On November 9, the International Research Centre for Georgian Studies at Caucasus University hosted a public discussion and book presentation featuring Nana Sharikadze (Affiliated Associate Professor at Caucasus University) and Eka Kiknadze (Associate Professor at Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Film Georgia State University), authors of a monograph supported by an internal research grant from Caucasus University.

The monograph examines the period of Mikhail Vorontsov’s administration in Georgia and explores the cultural transformations of the mid-nineteenth century in the context of Russian imperial policy. Theatre and opera, the press and education, religious institutions and salon culture, the urban environment and visual culture were associated not only with modernization and the dissemination of European culture, but also served as instruments of imperial governance and integration.

Drawing on colonial and postcolonial studies, the monograph analyses these processes across epistemic, institutional and spatial dimensions. It addresses a central question: how could culture simultaneously create new opportunities and serve to strengthen political influence and facilitate imperial integration?