Georgia

Maradiuli ghirebulebebi

მარადიული ღირებულებები

eternal values; shared moral and cultural reference points that sustain continuity through change

Resilience Mechanism

Resilience takes the form of dynamic continuity when shared moral and cultural reference points help a society adapt and rebuild without losing its language, memory or connections between generations.

What It Means

Translated from Georgian, the name means “eternal values”. The concept encompasses seven interconnected pillars: God, homeland, the human person, language, land, faith and family. Together, they connect personal dignity with belonging and responsibility towards family, community and country. Their strength lies in continuity through change.

Shared reference points help determine what must be preserved, what can change and how a society can embrace what is new without losing its cultural foundations. They are transmitted through language, family relationships, faith, education, cultural memory and institutions that connect generations. Digital page

How It Works in a Crisis

During a crisis, shared reference points help preserve direction when familiar institutions and ways of life are disrupted.

They connect present decisions to a longer historical perspective, sustain belonging and provide common ground for collective action. Families and schools transmit language, memory and practices of responsibility; cultural and religious institutions maintain connections between generations; and public institutions adapt to changing conditions. On 14 April 1978, mass peaceful protests in Tbilisi helped preserve Georgian’s status as the state language. Since then, the date has been observed as Mother Language Day—an example of how protecting a culture’s foundations can become a form of collective action.

What happens

Institutions and familiar life are disrupted
What we focus on

Shared moral and cultural reference points
How we act

Language, memory and responsibility are transmitted
What it gives

Continuity and a basis for collective action

A Lesson for Other Countries

Modernisation does not require the loss of cultural identity.

Countries can adopt new technologies, strengthen institutions and engage with a wider world while preserving the language, memory and cultural foundations that sustain belonging.

Values become practical resources for resilience when they are embodied in relationships, practices and institutions and transmitted to the next generation.

Values become practical resources for resilience when they are embodied in relationships, practices and institutions and transmitted to the next generation.

Where It Comes From

The contemporary understanding draws on two influential formulations from Georgian intellectual and spiritual traditions. The triad “Homeland, Language, Faith” — მამული, ენა, სარწმუნოება is associated with the writer and public figure Ilia Chavchavadze. Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II later articulated the triad “God, Homeland, Human” — ღმერთი, სამშობლო, ადამიანი . These formulations reflect a broader historical experience in which language, faith, family and cultural memory sustained continuity during periods of political fragmentation and foreign domination.

This shaped a principle of dynamic continuity: a society can adapt, embrace what is new and rebuild without losing the foundations through which it recognises itself.

What It Looks Like Today

Today, this framework does not exist as a single officially codified list of values. Its practical expressions can be seen in preserving and developing the Georgian language, in education, in the family and cultural transmission of memory, and in the work of archives, museums, religious bodies and public institutions.

Georgian Language Day on 14 April and the State Language Strategy for 2021–2030 show how cultural continuity can become a focus of civic action and public policy. Shared reference points must nevertheless leave room for a multilingual and multireligious society: they unite only when they do not become a test of the “right” form of belonging.

Limits of the Concept

Eternal does not mean unchanging.

The concept should not be presented as a fixed essence of Georgian culture, a complete description of all citizens or a single legitimate model of faith, family or belonging. It describes a cultural mechanism of continuity rather than a political or legislative programme. Shared values cease to function as a resource for resilience when they become instruments of exclusion, coercion or the imposition of one way of belonging to society.

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