Quaking time
Laura Mafizzoli
What does it mean to open the doors of an uncomfortable, hard-to-digest past?
In these ethnographic vignettes, I show that the past is never powerless, and that intervening in Tbilisi’s public space to commemorate certain figures murdered during the Stalinist Purges (1936–1938) makes the present shudder under the weight of conflicting historical truths.
რას ნიშნავს კარი გაუღო უსიამოვნო და მძიმედ მოსანელებელ წარსულს?
ამ ეთნოგრაფიულ ნახატებში ვაჩვენებ, რომ წარსულს ყოველთვის აქვს ძალა. თბილისის საჯარო სივრცეებში, სტალინურ რეპრესიების დროს მოკლული ფიგურების გახსენება, ახლებურ ბიძგს მისცემს თანამედროვეობას დაპირისპირებულ ისტორიულ ჭეშმარიტებას.
Cosa significa aprire le porte di un passato scomodo e indigesto?
In queste vignette etnografiche, mostro come il passato non sia mai inerme e come intervenire nello spazio pubblico di Tbilisi per commemorare alcune figure uccise durante le Purghe Staliniane (1936-1938) faccia tremare il presente con verità storiche antagoniste.
Laura Mafizzoli is a social anthropologist specialising in the Caucasus and the Balkans, with a focus on memory activism, commemorations and the politics of difficult heritage. She holds a PhD from the University of Manchester, where she researched Gulag memorialisation practices in Tbilisi. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, working on the ERC-funded project MEMPOP: Memory and Populism from Below, for which she explores memory and populism in Istria. She is also working on a monograph based on her PhD dissertation, Between Revelation and Concealment: Crafting Gulag Truths in Tbilisi, Georgia. She has long been interested in graphic storytelling and is now beginning to integrate visual thinking into her ethnographic work.
Meet the author: Laura Mafizzoli
an interview conducted by Otherwise graphic editor Letizia Bonanno
