Empire, Hegemony, and Resistance in Dato Turashvili’s "Flight from the USSR"

This study examines Dato Turashvili’s Flight from the USSR through the intersecting theoretical paradigms of Antonio Gramsci’s concept of “hegemony,” Michel Foucault’s “resistance,” and postcolonial theory. Based on the true story of an attempt by a group of Georgian subalterns to hijack a plane in order to flee the Soviet Union, the novel serves as a rich site of cultural and ideological resistance. The study foregrounds the means by which the Soviet regime exerted hegemonic control not only through political and economic structures but also by “colonizing” the thoughts, language, and cultural identity of its satellite states, including Georgia. Through the lens of Gramsci’s concepts of hegemony and counter-hegemony, the article illustrates how the protagonists' hijacking represents a literal and metaphorical act of resistance against Soviet imperial domination and its enforced conformity. In parallel, drawing on postcolonial theorists such as Edward Said and Homi Bhabha, the study interrogates the novel’s deconstruction of colonial Soviet narratives of unity and progress, revealing them as tools of cultural erasure and imperial subjugation. Turashvili’s narrative thus reclaims the silenced voices of national dissent and reasserts the agency of peripheral identities within a hollow imperial center.