ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates, with the aid of illustrative cases, the link between the core values of Georgian culture and the working principles of its second economy. It shows that only by first understanding underlying cultural forces can we begin to grasp the reasons why Georgia, of all the Soviet Republics, should possess such a dynamic and deeply entrenched second economy. The method adopts to delineate the core cultural features of Georgian society and which was also used to obtain sociologists' case material is what they term 'retrospective reconstruction'. It is believed that Georgian Jews have a history of settlement at least since the eighth century and that they have consistently enjoyed a freedom of residence and worship unusual in the history of the Jewish diaspora. Georgian families are bilateral: they trace descent on both sides but stress the male line and within it an emphasis on agnates—on the solidarity and mutual obligations of brothers.
