SUMMARY:

The present article reconstructs the political theology of the medieval historical epos “Kartlis Tshovreba.” The term “tshovreba” has a double meaning, encompassing both “history” and “salvation.” Thus the history of Kartly was constructed by medieval Georgian historians as a history of salvation and directly associated with Kartly’s Christianization. Through the religious conversion, its population acquired a status of the chosen people, while Kartly as land was perceived as sacral. Political theology of “Kartlis Tshovreba” unfolds between two poles: the heavenly and the mundane glory. The central paradigm of this political theology is based on the ambivalent interpretation of the image of the sacral worrier, who simultaneously suffers and triumphs. While suffering represents a victory in the name of Christ, i.e., the heavenly glory, victory over the infidels as symbolized by the transformation of saint-warriors from sufferers into triumphant heroes, brought closer the notions of heavenly and mundane glories. The symbol of the dual mundane and heavenly glory found its fullest expression in the image of the righteous monarch. This model can be seen in the idealized descriptions of the reigns of David IV and Tamara.
This “martyrology paradigm” of Georgian political theology was successfully applied against Georgia’s Muslim environment. However it presented problems while directed toward the Orthodox Byzantium – and later on toward imperial Russia. In these cases, the legitimization of the “martyrology paradigm” required the representation of the enemy as a religious apostate, and the opposition of the righteous biblical kingdom of David and Solomon to the Roman model of imperialist statehood. The article shows how historical applications of this paradigm added an anti-imperial dimension to the Georgian historical consciousness, finding explicit or latent examples of such anti-imperialism in medieval texts as well as in political narratives of the nineteenth century. The same political theology, in the author’s interpretation, informs the current political processes in Georgia.