Preserving the Past in Soviet Georgia: Restoration of Religious Monuments Behind the ‘Iron Curtain’

Abstract

This article explores the characteristics of preservation and restoration of religious monuments in Georgian SSR during the Soviet rule in the country. The nature of architectural restoration is analysed in the context of the USSR’s twofold approach to heritage sites—from disregard and demolition of ecclesiastical monuments as part of the anti-religious activism and modernization to the emergence of preservationist movement, which gained institutional coherence following World War II. The article shows that despite the controversial heritage politics of Soviet Union, it was during those years that the scientific-methodological approaches to restoration developed in Georgia (at that time, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic). However, rather than following the Soviet post-war reconstruction tendencies, it was implementing the Western European principles of conservation.