ABSTRACT
Ethnic diversity has become one of the major stumbling blocks in Georgia's state-building efforts. The Soviet legacy continues to shape and structure both politically and conceptually the national question in Georgia. The core of the multiculturalism myth was precisely the belief of Georgians that they were the most hospitable, read tolerant of the Soviet peoples. In the first republic, an intensive debate took place on key issues facing Georgia, and nationalism was forced to compete with other powerful political forces and ideological currents; in post-Soviet Georgia nationalism emerged as an unchallenged political monopoly. Georgia's short-lived affair with militant nationalism had ended in failure, and old communist leaders, led by former Foreign Minister of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) Eduard Shevardnadze, came back to power. Successive Georgian governments have either ignored or have been extremely slow in identifying and addressing problems and difficulties that have characterized state-minority relations since independence.
