Dilemma webinars: Georgia, Armenia, and the Making of European Modernity

Georgia and Armenia are often viewed as peripheral to the historical development of Europe. This webinar challenges that perspective by drawing attention to the South Caucasus as a dynamic site of political experimentation and cultural innovation—one that has long been entangled with European trajectories, rather than merely shaped by them. Following the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, the short-lived Transcaucasian Federation emerged with the potential to become a non-imperial, social-democratic, and multiethnic polity—an almost unparalleled political experiment in the global context of the early 20th century. At the same time, the region became a laboratory for political and artistic avant-gardes. In Tbilisi, a cosmopolitan and multiethnic metropolis, actors, artists, and thinkers sought to transcend national boundaries. The city became a shared space for diverse communities and gave rise to figures like Niko Pirosmani, Ilya Zdanevich and Sergei Parajanov—artists who resisted national canonization and embodied broader, translocal cultural visions. Meanwhile, Armenian cultural modernity unfolded along decentralized, diasporic lines, shaped by globally dispersed communities whose transnational networks positioned Armenians as key intermediaries between East and West. These “networked” and negotiated identity formations—both Armenian and Georgian—remain strikingly underexplored in dominant cultural and political historiographies of the region. This webinar invites a rethinking of Europeanization—not as the one-way adoption of ideas from metropolitan centers, but as a shared and contested process of co-formation. By tracing longue durée entanglements between the South Caucasus and Europe, we aim to contribute to the broader and urgently needed decolonial reappraisal of global modernity and its legacies. Speakers: Salome Jashi, Documentary Filmmaker (Georgia) Vigen Galstyan, Art Historian (Armenia) Moderator: Zaal Andronikashvili a research fellow at the Centre for Literary and Cultural Research in Berlin and a professor at Ilia State University in Tbilisi Introduction: Weronika Czyżewska-Poncyljusz - Dilemma Academy Program Director Medea Metreveli - Director at Literature Initiative Georgia Webinar Series organized in the framework of Dilemma Mobile Academy Program, which is a platform that answers the need for a new format for exchange and co- creation between Central Europe and the Caucasus.Considered the edges of Europe, these two regions are at the same time the crossroads where most of the interaction, exchange and conflicts between what is “Europe” and “not Europe” happens. Addressing the momentum created by the current geopolitical situation and the need to emancipate, re-define and decolonize the concepts of Central Europe and the Caucasus, our Dilemma Academy was created.The core of the Dilemma Mobile Academy consists of international group of intellectuals, scholars, writers, artists and cultural practitioners form Poland, Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine and other European countries who take part in different program formats: Mobile Academy meetings – debates, seminars, workshops and artistic events organized each time in a different country involved; Summer Schools (for postgraduate students as well as cultural practitioners and educators), Creative Residency program and creation of innovative (in format and content) digital platform. Webinar Series is a part of Dilemma Academy online presence. Each of the webinars involve well known public intellectuals and artists, important for the issues discussed in the framework of the Dilemma Academy with the aim to strengthen the visibility of the program and engage with wider European audiences. June 26, 2025.