Postcolonial Utopia and Hope in Grigol Robakidze’s Novel, The Guardians of the Grail

Abstract

Migrant literature plays a key role in shaping national narratives by reinterpreting homeland and memory from a “third space” of displacement (Bhabha, 1994). Early twentieth-century Georgian migrant writing, particularly Grigol Robakidze’s The Guardians of the Grail (1937), offers a significant example. Traditionally read as a remythologization of national collective memory (Tsagareli, 2019; Jaliashvili, 2018), the novel can also be approached as a postcolonial utopia (Ashcroft, 2017). In the context of Soviet occupation and 1930s repressions, the Grail functions as a utopian symbol that preserves hope, continuity, and belief in the nation’s future.