Many Georgian writers are well known not only in their country, but also far beyond its borders, especially in Russia. In this article we will present some of the most prominent writers who have left the most noticeable mark in the culture of their country.
Classic literature
One of the most famous writers of the 20th century is the author of novels and epics Chabua Amirajibi. He was born in 1921 in Tiflis. In 1944, he was arrested for participating in the political group White George, sentenced to 25 years in prison.
He managed to escape three times, and the last time his fake documents were so good that Chabua became the director of the plant in Belarus. However, as a result, he was again arrested and sent to the camp.
In 1953, Chabua Amirajibi, one of the active participants in the uprising of prisoners in Norilsk, was released only in 1959. In the 90s he was a deputy of the Georgian parliament, in 2010 he openly blamed the regime of President Mikheil Saakashvili. In the same year, he was tonsured a monk. He died in 2013. The writer was 92 years old.
The main novel by Chabua Amirajibi is "Date Tutashkhia", which he wrote from 1973 to 1975. This is an epic work in which the author drew a reliable panorama of pre-revolutionary Georgian society. Date Tutashkhia - the main character, whose name is the same as the character of Georgian mythology, sets a goal to eradicate all evil in the world, but this leads him to conflict with the state and law. Date becomes an exile.
In 1977, based on this novel, the serial film "Shores" was shot.
Luke Razikashvili
Another famous Georgian writer and poet is Luka Razikashvili. He was born in 1861, wrote poems, plays and poems. In literature, he is better known by his pseudonym - Vazha Pshavela.
Vazha began writing in 1881; he wanted to get a higher education in St. Petersburg, but he could only become a volunteer at the faculty of law.
The main theme of his work is socio-ethnographic. Vazha Pshavela tells in detail about the life and traditions of the highlanders, their customs and way of life.
At the same time, he manages to outline a brewing conflict between the old and the new way of life, which he therefore managed to consider one of the first. In total, he wrote 36 poems and about 400 poems.
In Russia, his work is well known in translations of Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva.
Leader of the national liberation movement
The Georgian poet and writer Akaki Tsereteli is a prominent thinker, national and public figure. He was born in 1840, and devoted his whole life to the struggle against tsarism and serfdom.
Most of his works of art have become classic examples of nationality and ideology. The most famous of them are "Imereti Lullaby", "Song of the Workers", "Desire", "Chonguri", "Dawn", "Little Kakhi", "Bagrat the Great", "Natela". They brought up many patriotic ideals in the Georgian people.
Akaki Tsereteli died in 1915 at the age of 74.
"I, grandmother, Iliko and Illarion"
The author of the novel "I, Grandmother, Iliko and Illarion" Nodar Dumbadze is very popular in Georgia. He was born in Tiflis in 1928. He worked in the magazines "Dawn" and "Crocodile", was a screenwriter at the film studio "Georgia-Film".
He wrote his most famous novel in 1960. The novel is dedicated to a Georgian boy named Zuriko, who lives in a small village. The action takes place in pre-war Georgia. The main character is a schoolboy who encounters first love, then escorts adult villagers to the Great Patriotic War, with those of them who remain alive, rejoices in victory over fascism.
After school, Zuriko entered the university in Tbilisi, but after graduating, she nevertheless returned to her native village to stay with her most faithful and loving friends until the end of her life. In 1963, the novel was filmed, under the same name, he went to the studio "Georgia-Film".
Nodar Dumbadze died in 1984 in Tbilisi, he was 56 years old.
Canalia
In 1880, the future classic of Georgian literature, Mikhail Adamashvili, was born in Tiflis province. He published his first story in 1903, then he came up with a pseudonym. Since then, everyone knows him under the name of Mikhail Javakhishvili.
After the October Revolution, he was in opposition to the Soviet government, was a member of the National Democratic Party of Georgia. In 1923, the Bolsheviks arrested him and sentenced to death. Mikhail Savvich was justified only with the guarantee of the Georgian Writers Union. Outwardly, he was reconciled with the Soviet regime, but in reality the relationship remained difficult until his death.
In 1930, he was accused of Trotskyism, only with the coming to power of Beria a new sentence was canceled. Javakhishvili even began to print, and his novel "Arsen from Marabda" was filmed.
Soviet ideologists condemned his 1936 novel, The Women's Burden, by stating that the Bolsheviks in it were represented by real terrorists. After this, the writer refused Beria to describe the work of the Bolsheviks in pre-revolutionary Georgia. In 1936, he supported Andre Gide, and he was declared an enemy of the people.
In 1937, Mikhail was arrested for anti-Soviet provocation and shot. Until the end of the 50s, his works remained banned, only after debunking the cult of the personality of Stalin, the Georgian writer was rehabilitated, and the novels began to be reprinted.
He created his most famous novel, Canalia, in 1924. It describes how a famous crook named Kvachi Kvachantiradze travels around St. Petersburg, Georgia, Stockholm and Paris. He manages to get into the chapel to Grigory Rasputin, into the royal palace, to take part in the First World and Civil Wars. He paves his way to success and glory through the bedrooms of the first beauties of the Russian Empire and rogues.
The name of the assertive rogue has become a household name; in Georgia he is put on a par with Ostap Bender, Figaro and Casanova.
Georgian science fiction
A prominent representative of Georgian fiction is Guram Dochanashvili. He was born in Tbilisi in 1939. He wrote many novels, short stories, and essays. First of all, he is known in Russia for such works as “Song without words”, “There, beyond the mountain”, “Give me thrice”.
The main topics that he explores in his books are love, friendship, service to art.
Konstantin Gamsakhurdia
Gamsakhurdia is a well-known Georgian philologist and literary historian, writer, born in 1891. After graduating from German universities, he became one of the most influential prose writers of the 20th century.
After studying in Europe, he returned to Georgia in 1921, when the power of the Bolsheviks was already established here. At first he reacted neutral to the new rulers, but with the growth of Sovietization, the oppression of freedoms and the development of the machine of repression, he began to deliver anti-Bolshevik speeches.
He created the "Academic Group", which called for art outside politics. In 1925, the first novel was published under the name "The Smile of Dionysus", in which his aesthetic and philosophical views are presented in the most detail. The protagonist is an intellectual born in Georgia, somewhat similar to the author himself, who is sent to discover life in Paris. In an unfamiliar city, he remains a stranger, divorced from his roots. Soviet critics accused the author of decadence.
In 1924, an anti-Soviet uprising in Georgia was defeated, Constantine was expelled from Tbilisi University, where he lectured on German literature. In 1926, Gamsakhurdia was arrested; he received 10 years for participating in an anti-Soviet uprising. He served time in the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp, spent more than a year in custody, and was released ahead of schedule.
Creativity Gamsakhurdia
During the years of Stalinist terror, he worked on his main work - a novel about the fate of the artist under the totalitarian system "The hand of the great master." It was written in 1939.
Events unfold in the XI century, when, by order of Tsar George I and the Catholicos Melchizedek, the Georgian architect Arsakidze is building the Svetitskhoveli Orthodox Church. The fates of the main characters of the novel are woven into a real tragic tangle, both claim the love of the beautiful daughter of the feudal lord Talakva Kolonkelidze - Shorena. They are torn between feeling and duty. The writer comes to the tragic conclusion that no man can be happy in a totalitarian society. Both heroes come to disappointment and death, they become victims of a totalitarian regime, although by external signs they are on different sides of the government. In his work, Gamsakhurdia in allegorical form describes the tragedy of the rule of Stalin.
Similar topics are dedicated to his tetralogy "David the Builder", which he wrote from 1946 to 1958. Its events unfold in the XII century during the heyday of the Georgian feudal state.
In 1956, in the novel "Flowering Vines," Gamsakhurdia describes the collective farm peasantry, which once turned barren lands into vineyards. In 1963 he completed the memoirs "Communication with ghosts", which were forbidden to publish, and were published only after 1991.
Lavrentiy Ardaziani
The founder of realism among Georgian authors is Lavrenty Ardaziani. It was he who prepared the fruitful kidney for critical realism in this country.
He was born in Tiflis in 1815, studied at a parish school, entered the theological seminary, since his father was a priest.
After receiving education for a long time I could not get a job until I got a small clerical position in the Tiflis district administration. In those same years, begins to collaborate with literary magazines, prints journalistic articles, translates the tragedy of Shakespeare "Hamlet" into Georgian.
His most famous novel was written in 1861, it is called "Solomon Isakich Medzhganuashvili." He describes a merchant-money-grubber and a real financial predator. In the novel "Traveling on the Sidewalks of Tbilisi" realistically talks about the life of the city, the bullying of officials over ordinary people.
In his polemical articles he defended the ideas of the "new generation", advocating the development of realism in literature.
Jemal Karchkhadze
Karchkhadze is considered by researchers of literature to be one of the most significant Georgian prose writers in the 20th century. He was born in the Van city municipality in 1936.
He wrote his best works in the Soviet Union in the 80s. In 1984, his novel Caravan was released, and in 1987, Antonio and David.
Also known as the author of storybooks "Day One," "The Eleventh Commandment."
Rezo Cheishvili
Another Georgian writer that needs to be mentioned in this article is screenwriter Rezo Cheishvili. The scripts for films brought him popularity, for which he received not only popular love and recognition, but also state awards.
In 1977, according to his script, Eldar Shengelaya shot the tragicomedy "Stepmother Samanishvili" about pre-revolutionary Georgia, the next year came the picture of Devi Abashidze "Kvarkvara" in which Cheyshvili painted a vivid political satire on the petty-bourgeois pre-revolutionary world.
He received the State Prize for the script for the comedy Eldar Shengelia "Blue Mountains, or an implausible story" about a young author who brings his story to the publisher, but everyone does not publish it. This happens due to the fact that everyone there is busy with anything, but not with work. The director sits on the podium for days on end and spends time at banquets; for some reason, the editors themselves learn French, cook dinner or play chess. The manuscript of a young writer is read only by a painter accidentally in the editorial office.
Rezo Cheyshvili died in Kutaisi in 2015.