Call for papers

“National Archives of Georgia” with the support of the “Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation” will organize Summer School on the subject of the First Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921). Summer School will be held in Tbilisi, at the National Archives of Georgia on 17-23 July, 2013.

15 participants, among them 10 foreign and 5 local citizens will be selected. Working languages will be Georgian and English (lectures will be directed in Georgian with English simultaneous translation).

Leading Georgian experts will read for attendees 23 lectures during 7 days. There will be 5 modules: Democratic Institutes; Republic and Foreign Countries; Military Affairs; Economic, Culture, Religion, Human Rights, Mass-Media; Practice. Sharing of opinions in frames of roundtable debates will be organized. The participants will be taken to cultural sightseeing tours, museums; they will get acquainted with primary archival sources, photos and cinematography of the respective period.

As far as Tbilisi was the center and even capital (during Caucasian Diet) of the region, all possible archival materials on Caucasus are concentrated at the National Archives of Georgia. Though, most of the materials are not yet explored by Armenian, Azerbaijani, East European and specifically by western scholars. Therefore there are some substantial gaps in their researches. Conclusions of various Caucasian scholars are controversial to each other to say the least. Most of the West European scholars base their conclusions on European archival materials, not always knowing what the reality in the region was. On the other hand, Georgian scholars hitherto have not had an access to the archives of The Great Powers.
 

We aim to gather leading experts or prospective researchers of those countries together, in order to enable them attend lectures and discuss various problems on the roundtable after each module.

The summer school aims to attract scholars from European and Non-European universities, research institutes, independent networks, with a special focus on young researchers. Junior researchers, teaching assistants, PhD students are thus warmly invited to submit their paper proposals. Also we can afford participation of students, interested in politics, history, source studies and related fields.

The summer school calls for proposals for individual papers to be presented in panels, created by the Scientific Committee. The Scientific Committee has discreet right to contact short-listed candidates for holding an interview in order to clarify some additional details. A formal application should be sent to email summerschool@archives.gov.ge and thus include:

1) filled Application form (Download).

The deadline for the submission of filling the application form is 24:00 CET, June 12, 2013. The Scientific committee will either accept or reject the proposals and accepted applicants will be notified till June 21, 2013.

The summer school will cover the following expenses:  

1) Hotel expenses for 7 nights near the National Archives of Georgia;

2) Three meals a day;

3) Excursions, museums, sightseeing tours around Tbilisi and Georgia;

4) Farewell banquet;

5) Round-trip travel expenses may be discussed individually; please, insert the ticket cost in this case.

We look forward to welcoming you at the Summer School in Tbilisi!

Website of the National Archives of Georgia: http://archives.itdc.ge/ge/home
Website of the Shota Rustaveli National Sciense Foundation: http://rustaveli.org.ge/index.php
Website of the project for Georgian citizens: http://archivesummerschoolgeo.blogspot.com/