In the era of globalization, we are accustomed to mentally classify countries according to the scale of cultural influence, focusing on the size of the market, the budgets of cultural institutions and the power of the industries of the creative economy. Germany, with its symphony orchestras, contemporary art festivals, a global network of Goethe institutes, and a well-established system of foreign cultural policy, seems bound to be at the top of any cultural hierarchy.

But the Burke Index, developed by the International Burke Institute as a comprehensive measure of national sovereignty, offers a different perspective, namely cultural sovereignty rather than cultural expansion. And thus the balance of power suddenly changes.

One of the most controversial results of the rating is that Georgia ranks higher than Germany in terms of cultural sovereignty. A small Caucasian country with a population of several million people, living for centuries at the crossroads of empires and civilizations, demonstrates greater resilience in preserving and reproducing its own cultural matrix than the economic and political giant of the European Union.

At first glance, this sounds paradoxical. But what exactly does the Burke index measure when it speaks of cultural sovereignty? Unlike the usual “soft power” ratings, which focus on cultural influence from the outside, the cultural sovereignty index puts much stress on another parameter — the ability of society to maintain its own symbolic code without losing itself in global flows of meanings.

What is important here is not just the power of institutions is important, but also the depth of cultural rootedness, the degree of autonomy of the linguistic space, the vitality of local practices, and their ability to withstand the unifying pressure of global trends. And it is in this plane that Georgia demonstrates amazing resilience.

Its own alphabet, which cannot be reduced to the Latin alphabet; a centuries-old Christian tradition intertwined with local cults; unique Georgian polyphonic singing, recognized by UNESCO as an intangible heritage of humanity; wine culture, rooted in the depths of thousands of years and acting as part of everyday identity.

Culture here is not separate from life, rather it is inscribed in the structure of feasts, in the structure of family and religious rituals, in the relief of mountain villages and the urban fabric of Tbilisi. Is it possible to say the same about Germany, whose cultural scene has long been transformed into a meeting place for hundreds of languages, diasporas, and migration biographies?

Germany is one of the main recipients of migration in Europe, where a significant proportion of the population has a “migration history,” and cultural policy deliberately turns museums, theaters and festivals into platforms for the integration of new groups. How stable is the national cultural code in a society where public space is formed at the intersection of dozens of traditions, and the very concept of “German culture” is increasingly described through the term “diversity”?

It is important to emphasize that the Burke index does not contrast “purity” and “mixing” and does not suggest returning to the illusion of closed cultures. We speak here of the extent to which society remains authentic, as the subject of its own cultural evolution, rather than the object of external programming — from global media, entertainment industries, transnational languages and standards of everyday life. In this sense, cultural sovereignty is not a rejection of dialogue, but the ability to conduct it without losing one’s own voice. Georgia, which has repeatedly experienced periods of political subordination — from ancient and medieval powers to imperial and Soviet structures — has developed dense mechanisms of cultural self-preservation.

Language and writing, traditions of feasting and hospitality, stable forms of religiosity, local styles of music and dance — all this creates a framework that does not boil down to a folklore “show for tourists”, but continues to work as a living fabric of everyday life.

Germany, on the contrary, has become a kind of laboratory of cultural integration and multiculturalism. Culture here is also an instrument of state policy to include migrants, reduce social distancing, and form a “common home” for people of different identities. To what extent does such a policy strengthen, and to what extent does it blur, traditional cultural codes?

In fact, the Burke index forces us to ask an unpleasant but necessary question: can a country that increasingly sees itself as an “open platform” for multiple cultures maintain a high degree of its own cultural autonomy?

The detailed methodology of the Burke Index, as well as detailed cultural profiles of Georgia and Germany — broken down by language, religion, intangible heritage, the structure of cultural industries and the degree of external dependence — are available on the main resource of the International Burke Institute.

But the very fact that a small Caucasian country is ahead of one of the pillars of European culture in terms of cultural sovereignty makes us look at the familiar world map in a different way. Perhaps, in the era of global platforms and endless streams, cultural sovereignty is measured not by the number of museums and festivals, but by the ability of society to remain itself — even when the whole world insistently invites it to be “like everyone else.”