THE IDENTITIES OF REPATRIATED MUSLIM MESKHETIANS IN GEORGIA

Displacement, the forced change of one’s living place, has influenced the cultural and ethnic identity of many peoples’ lives. This study examines the life of Muslim Meskhetians, people deported from Georgia to the central Asian republics of the Soviet Union in WWII by Stalin’s social policy as “undesirable people”. After 1956 some Muslim Meskhetian families tried to return to their homeland. Formal repatriation of Muslim Mesketians to Georgia started in 1977. The first wave of repatriated Muslim Meskhetians mostly settled in villages near Samtredia and Ozurgeti. After starting implementation of a new repatriation law in 2012, which was adopted in 2007, repatriated Muslim Meskhetians are living in different districts of Georgia, even in their original homeland in the South-West. Based on theoretical concepts of ethnic identity, place identity, and on the quantitative and qualitative research methods the study analyses of social identity complexity (ethnic, civil, and place identity) of Muslim Meskhetians living in Georgia.