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The author analyzes the recent and traditional political and ideological trends in Georgian nationalism. He points out that it is based on a fairly mature political tradition and is largely developing as a civil movement. Its present polarization and fragmentation are an inevitable outcome of the political debates about the role Georgia is playing in the region and its relations with Russia.

The author analyzes the political and traditional trends in the ideology of contemporary Georgian nationalism. He concludes that it relies on a developed political tradition and is functioning as a primarily civil movement. The Georgian Orthodox Church is developing traditional forms of Georgian identity; the traditional trends in Georgian nationalism became even more obvious in May 2013 when sexual minorities stepped up their activities. Political debates about Georgia's role in the region and its relations with Russia have divided Georgian nationalists.

Today, Russian narratives have moved to the fore in Georgian nationalism and have a special role to play in its development. For a long time, Georgia was part of the Russian Empire, and then the Soviet Union, which Georgian national consciousness regarded as a predominantly "Russian" state. Disintegration of the Soviet Union and Georgia's regained independence opened a new stage in Georgia's relations with Russia. The discourse on history, which concentrates on contemporary political figures, is intimately connected with a particular political myth that presupposes the presence of certain political images ("others"). The post-Soviet expanse interpreted the collapse of communism as "disintegration of the official collective memory," which revived its numerous "unofficial narratives" related to the "images" of various states, including Russia. In the 1990s, when South Ossetia and Abkhazia detached themselves from Georgia, Georgian politicians and nationally-biased intellectuals imposed the "victim syndrome" on their nation and blamed regional separatism on the "hand of Moscow." "Deconstruction of the historical mythogenesis" of the Soviet period and the gradual crumbling of Russia's image as the "elder brother" contributed to these interpretations. The political changes of the early 2000s and Mikhail Saakashvili's attempt to cut the Gordian knot of regional problems in August 2008 merely confirmed the anti-Russia stand of the nationalist-minded Georgian ideologists, which inevitably added to the tension between the two countries.

The political upheavals of the 2000s caused by the post-authoritarian landslide pushed to fore the problem of nations and nationalism and the question of further development routes. In 2003, President Shevardnadze lost his post: this marked a turning point in Georgia's history, which has since been grossly hyperbolized within Georgia's nationalist discourse. T. Avaliani, for example, has the following to say on this score: "In November 2003, after two civil wars and 12 years of post-Soviet turmoil and suspense, Georgia was the first among the Soviet-successor states to tear down the Iron Curtain of the Russian Empire. The Rose Revolution, which liberated the Georgian people from imperial dictatorship and communist legacy, began building a new, civilized, and democratic state." Today, the revolution is seen as a key event in Georgia's current political history. G. Areshidze, a prominent political scientist, commented on the post-revolutionary situation as follows: the new elites inherited a country with a "quasi-balanced constitutional foundation, legislative power … a business community that the state could not control … and several semi-democratic political parties." In the latter half of the 2000s, therefore, Georgian nationalism remained exposed to pressure from various actors. The Rose Revolution of November 2003 brought to power new political leaders headed by Mikhail Saakashvili who were even more open about their political nationalism than their predecessors and more confirmed Westerners. They believed that the country's future was associated with the European Union and NATO. Scared of Russian nationalism (the revival of which became obvious in the 2000s) the Georgian political elite was determined to move out of the post-Soviet political expanse. It seems that President Saakashvili is a political leader who, having come to power amid political turmoil with democratic slogans, is very much susceptible to radicalization. Such leaders tend to rely not only on slogans, but also on principles stemming from ethnic, rather than civilian, nationalism. Georgian journalist G. Vekua argues that Mikhail Saakashvili, armed with the "policy of Westernization," tried to de-Sovietize Georgian statehood in the most radical way: he was determined to "speed up, harshly and even by force, the emergence of a purely bourgeois state known as a 'nation-state' in political science and sociology." On the other hand, Saakashvili insisted on radical reforms, while the gap between the real situation and the Georgian elite's political plans and ambitions created a crisis and fanned ethnic nationalism. In the 2000s, Georgia was faced with a conflict between two, still half-baked, political institutions—the national (nationalizing) state and civil society; Georgia's fairly shallow democratic potential was exhausted, which pushed the regime closer to authoritarianism amid crisis trends. Belarusian political scientist V. Chernov has offered the following comment on the 2003 political changes: "In Georgia one authoritarian leader replaced another through yet another, this time bloodless, coup they called the Rose Revolution. It turned out to be a coup 'from below' realized by the counter-elite under democratic slogans."

Georgian nationalism is one of the main factors defining the formation of the political expanse in Georgia. Studies on national relations and the history of the autonomous formations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia have acquired particular relevance in the development of Georgian nationalism. Contemporary Georgian nationalists negatively assess the fact that Georgia was part of the Soviet Union: "Georgia was a country enslaved by Russia and Georgians lived in the Russian state, themselves becoming victims of the crimes of that state." Contemporary nationalist-minded historians in Georgia believe that at the beginning of the 1920s, the country was forcibly annexed to the Soviet Union, and Moscow's policy in Georgia did not meet the interests of the Georgian people. For example, Levon Toidze shows that "after the forced Sovietization of Georgia (February-March 1921), two equal ( sic! ) Soviet socialist republics of Georgia and Abkhazia were formed in its territory. This political and legal nonsense was the result of the negligent attitude toward Georgia's national interests." Levon Toidze bases his analysis of Soviet national policy in Georgia on the firm belief that the Soviet model of resolving and settling national problems dramatically differed from the strategy by which the leaders of the Georgian Democratic Republic (which was eliminated after annexation to the Soviet Union) were guided. So he emphasizes that "the idea of independence was supported and highly popular among the non-Russian nationalities, including the Caucasian. Georgia brought this idea to fruition in May 1918 by restoring its independence. Restoration of national statehood and the formation of the Georgian Democratic Republic were extremely important and joyous events in the history of the nation. Prominent officials of Abkhazia also genuinely shared the joy of the Georgian people at that time. We know that the Act of Independence of 26 May, 1918 was also signed by upstanding Abkhazians Varlam Shervashidze and Arzakan Emukhvari." Levon Toidze believes that whereas as part of Georgia the Abkhazians and Ossetians had the opportunity to develop and preserve their national cultures, languages, and traditions, Sovietization of these regions inevitably turned into Russification. In this respect, he stresses: "As for the question of Abkhazia joining the R.S.F.S.R., it can be evaluated as the logical result of the seditious policy conducted by certain political, clerical, and other forces, first of czarist and then of Soviet Russia, to alienate Abkhazia from Georgia, eliminate the Georgian language and Georgian culture from Abkhazia, and introduce the Russian language and Russian culture into the Abkhazian milieu (which was achieved)." This shows a certain politicization of historical knowledge in present-day Georgia. History is used as a tool not only for political mobilization, but also in disputes with neighboring states with which Georgia has territorial conflicts. It is also worth noting that the arguments of Georgian historians in this context are politicized. Georgian nationalist authors are guided by political values and the ideas of the greater Georgian political and civilian nation, and not by ethnic myths, which is largely characteristic of their ideological opponents, the nationalist historians of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The newly independent states in Central Asia were not the only regional result of the Soviet Union's disintegration in the early 1990s. It also led to a boost in nationalisms in the Central Asian countries, which have become a significant political force and are especially active in language, culture, and the academic sphere. The collapse of the common state changed the status of the local nationalisms, infused them with much more vigor, and led to their institutionalization. It can even be surmised that the independent Central Asian states appeared not only because the Soviet Union disappeared and left a vacuum, but also because the mounting national and nationalist movements were accumulating popular dissatisfaction with the Center. This made nationalism one of the major factors in the emergence of the independent states in Central Asia. Tajik, Turkmen, and Uzbek nationalisms functioned in authoritarian states with prominent colonial political legacies. These two factors largely affected the development of regional nationalisms. The region's post-Soviet nature was manifested by the continuity between the Soviet and new national forms of political authoritarianism. The nationalist movements in the Tajik, Uzbek and Turkmen Soviet Socialist republics played an important role in undermining and finally destroying the Soviet system. As distinct from Central Europe, they never helped the nations to move away from authoritarianism to democracy. In Soviet times, political discussions in the Central Asian republics were launched and channeled by political elites totally dependent on the republican communist parties. Independence also shifted this role to the politicians closely connected with the Soviet and party leaders. Saparmurat Niyazov's dictatorship in Turkmenistan turned out to be the most unique phenomenon among the post-Soviet authoritarian regimes in Central Asia. The authoritarian system, which existed in Turkmenistan between 1990 and the first half of the 2000s, was a close relative of the late Soviet authoritarian regime in the Turkmen S.S.R. In his speeches, President Niyazov dwelt in detail on the political meanderings of the republic's history: "Today, Turkmenistan is taking the first and, therefore, the hardest steps toward its resurrection. In fact, it is creating its own sovereign history and statehood. Its history is old and brimming with events, but today we have made a fresh start. We are free from the burden of old insults, ideologies, phobias, political clichés, and national labels."