''Eteriani'' ( ka, ეთერიანი, " he taleof Eteri") is a Georgian folk epic romance which has come down to us in the form of about 70 pieces of oral prose and poetry, probably dating from the 10th or 11th century. Variants also exist in the

sister language In historical linguistics, sister languages are cognate languages; that is, languages that descend from a common ancestral language, their so-called proto-language. Every language in a language family that descends from the same language as the o ...

Mingrelian Mingrelian may refer to: *the Mingrelians *the Mingrelian language Mingrelian or Megrelian (, ) is a Kartvelian language spoken in Western Georgia (regions of Mingrelia and Abkhazia), primarily by the Mingrelians. The language was also called ...

, Laz, and Svan. ''Eteriani'' is a love story of a

Cinderella "Cinderella",; french: link=no, Cendrillon; german: link=no, Aschenputtel) or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsi ...

-like peasant girl Eteri and Prince Abesalom who decides to marry her against the will of his father, a king. Abesalom’s courtier Murman also falls passionately in love with Eteri and sells his soul to the devil to make the marriage impossible. Through sorcery, he makes Eteri ill and persuades the prince into surrendering the girl to him as Murman possesses the only remedy for her illness. Abesalom does not survive the breakup and dies, prompting Eteri to commit suicide. The two are buried together, but Murman buries himself alive among them. Even after death, he becomes an obstacle for a reunion of the lovers: a hedge grows on his tomb, interfering between a rose and a violet which grow on the tombs of Abesalom and Eteri and lean to each other into an embrace. A purely folklore version of the epos, a tale, was first published in the Georgian press in 1858. A more complete publication by the Georgian folklorist Petre Umikashvili followed in 1875. The romance inspired the Georgian writer

Vazha-Pshavela Vazha-Pshavela ( ka, ვაჟა-ფშაველა), simply referred to as Vazha ( ka, ვაჟა) (26 July 1861 – 10 July 1915), is the pen name of the Georgian poet and writer Luka Razikashvili ( ka, ლუკა რაზიკა� ...

(1861–1915) to write his poem ''Eteri'', and composer

Zakaria Paliashvili Zacharia Petres dze Paliashvili ( ka, ზაქარია ფალიაშვილი, ''Zakaria Paliaşvili''), also known as Zachary Petrovich Paliashvili (russian: Захарий Петрович Палиашви́ли, ''Zacharij Petrovi� ...

(1871–1933) to create his classical opera '' Abesalom and Eteri''.

References

* Chikovani, Mikheil. "ეთერიანი" (''Eteriani''). ''K’art’uli sabch’ot’a ents’iklopedia'' (Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia), vol. 4, p. 48.

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million p ...

: 1979. * Shorena Kurtsikidze & Vakhtang Chikovani, ''Ethnography and Folklore of the Georgia-Chechnya Border: Images, Customs, Myths & Folk Tales of the Peripheries,'' Munich: Lincom Europa, 2008. Middle Georgian literature Georgian folklore Georgian mythology Medieval legends Laz mythology {{Georgia-stub