The Vast Web of Memory

In September 2023, a fire broke out in one of the buildings of the National Archives in Tbilisi, partially destroying a collection of highly flammable nitrate-based tapes. According to the archives, digital versions of the damaged tapes were preserved.[1] Yet, the fire, once again, stirred up the thoughts and questions I often grapple with concerning these and other repositories of memory.

The National Archives building at 1 Vazha-Pshavela Avenue in Tbilisi has been my compass since childhood – a landmark for orienting myself in the city, helping me explain where my home was or how far I was from others.

The fear of the archive’s destruction has haunted me from a young age. The vulnerability born from the civil war and subsequent political upheavals still lingers – awareness that the building contains highly flammable tapes and materials and that a fire, bombing, electrical surge, or blackout could trigger an explosion, wiping out the entire neighborhood, including my apartment. Yet, back then, I probably couldn’t have imagined just how important the contents of this building would become to me – as a repository of memory, the voice and image of our collective past. Delving into this past would shape my work and fuel my desire to rethink, discern, and narrate our stories. But what if all of this were to be destroyed along with my home?

The building first entered my consciousness as a landmark and later, in adulthood, transformed into a symbol of my fear of non-existence. Or rather, after entering this space, it split into two opposing perceptions that crystallized as questions I still find hard to answer: What is more important – preserving our collective memory or choosing to forget? At this critical juncture in our country’s development, could the right course of action be to probe the hard, petrified body of history and awaken it in relation to the present? This exploration may not signify mere existence nor disappearance but rather an insight into the archive and memory, allowing us to engage with history from a new perspective—one that includes women's voices.

During my childhood, on October 22, 1992, amid the war in Abkhazia, the archive in Sukhumi was set ablaze, destroying 95 percent of its contents. Only a few radio recordings from the 1930s survived, while most 19^th-century documents were completely lost.[2]

Later, the archive – an essential repository of collective memory and a space for reflection – became linked to Abkhazia for me once again. After my first visit to Abkhazia in 2013, an acquaintance asked me to find information about his relative. This research sparked the idea for the Abkhazian Virtual Archives, which my colleagues and I were inspired to create. During the Soviet era, much of the documentation had been centralized, with a large portion stored in the National Archives and other facilities in Tbilisi. Together, we secured funding and began searching for Abkhazia’s burnt archives, uploading the recovered materials to a digital platform. Establishing the virtual archive meant consolidating lost information into a single digital repository, which included not only documents but also audiovisual material. Beyond official records, we sought to gather content from personal archives, driven by the pain of those affected by war and ethnic cleansing. I have often listened to stories of intense regret about family albums left behind in abandoned homes, and how the relationships with and faces of neighbors, friends, and family members slowly faded from memory. We envisioned the virtual archive as a kind of “phoenix,” resurrecting the collective memory and everyday knowledge once captured in random or staged family photos, without any added evaluation or commentary. Despite the challenges of restoring these lost materials, a particular photo of V. Chirikba – one that I came across accidentally – has always kept me inspired. In the image, Nikolai Ioannidis, the chief custodian of Abkhazia's archives, stands amidst the ruins of the destroyed archive, hopelessly holding some of its ashes in his hands.

Creating  Abkhazian Virtual Archives coincided with the production of my personal documentary film, Self-Portrait along the Borderline. The film weaves archival material into my family’s biography, using it as a lens to explore a broader, shared history. The project took about seven years to complete, largely due to the creative decisions I had to make along the way. The most significant obstacle was finding my voice as an author – specifically, defining my perspective. How could I transform deeply personal experiences into a public narrative? How could I tell a first-person story that captured the raw, painful, and unexplored memories of my country? Historically, the privilege of narrating and shaping knowledge about our past has been dominated by men, while women’s stories were often confined to the kitchen. As a result, history seen through women’s eyes rarely entered the larger, more serious discourse. Discussing one’s own biography, especially in relation to politics, was often considered improper. Amid this challenging landscape, I had to find the courage to confront the complex ethnic conflict from the perspective of a fragile and conflicted woman, struggling to reconcile personal reflections with dominant narratives.

In search of answers, I began digitizing my family archives, sifting through dusty VHS tapes from basements and attics, reliving childhood memories. While searching for videos of the school celebrations we had as children, I reconnected with long-lost classmates. I even summoned the courage to watch my own wedding video, which I had only seen once, and unearthed a tape of my parents' wedding as well. Immersing myself in these disorganized, grainy, and often awkward images, I sought to reclaim the past. I gazed into these memories as though looking into a mirror, reflecting on forms of representation and self-representation,[3] trying to see that which I had forgotten – things that were not visible at first glance. I sought to understand what lay behind those faces, smiles, and interiors; to recall the year of each image and feel a sense of pride in knowing what awaited us in the future, both personally and as a nation.

The purpose of the research was to locate and analyze collective, public records – some well – known, others entirely obscure – that depicted historical events, dates, and locations, offering insights into these moments from their creators’ perspective. We explored various archives and also used found footage that captured our interest. The audiovisual material we collected primarily spanned several decades of the Soviet era, with much of the audio originating from the national movement of the 1990s. Consequently, the images and sounds we gathered varied widely in both form and content. Our goal was not to verify the accuracy of documentation or historical facts. Instead, we sought to narrow down these collective records to something personal, as though we were looking for knowledge just beyond – details that could illuminate the lives of people, objects, animals, or buildings captured in the background. We aimed to uncover the subtle, often overlooked sources hidden beneath the dominant narratives of the time in which these materials were created, striving to make images as individual as possible by interpreting them through the creators’ lens – much like how we approached history through a female gaze. In this process, we “restored” our significance and place as women in the re-examination of history, developing new, feminine ways of interpreting and understanding it.[4]

During the editing process, a new, non-anthropocentric layer was added to the two primary archival elements. The disintegration of dominant imagery embedded in our conscious and unconscious minds, along with the deconstruction of family videos, created a need for a new, unifying visual – something to bind this anxious reflection together. Without such a unifying element, a complete understanding of the world and history from a singular perspective would be impossible. While working on the film, I often recalled an image from my home in Abkhazia. Abandoned for years after the war, the house, once full of people, had become the domain of various creatures—microorganisms, fungi, plants, spiders, mice, and rats. The most striking trace of their presence was a massive spider web that divided the room in two. I frequently reflected on how these abandoned homes, now empty of human life, had been claimed by these creatures. They occupied the spaces we left behind, emphasizing how our coexistence in the everyday world is nearly impossible. Beyond merely occupying the space, they seemed to replicate the model of the outside world, pointing to deeper connections or unresolved issues. This missing connection and shift in perception became especially evident and necessary during the film’s editing process.

In the midst of this trouble, the spider's web and the relationship of these weavers to the question of the house became a form of becoming-with.[5] In this case, the connection emerged as a constructed, composite image in the film, weaving together material from different eras and periods. It explored the existence of spiders in Georgia, their migration, and the concept of home, coming together like an invisible web across time and space, spanning various periods, formats, and mediums, blending personal and public material.

Accordingly, the archival memory in the film integrates personal, public, and reconstructed scientific archives. Together with the film’s editor, Eka Tsotsoria, we carefully considered how to present these materials. Several aspects were crucial: maintaining the context so the audience could clearly understand the time period and story, presenting this era through the lens of autofiction, and ensuring a strong female perspective in this act of historical decolonization. On one hand, it was important to convey a political narrative and define the historical context; on the other, we wanted to show that, as a female director and editor, we both harbored doubts about the familiar narrative. To achieve this, we chose to “tame,” “subdue,” and even “disintegrate” the public archival imagery. Sometimes we zoomed in down to the pixel level; at other times, we used the images symbolically. By blending private and public archives, we sought to carve out our own voices within the dominant, patriarchal history, to demonstrate that there is another way of perceiving narrative and memory. We aimed to highlight that history has many layers, and to truly understand it, we must ask deeper questions – incorporating our female biography and gaze into the conversation.

Whether it's the virtual archive, films, or stepping into the physical archive building, I am constantly reminded of the anguished custodian of the Abkhazian archive, holding the ashes of memories in his hands, as though his greatest fear is unfolding on that day. His shattered body, clutching the remnants of documents, has itself become a memory – an enduring reminder that true progress requires re-examination, inquiry, and the discomfort and pain this inevitably brings.

In our alternative narrative, we did not alter the historical significance of the archive; instead, we sought to engage with it, breaking it down to its molecules in order to interpret memory beyond initial, surface impressions. Our inspiration and knowledge were drawn from the rich tradition of film history, borrowing forms and content from both past and present. Entering the archives and transforming information stored within became fundamental for us, while the act of digging through archives remained a constant obsession. Alongside personal and public materials, we found immense inspiration in the oral histories shared by individuals – primarily women. These stories possess a unique power, humanizing the vast, often intimidating body of history, making it more accessible, layered, and comprehensible. In this process, it was crucial to understand how images could create new spaces for contemplating and discussing history. We explored how our female biographies could penetrate the seemingly rigid, ice-cold body of history and begin to thaw it. We also considered how themes like the migration of spiders could take on a political dimension and help weave together a reimagined history. As the saying goes, history, memory, and the past evolve in relation to the present. Within this dynamic, every small story, every person, and every living creature has its place. Consequently, memory and the archive become living, transformative, and often uneasy sources of reflection. This is particularly true in women’s autofiction, where the act of speaking boldly and courageously becomes a political statement in itself.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Tbilisi office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation.