<p style="margin-bottom: 0.19in;" align="center" lang="en-GB"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Imperial servant at the head of the state:  Eduard Shevardnadze’s uneasy relations with Russia</span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ff6600;"><span lang="en-GB">in Cornell Svante and Starr Fredrick (eds.), “</span><span lang="en-GB"><em>Guns of August, Russia’s war in Georgia in 2008</em></span><span lang="en-GB">”, New-York, ME Sharpe, 2009</span></span></span></span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Thornike Gordadze</span></strong></span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">French Institute of Anatolian Studies  (IFEA), Caucasus observatory head. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Associated researcher at the CERI</span></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">“Four centuries of resistance!” – so  proclaimed thousands of leaflets distributed in Tbilisi by young  Georgian activists during the August 2008 war with Russia. Analyzing  Georgian-Russian relations solely in terms of resistance is  understandable when Russian tanks were 40 km away from the country’s  capital, but a more balanced assessment requires a more nuanced  understanding of the question. The relationship between a local polity  and an external center of power attempting to establish its domination  is by necessity more complex, definitely equivocal, and essentially  unstable. </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.49in;" align="justify"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #999999; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Throughout history, local rulers have made  deals with empires, and their dependence has never been total. Phases of  military conquest and crude repression have tended to be followed by a  “hegemonic stage,” in which the dominant power seeks to co-opt local  elites. This has even been known to end in a growing dependence of the  imperial power on the local ruler. An eagerness to control the Caucasus  and its central country, Georgia, has been a <em>leitmotiv</em> of all  Russian empires. It was in the Caucasus that imperial pride and dreams  of greatness were nurtured, and where Russia took refuge in order to  deflect frustration away from its continuous resentment vis-à-vis the  West. 
