Private Letters as Visual Evidence for Disclosure of the Totalitarian Regime
Private Letters as Visual Evidence for Disclosure of the Totalitarian Regime

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims to prove the impact of the totalitarian regime on individuals, society and interpersonal relationships, reflected in personal letters, as well as the consequences of this impact. The research object includes the epistolary legacy of the 19th-century Georgian poet and public figure, the General of the Russian Army, Grigol Orbeliani, and that of the 20th-century Georgian historian, founder and Rector of Tbilisi State University, Ivane Javakhishvili. They both were members of the Georgian society, on extremely different sides, owing to their beliefs and worldviews: the former was an active participant in the creation of the totalitarian regime and represented the foothold of Russian authority in fulfilling the forcible policy in the Caucasus, and the latter was a victim of the totalitarian regime; by keeping the national values, worldviews, and personal freedom, he opposed authority. As a result, he became an object of persecution and insult. The comparative analysis of the two different epochs has once again revealed that Bolshevism was a logical extension of Tsarist Russia’s imperial policy: in both epochs, the Russian sovereignty used similar methods to implement and maintain a totalitarian regime: obtaining the public confidence, dividing the society, encouraging people to denounce and doom each other in order to create successful careers and so on. By bringing the examples from modern life, the work shows that, despite the fact that communism has fallen, its influence on society is still evident.

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