The Epoch of Magna

Capitalist Brands and Postsocialist Revolutions in Georgia

Bibliographic Data

ID4209508
AuthorsPaul Manning (0000-0002-3926-8536, Trent University, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume68
Issue4
Pages924-945
Publication date2009-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSlavic Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-6779 • E-ISSN: 2325-7784
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s003767790002458x
OpenAlexW2587761821
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited29

In this article, Paul Manning explores the metaphoric and metonymic valuations of western brands as symbols of revolutionary change during the recent Rose Revolution and especially during the transition of the early 1990s in Georgia. Using an ethnographic reading of a Georgian novel about the early 1990s,The Dogs of Paliashvili Streetby Aka Morchiladze, Manning examines in detail how a single ubiquitous western brand of cigarettes, Magna-often deployed in opposition to local socialist brands like Kolkheti ("brand totemism")-came to stand metaphorically as a "meta-symbol" for the period of the transition in Georgia as a whole, "the Epoch of Magna." At the same time, the new capitalist conditions of consumption and the proliferation of western brands of cigarettes made differences between brands into metonymic resources for indexing emergent forms of social differentiation and transformed certain brands, like Marlboro, into indexes of the general collapse of public urban order after socialism ("brand fetishism

Aesthetics · Apartment · Art · Communism · Consumption (sociology · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Period (music · Political science · Politics · Social science · Socialism · Sociology · Symbol (formal · History · Law · Philosophy · Post-Communist Economic and Political Transition · Religion and Society Interactions · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

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