Does Georgia belong to the Central and East European space? Why did the Georgian government begin distancing itself from Europe just as the country received an invitation to join the European Union? And will Georgia have a third chance for Europeanisation?
We invite you to a public lecture by David Darchiashvili, Professor at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, who will explore Georgia’s geopolitical position, its historical relationship with Europe, and the political, cultural, and material forces shaping where the nation belongs.
Lecture: East European Geopolitics and Georgia: Where does the nation belong?
Date and time: Monday, 14 September 2026, 15:00–16:30
Location: Faculty of Arts, Charles University (nám. Jana Palacha 1/2, Prague 1), room P104
Registration: HERE
The lecture will be followed by a discussion with the audience.
The event will be held in English. Admission is free, registration is required, and capacity is limited.
Annotation
Throughout generations, geopolitics has been – and remains – a controversial concept. While not completely embracing contemporary critical geopolitics, the lecture builds on its premise, as well as on the contemporary border studies approach, that spatiality in politics and international relations is largely socially constructed. The definition of the place of particular countries or regions is therefore contingent, fluid, and historical.
Can the Caucasus, and Georgia within it, be regarded as part of the Central and Eastern European space – a region that has itself undergone many redefinitions? This is not merely a matter of physical geography, although so-called territorial capital plays a role, but also one of political, cultural, and material will.
Without going deeply into ancient and medieval history, it can be said that in modern times Georgia has twice moved closer to European civilisation. The first instance began with the emergence of Georgian nationalism and culminated in the declaration of independence in 1918, largely in line with Western standards. This experiment, eloquently described by Stephen Jones as “Socialism in Georgian Colours”, lasted less than three years.
Following the collapse of Soviet totalitarianism, in which Georgia was a core actor, the nation gained a second chance for Europeanisation. After years of turmoil, the country eventually received an invitation to join the European Union. Paradoxically, at that very moment, the Georgian government began not moving closer to Europe, but distancing itself from Europe in general – and particularly from its central and eastern part, where many of Georgia’s traditional friends were concentrated.
Is this an illogical deviation from Georgia’s historical path? Does it have its own rationale? Will there be a third chance for Georgia? During the lecture, David Darchiashvili will formulate several assumptions in response to these questions.
About the speaker
David Darchiashvili is Professor at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia. He graduated from Tbilisi State University and was a Fulbright Fellow at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., in 2002–2003. He teaches national and regional security at Ilia State University.
He is the author of several books and articles, including Georgia: The Search for State Security (Caucasus Working Papers, CISAC, Stanford University, 1997); “Civil-Military Relations in a Newly Independent Transitional State: The Georgian Case”, published in Albrecht Schnabel and Hans-Georg Ehrhart (eds.), Security Sector Reform and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding (United Nations University Press, 2005); and “Soviet Path Dependency as an Impediment to Democratization in Georgia”, published in Modernization in Georgia, Interdisciplinary Studies 18 (Bern, 2018).
From 2008 to 2012, David Darchiashvili served as a member of the Georgian Parliament and chaired its Committee on European Integration.
The event is organised by the Department of East European Studies (ÚVES) in cooperation with Center for Multidisciplinary Area Studies (CenMAS) and the ERA-AREAS project, which supports the development of research and teaching in area studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. The project is funded by the European Union.
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