Migrations of the russian Language and the State Academic institutions: Notes on its cultivation and Depopularization in Georgia and its peripheries (Abkhazia and South Ossetia)

Abstract

The history of the building, construction, and collapse of states makes it possible to observe the expansion of the Empire’s language and the changes that are taking place in the politics of language and education, including those in higher education. Georgia’s history is a telling example of this. After the Russian Empire came to power, institutions of higher education were established, which included education in Russian as well. Moreover, writing languages were also created for the ethnic groups that made up the Georgian population (Abkhaz and Ossetians) in order to widen their influence and integration into the empire. In the Soviet time, these practices became stronger. After the collapse of the USSR, linguistic priorities in education changed, and institutions in the periphery were divided into those that stayed in the old territories with the new national curriculum and those that moved under the old names to the central locations of the former Soviet republic center (the Abkhaz University in Tbilisi and in Sukhumi).