Mobilization in the Shadow of Probabilistic Military Assistance: A Commentary on Anastasia Shesterinina’s Mobilizing in Uncertainity

Abstract

In Mobilizing in Uncertainty (2021), Anastasia Shesterinina curates a set of memories shared by Abkhaz community members. Respondents explain why they were willing to take such great risks in 1992 in their own words. The result is a locally-valid historical reconstruction leaning heavily on Abkhaz oral histories. It is provocative, beautifully crafted, destined to be translated into both Russian and Abkhaz, and brings something mar-velous to the fi eld. The case is a potent reminder that, sometimes, a month of focused political violence can freeze a map for decades. Because Abkhazia is such a dif fi cult place to access, most accounts of the ideological battles of the early 1990s are informed by materials found in libraries and by interviews conducted in Tbilisi. Meanwhile, however, life has gone on in a rump Abkhaz state. De-facto independence has been a social reality for 30 years. Shesterininina ’ s research design captures and ampli fi es the worldview of her core subjects: self-de fi ned Abkhaz patriots, currently living in Abkhazia. Her respondents remember a war of national liberation. She chose to live for a long time among residents of this unrecognized political organism. She asked a lot of her subjects. She earned their trust gradually. She makes it clear that Mobilization in Uncertainty stands on many shoulders: veterans that shared oral histories, countless deceased elementary school teachers and librarians who organized letter-writing campaigns in Soviet times, and more than one special archive that no other researcher will access. An Abkhaz nation is rei fi ed with survivalist traits in Shesterinina ’ s text: adaptive, creative, and stubborn.