The year 2024 is coming to its close. As always, it has been a year of ups and downs. . Now, towards the end of the year, against increasing tensions in many parts of the world, my thoughts are in particular with friends and close colleagues in Georgia and Ukraine in their struggle for a European future. I wish that the new year 2025 will come to all with peace and happiness. Looking back, these are some highlights and special moments from my 2024:

Awards

In April, it was an exceptional honor for me to receive an award from Caucasus University in Tbilisi for my contributions to the study of the Georgian language. The festive ceremony took place on April 15. The prize – a beautiful bronze tree with leaves of Georgian letters – was awarded by Rector Kakhaber Shengelia. I’m most grateful for this recognition of my work. The event was attended by the Ambassador of Sweden to Georgia, H.E. Anna Lyberg. My special thanks to Professor Mariam Manjgaladze, who was the initiator and organizer of the impressive event on the occasion of the Day of the Georgian Language.

In July. I was very honored to receive another token of recognition for my work and contributions to the Georgian language, issued – on my birthday – by Georgia’s State Language Department (link). So nice to meet Maka Tetradze again, who brought the great news to me when I was in Batumi. Thank you so much!

Special meetings

For many years I have had a plan of organising a meeting in Tbilisi and invite colleagues with whom I have cooperated for a long time and who have visited Lund and Malmö universities over the years. The list of invitees was long, and I was very happy that over 40 younger and senior colleagues were able to make it to the event at the restaurant Puris Sakhli in Tbilisi’s Old town. At the occasion, this slideshow was shown capturing both our earlier and more recent academic and post-academic moments. Many thanks to TSU-colleagues Professor Alexandre Kukhianidze and Dr Nana Janashia who helped me to arrange the event. Thank you all for coming, I was so happy to see you all!

Another special event was the two-day visit to Malmö and the Øresund region of the board members of the Friends of Georgia Society, Sweden, with chairman Sven Holmström. It was a pleasure to host the group at Malmö University and to moderate the meeting at Caucasus Studies & RUCARR. Thank you to all colleagues for interesting presentations on a number of very diverse Georgia-related topics.  

On the second day of the visit we went together to the unique local winery Vejby Marani Winery that among several types of wine, also makes the orange kvevri wine. The huge kvevri vessels had been brought from Georgia. Dinner at the Georgian restaurant Mimino in Copenhagen concluded the visit.

Summer events

I spent most of the summer in Batumi. The main event was the organisation of the art exhibition Intensive Geometry at the Gallery of Batumi Art State Museum, with abstract oli paintings by Leri and Revaz Tchantouria (Adjara TV). This was a retrospective exhibition; Revaz and Leri showed their artwork at an exhibition at Falsterbo Art Hall (Sweden) already in 1994.

Summer retreat in Värmland

I very much enjoyed the creative meeting with Märta-Lisa Magnusson in beautiful Värmland, planning for an English version of our anthology based on fieldwork in South and North Caucasus in the late Soviet period. Stay tuned, this is scheduled for 2025!

Two PhD theses on Caucasian languages

PhD dissertations involving the languages of the Caucasus do not appear so often in Europe. This year, it was a priviledge to involved in two such theses. In the spring I was member of the defense committee when Jesse Wichers Schreur  defended his very interesting PhD thesis on Tsova-Tush — Intense language contact in Eastern Georgia: The case of Tsova-Tush at the Institute for Empirical Linguistics at Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main. The second PhD dissertation by Filip Larsson Nominal and Verbal Affixation in the Caucasus (General Linguistics, Lund University). Here, I was part of the team iof supervisors.

Conferences

The fall is often the time of conferences. In September I participated in the 4th International Kartvelological Congress, Tbilisi, Georgian Academy of Sciences, September 25-27, 2024 with my presentation “Exploring the linguistic landscape of Old Batumi. The Case of Zviad Gamsakhurdia Street”. A glimpse, cf. photo to the right.

In mid October I was invited as keynote speaker to the VI International Interdisciplinary Symposium of Young Scholars in the Humanities – “Kartvelian Studies: History, Modernity, Perspectives” , Tbilisi State University, October 11-13. I gave the presentation “Language Use. Among Svanetians in the late 1990s. A Questionnaire Study in Kemo-Svaneti”.

In Memoriam

Within less than one year I have lost both my dear sisters-in-law, Marina and Helena. It’s still so difficult to grasp. We lost Marina in November last year. According to the Georgian tradition, relatives and friends meet again 40 days after the person passed away. In the beginning of January 2024, we gathered again at the cemetery and for a memorial supra in Tbilisi. The photo is from Marina’s native Sukhumi in the late 1980s.

In the end of September this year, our dear Helena left us. So many years together, so many memories and sharing of all family events. We miss her so much. She was active to the end and we can’t yet understand that she is not just travelling, that she often did, being a journalist. The photo to the right is taken at Christmas 2023.

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A festive end of the year 2024

It was a very nice evening at Malmö Opera, where we watched and listened to the new musical Joyride, based on music my the Swedish Roxette. A very festive end of the year 2024!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025!