspects of their relations with their northern neighbours. Contrary to such view, I argue that our knowledge of the reasons behind the schism and theological controversies that preceded, accompanied or followed the Schism in the sixth century is in most cases determined by the conceptual framework created in the Middle Ages together with the changes in political state of affairs in the Caucasus. In the period between the tenth to thirteenth centuries, when all major South Caucasian powers were struggling for the unification of the Caucasus under their aegis, the remembrance of the schism became particularly important. The remembrance and indeed forgetting of the Caucasian unity and separation became a rhetorical tool in medieval Armeno-Georgian debates. Therefore instead of taking the Schism at face value, I propose to abandon the traditional liminalist perception of the history of unity and separation in the Caucasus, and adopt a more rewarding approach, that is to say to try to understand when, why and by whom were the crucial events of the Late Antique Caucasian history conceptualized and adapted for contemporary ideological needs.</p

The murder at Mount Kangar: The oral narratives of the Caucasian ‘Schism’

The Mediterranean has long been a space of interaction between cultures which shaped and reshaped their identities and traditions. How these often competing communities questioned, structured and performed their own beliefs and religious practices by shaping their orthodoxies and disclosing heresies commends a persistent and multifaceted interdisciplinary research. The present volume gathers eleven selected papers from the fields of Late Antique, Byzantine, Ottoman, Western Medieval, Caucasus, and Jewish studies on themes that reflect on and address the complex formation and development of cultural, intellectual and religious identities in the Mediterranean

Ecological Assessment of Tchitchakhvi Khevi River

The article discusses the assessment of the ecological condition of the Tchitchakhvi Khevi River and its surroundings. Chemical and microbiological research of river water has been carried out. Water samples were taken for analysis in compliance with the requirements of normative documents. The results of the study showed that the degree of pollution of the river is affected by settlements, agricultural lands, faulty sewage system. The microbiological contamination at the site we have studied as a whole can be assessed as, so far, epidemiologically safe, i.e. moderately contaminated, which can be explained at the expense of river self-cleaning

Landscape Energy – the Main Geophysical Characteristic of the Functioning of the Natural Environment and the Rational use of Nature

თანამედროვე ფიზიკური გეოგრაფიის და კერძოდ, ლანდშაფტმცოდნეობის განსაკუთრებით დიდი პრაქტიკული მნიშვნელობა, პირველ რიგში, გამოიხატება ლანდშაფტების სარესურსო პოტენციალის გამოვლენასა და შესწავლაში, ასევე გარემოს ოპტიმიზაციაში. სარესურსო პოტენციალი კი თავის მხრივ, დიდადაა დამოკიდებული ბტკ-ებში ნივთიერებისა და ენერგიის ცვლის ბალანსზე, ანუ ლანდშაფტის ენერგეტიკაზე. ამ შემთხვევაში ერთ-ერთი მნიშვნელოვანია ბუნებრივ-ტერიტორიული კომპლექსების ფუნქციონირების შესწავლა. მისი მეშვეობით შესაძლებელია და შედარებით ადვილად აიხსნება, მოდელირდება და რაც მთავარია, პროგნოზირდება ბტკ-ში მიმდინარე მრავალი რთული პროცესი.The particularly great practical importaqnce of modern physical geography and, in particular, landscape science, is first of all manifested in the detection and, study of the resourse potencial of landscapes, as well as in the optimization of the environment. The resource potential, on the other hand, greatly depends on the balance of substance and energy exchange in the natural resources, i. e. the energy of the landscape. In this case, one of the important things is to study the functioning of natural-territorial complexes (NTC). Through it, it is possible and relatively easy to explain, model and, most importantly, predict many complex processes taking place in NTC, including the role of landscape energy balance in increasing the productivity and yield of agro - landscapes, which was the first attempt to research this problem in Georgia