Özet:

Abstract The paper aims to show how it is possible to associate the concept of identity with “ancestral customs” and “cultural memory”. With that purpose the author tries to outline a particular version of collective remembering grounded in the use of ritual resources. With that end in view, the special literature together with the field ethnographic data collected by the author during the years 1976-89 throughout Georgia had been used in the paper. Purposely, the ritual process associated with the early-Christian tradition had been described not as a stereotyped activity, but as related events located within Georgian history. It has also been shown that the mentioned custom bore the function of the ethnic and cultural identification, as foreigners and aliens infiltrated from other countries who performed the custom, in that way were adopted and integrated into the Georgian Christian culture. An emphasize has been made on the importance of the performance of the ritual which became so inseparable and immanent among the inhabitants of Georgia, that in spite of the confessional turbulences of the later periods, it persisted in the environment of a new faith. The main task of the paper was organized around the question: whether it is possible to experience the feeling of identity and wholeness within the Georgian culture throughout the centuries by means of performing an established ancestral ritual. The analysis of the ethnographic data provided the author with clues to the identity, culture and self-understanding of an age-old Georgian society.

Anahtar Kelimeler: