The FINANCIAL — There are many things that come to mind when asked to describe Georgian culture. Hospitality, food, wine, song anddance are usually cited;people reference the church, supras, patriotism, heavy drinking, a passionate spirit, and more. When asked to identify what makes an individual a Georgian, though, there seem to be a few very clear criteria.
In this recent poll conducted by Georgian Opinion Research Business International, the Georgian member of Gallup International, we asked 1500 Georgians a variety of questions as part of the decennial European Values Survey. The questions covered issues of immigration, politics, religion, and a wide spread of other social concepts. From the resulting data we discovered that, while 99.7% of respondents had Georgian citizenship, this isn’t sufficient to be considered Georgian in the eyes of most.
To be truly Georgian, how important is it to… Very Quite Total
be respectful of Georgia's institutions and laws? 43% 43% 86%
be born in Georgia? 60% 26% 86%
have lived in Georgia for a long time 58% 35% 92%
have Georgian ancestry? 59% 35% 93%
be able to speak Georgian? 71% 26% 97%
There are many people of non-Georgian ethnicity living in Georgia these days; Russians, Armenians, Azeris, and more. Many of these earned their citizenship by residency, and some by special consideration. But can they be considered truly Georgian? If you were to receive Georgian citizenship, would anyone actually call you Georgian?
It seems your chances are slim, as two of the most important standards are beyond your control: having been born in Georgia and having Georgian ancestry. For the sake of discussion, though, let’s see what you could do to win them over.
It’s of course important to be respectful of the laws and institutions of the country, so said 86% of our respondents. Half of these said it was very important, and the rest said it was quite so. Residence in Georgia also plays a large part: most respondents said being born here was either very (60%) or quite (26%) important, as was having lived in Georgia for an extended period (92% total).
I was surprised by the second most import requirement for being a true Georgian, in that I expected it to be the most important by far: 93% felt that Georgian ancestry is necessary to be a true Georgian. However, the most important defining characteristic of a person’s “Georgianness” is the language he or she speaks.
If you know your modern Georgian history, you know that the prospect of losing Georgian as the official language of the Georgian SSR brought tens of thousands of protestors to the streets in 1978, one of the largest protests in Georgia’s soviet history. It seems fitting then that language is the most important aspect of personal culture in the minds of Georgians. Not only did virtually all respondents feel that speaking Georgian is important (97%), a larger majority said it was “very important (71%)” than for any other quality.
Don’t get too excited about your Georgian language lessons, though. Based on the rest of these requirements, unless you’re ethnically Georgian you probably won’t be able to convince your neighbors to call you “Qartvelo.“
Data in this article have a margin of error of 2.5% at 95% confidence. Visit our webpage at gorbi.com for more articles.
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