Negotiating Orthodox Sound in the South Caucasus: Chant Revival and Georgian National Identity

On December 20, 2011, the Georgian Orthodox Church canonized the five Karbelashvili brothers (Petre, Andria, Vasil, Polievktos and Pilmon) for their struggles against both Tsarist Russian authorities and Bolshevik revolutionaries to preserve the unique religious traditions of the Georgian nation. Famed for reviving polyphonic chant associated with the Georgian Orthodox Church in the late nineteenth century (in place of the dominant Russian/Slavonic chant), the Karbelashvili brothers now enjoy posthumous triumph as martyrs to both a russifying Tsarist state and Bolshevik firing squad. This narrative shrouds a far more complex historical reality: the construction of Georgian polyphonic chant as a marker of national distinctiveness was itself a product of empire.

This paper brings together Russian and Georgian-language sources to consider how and why sacred chant (galoba) became a heated space for the negotiation of imperial identity in the South Caucasus. The efforts of the Karbelashvili brothers to canonize their particular chant style as representative of Georgian national identity as a whole (in opposition both to Imeretian and “Russian” chant) will be placed in the broader imperial context in which it took shape. At the heart of this debate was the question of how Orthodoxy sounded: should Orthodox believers worship to a single, shared chant tradition, symbolizing their membership in a single faith community, or were regional variations permissible? Where should religious identity end and national identity begin? Through examining the competing (and sometimes collaborative) narratives and goals of master chanters, the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy, professional musicians and both the Georgian and Russian intelligentsia’s engagement with the project of Georgian chant revival in the Caucasus, this paper demonstrates the interconnectedness of nation, empire and religious identity in late Imperial Russia, as well as the dangers this movement posed to the fledging Bolshevik state after 1917.