• BA Studies: International Relations, faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University from 10/2006 to 07/2010
• MA Studies: European Interdisciplinary Studies, College of Europe (Natolin Campus, Warsaw, Poland) from 09/2010 to 11/2011
• Nationalism Studies Program (not completed) Central European University from 09/2017 to 06/2018
• Academic Assistant for Professor Dr. Oliver Reisner’s course on Europeanization in the South Caucasus, spring semester 2015
• University and Scientific Cooperation Assistant at French Institute of Georgia, from 10/2012 to 08/2017

“Perestroika Legacy at the Museum: Representation of late Soviet & post-Soviet national Memory; example of Georgia and Ukraine”

In the context of the groundbreaking reform agenda of Perestroika and Glasnost in the second half of 1980’s in the Soviet Union, historians from our region had to confront with the simultaneity of subjective memory of victims and objective history reserved for professionals. With this came the imperative of critically assessing the difficult past: civil society organizations, religious and private individuals started looking for the meaning and adequate form to transform and reshape previous sites of memory and mark new spaces, buildings, monuments, exhibitions on the complex topography of terror. Central and local communist elites need to react to such changes at the grassroots level to keep control of the process. Mobilizing collective historical experience into a common myth also takes place at national and presumably more peripheral museums.

The ongoing research looks at four different state museums in a comparative perspective,-two in Georgia and two in Ukraine,- Georgian National Museum, Stalin Museum of Gori, the National Museum “Holodomor victims Memorial” and Kharkiv Historical Museum and analyzes the symbolic language and form of visual representation of contemporary history as well as how it has transformed since Perestroika period until today. I am particularly interested in how the process of late 80’s and post independence patriotization of history translates itself in the museum space, as well as actors behind and question of their agency (Eigensinn). Through written, visual and oral sources: museum council records, exhibition plans and catalogues, oral history interviews with the museum staff I examine to what extent the museums addressed in the study kept Soviet time practices of everyday as well as strategies of positioning themselves vis-à-vis national and international audiences since the late socialism until today.

• Research Colloquium by Professor Dr. Anke Hilbrenner, Department of Eastern European History, Georg-August University Göttingen – 07/2018 – Göttingen, Germany
• Young Researchers’ Seminar “Developing European Studies in the Caucasus”, University of Graz – 04/2016 – Graz, Austria
• Micro-study on a poster by JumpStart Georgia: “Georgians your hero is a mass murderer”, Ilia State University – 02/2013 – Tbilisi, Georgia

• Short grant from international summer school “Greifswalder Ukrainicum” organized by the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald and the University of Greifswald – 06/2019 – Berlin, Germany
• Visiting fellow at Humboldt University of Berlin at the Department of Eastern European History in the framework of Erasmus + short-term mobility grant – 04/2019 – 07/2019 – Berlin, Germany
• Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia and VolkswagenStiftung PhD grant – 03/2018 – Tbilisi, Georgia
• Alumni Scholarship, Central European University – 09/2017 – 06/2018 – Budapest, Hungary
• European Commission grant of academic excellence to pursue master’s degree at College of Europe – 08/2010 – 06/2011 – Warsaw, Poland

” I am honored to be part of this double degree program linking two universities Ilia State University and Georg-August-University of Göttingen with its long-standing research traditions and academic excellence. The program allows me to consult with two doctoral supervisors, one from a Georgian and another from a German University and to have access to a larger scientific community, a library full of up to date books, databases and unique resources and at the same time keeping links with the local context I am working on. Having access to sources as well as generous support to conduct field research is vital for a historian and generally for a researcher of any field, indeed. Moreover, in the framework of the program, I establish necessary contacts and common interest with my fellow academics; I get their feedback which helps me a lot to constantly review, revise and improve my work. “