Analysing Intercultural Space in Georgian Lyrics of the Last Decade of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Artistic text is a mirror of global processes: it reflects migration, transnationalism and intercultural exchange taking place in the world, it participates in the representation and formation of new themes.
Postmodernism, which emerged in the middle of the 20th century, is a complex and multi-layered cultural, philosophical and artistic phenomenon. It is characterised by a sceptical attitude towards universal truths and ideas, an emphasis on subjectivism, and the play of artistic style and forms. Postmodernism has had a radical impact on traditional ideas about the genre and structure of the text, as well as on the transformation of language and thinking.
A lyric poem is an expression of reality, human existence and spiritual condition. It serves to generalise feelings. The main purpose of a lyric poem is to transform the author’s emotional mood into a universal statement. Through it, poetic visions are transformed into artistic texts and empirical data becomes an auxiliary means of expressing feelings.
The difficulties caused by ethno-political conflicts and economic challenges of the last decade of the 20th century in Georgia were directly reflected in the perspective of thinking of the new poetic generation. The poets of the 1990s are called the ‘post-war’ and ‘post-Soviet’ generations. Postmodernist tendencies and socio-cultural issues have gained relevance in their work.
The study of lyric poems by four representatives of the 1990s – Natia Giorgadze, Zaza Tvaradze, Andro Buachidze and Rati Amaglobeli – creates a favourable ground for analysing the intercultural space of the last decade of the twentieth century.
During the period under study, Georgian literature was strongly influenced by postmodernism: playing with quotations, allusion, subjectivism and intertextual abstraction are characteristic features of lyrical works of the ‘post-Soviet’ generation.