Vazha-Pshavela ( ka, ვაჟა-ფშაველა), simply referred to as Vazha ( ka, ვაჟა) (14 July 1861 – 10 July 1915), is the pen name of the Georgian poet and writer Luka Razikashvili ( ka, ლუკა რაზიკაშვილი). "Vazha-Pshavela" literally means "a son of

Pshavi Pshavi ( ka, ფშავი) is a small historic region of northern Georgia (country), Georgia, nowadays part of the Mtskheta-Mtianeti ''mkhare'' ("region"), and lying chiefly among the southern foothills of the Greater Caucasus mountains along t ...

ans" in Georgian.

Life

Vazha-Pshavela was born into a family of clergymen in the little village of Chargali, situated in the mountainous

province of Eastern Georgia. His appreciation of nature and hunting was influenced by his uncle, , with allusions to his uncle appearing in his literary work. He graduated from the Pedagogical Seminary in Gori 1882, where he associated closely with Georgian populists (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

term ''narodniki''). He then entered the faculty of Law of

St. Petersburg University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

(Russia) in 1883, as a non-credit student, but returned to Georgia in 1884 due to financial constraints. Here he found employment as a teacher of the

Georgian language Georgian (, ) is the most widely spoken Kartvelian language, Kartvelian language family. It is the official language of Georgia (country), Georgia and the native or primary language of 88% of its population. It also serves as the literary langu ...

. He also attained prominence as a famous representative of the National-Liberation movement of Georgia. Vazha-Pshavela embarked on his literary career in the mid-1880s. In his works, he portrayed the everyday life and psychology of his contemporary Pshavs. Vazha-Pshavela is the author of many world-class literary works – 36 epics, about 400 poems ("Aluda Ketelauri", "Bakhtrioni", "Gogotur and Apshina", " Host and Guest", " Snake eater", "Eteri", "Mindia", etc.), plays, and stories, as well as literary criticism, journalism and scholarly articles of ethnographic interest. Even in his fiction he evokes the life of the Georgian highlander with a near-ethnographic precision and depicts an entire world of mythological concepts. In his poetry, the poet addresses the heroic past of his people and extols the struggle against enemies both external and internal. (poems A Wounded Snow Leopard (1890), A Letter of a Pshav Soldier to His Mother (1915), etc.). In the best of his epic compositions, Vazha-Pshavela deals powerfully with the problems raised by the interaction of the individual with society, of humankind with the natural world and of human love with love of country. The conflict between an individual and a temi (community) is depicted in the epics ' (1888, Russian translation, 1935) and ''Guest and Host'' (1893, Russian translation 1935). The principal characters in both works come to question and ultimately to disregard outdated laws upheld by their respective communities, in their personal journey toward a greater humanity that transcends the merely parochial. The poet's overarching theme is that of a strong-willed people, its dignity, and its zeal for freedom. The same themes are touched upon in the play ''The Rejected One'' (1894). Vazha-Pshavela idealizes the Pshavs' time-honoured rituals, their purity, and their 'non-degeneracy' comparing and contrasting these with the values of what he considers 'false civilization'. He argues that 'Every true patriot is cosmopolitan and every genuine cosmopolitan is a patriot'. The wise man Mindia in the epic Snake-Eater (1901, Russian translation 1934) dies because he cannot reconcile his ideals with the needs of his family and those of society. The catalytic plot device of Mindia's consumption of serpent's flesh in an attempt at suicide – which results instead in his obtaining of

occult The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mysti ...

knowledge, constitutes a literary employment of the central, folk tale motif present in The White Snake (

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm, Wilhelm (1786–1859), were Germans, German academics who together collected and published folklore. The brothers are among the best-known storytellers of Oral tradit ...

) which epitomizes tale type 673 in the Aarne-Thompson classification system. The epic ''Bakhtrioni'' (1892, Russian translation 1943) tells of the part played by the tribes of the Georgian highlands in the

uprising Rebellion is an uprising that resists and is organized against one's government. A rebel is a person who engages in a rebellion. A rebel group is a consciously coordinated group that seeks to gain political control over an entire state or a ...

Kakheti Kakheti (; ) is a region of Georgia. Telavi is its administrative center. The region comprises eight administrative districts: Telavi, Gurjaani, Qvareli, Sagarejo, Dedoplistsqaro, Signagi, Lagodekhi and Akhmeta. Kakhetians speak the ...

(East Georgia) against the

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

ian oppressors in 1659. Vazha-Pshavela is also unrivalled in the field of Georgian poetry in his idiosyncratic and evocative depictions of Nature – for which he felt a deep love. His landscapes are full of motion and internal conflicts. His poetic diction is saturated with all the riches of his native tongue, and yet this is an impeccably exact literary language. Thanks to excellent translations into Russian (by Nikolay Zabolotsky, V. Derzhavin,

Osip Mandelshtam Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (, ; – 27 December 1938) was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school. Osip Mandelstam was arrested during the repressions of the 1930s and sent into internal exile wi ...

Boris Pasternak Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (30 May 1960) was a Russian and Soviet poet, novelist, composer, and literary translator. Composed in 1917, Pasternak's first book of poems, ''My Sister, Life'', was published in Berlin in 1922 and soon became an imp ...

, S. Spassky,

Marina Tsvetaeva Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva ( rus, Марина Ивановна Цветаева, p=mɐˈrʲinə ɪˈvanəvnə tsvʲɪˈta(j)ɪvə, links=yes; 31 August 1941) was a Russian poet. Her work is some of the most well-known in twentieth-century Russ ...

, and others), into English (by

Donald Rayfield Patrick Donald Rayfield OBE (born 12 February 1942, Oxford) is an English academic and Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary University of London. He is an author of books about Russian and Georgian literature, and about Jos ...

, Venera Urushadze, Lela Jgerenaia, Nino Ramishvili, and others), into French (by

Gaston Bouatchidzé Gaston Bouatchidzé ( ka, გასტონ ბუაჩიძე; 21 October 1935 – 12 July 2022) was a Georgian-French writer and translator. Bouatchidzé was born in Tbilisi of a French mother and Georgian father who had lived in France f ...

), and into German (by Yolanda Marchev, ), the poet's work has found the wider audience that it undoubtedly deserves. Furthermore, Vazha-Pshavela's compositions have also become available to representatives of other nationalities of the ex-USSR. To date, his poems and narrative compositions have been published in more than 20 languages Vazha-Pshavela died in

Tiflis Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი, ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), ( ka, ტფილისი, tr ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia ( ...

on 10 July 1915 and was buried there, in the ancient capital city of his native land, being accorded the signal honour of a tomb in the prestigious Pantheon of the Mtatsminda Mountain, in recognition both of his literary achievements and his role as a representative of the National Liberation movement of Georgia. The mountaineer poet Vazha-Pshavela is indeed, as Donald Rayfield writes, "qualitatively of a greater magnitude than any other Georgian writer". The five epic poems of Vazha-Pshavela ('' (1888), '' (1892), ' Host and Guest' (1893), 'The Avenger of the Blood' (1897) and ' Snake Eater' (1901)) are composed on the principle of the

Golden ratio In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their summation, sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities and with , is in a golden ratio to if \fr ...

, and thus invite comparison with the works of Ancient and Renaissance authors similarly inspired. In 1961, a museum and memorial was built in Chargali to honor Vazha-Pshavela, its most famous son.

Works

Epic poems

* ', 1888 * ', 1892 * '' Host and Guest'', 1893 * ''The Avenger of the Blood'', 1897 * '' The Snake-eater'', 1901

Other poetry

* ''A Feast'', 1886 * ''The Ogre's Wedding'', 1886 * ''The Eagle'', 1887 * ''I Was in the Mountains'', 1890 * ''The Rock and the River'', 1899 * ''I Gaze at the Mountains'', 1899 * ''Orphaned Fledglings'', 1899 * ''A Goldfinger's Will'', 1891 * ''A Night in the Highland'', 1890 * ''To the Mountains'', 1920

Short stories

* '' The Story of the Roebuck'', 1883 * ''An Old Beech'', 1889 * ''The Mountain's Height'', 1895 * ''Sataguri'' (en: Mousetrap), 1908

Plays (theatre)

* ''The Scene in the Mountain'', 1889 * ''Hunted of the Homeland'' (drama), 1894 * ''The Forest Comedy'', 1925

Movies

* ''sophia'' (The encounter), romantic drama, adapted from the Vazha-Pshavela poems "Aluda Ketelauri" and "Host and Guest", (this movie was awarded the Grand Prix at the 17th San Remo international Festival of Author Films, 1974), the film director

Tengiz Abuladze Tengiz Evgenis dze Abuladze, romanized: (31 January 19246 March 1994) was a Georgian film director, screenwriter, theatre teacher and People's Artist of the USSR. He is regarded as one of the best Soviet directors. Biography Abuladze studie ...

– 1967 * ''Mokvetili'', romantic drama, adapted from the Vazha-Pshavela play ''Hunted of the homeland'', the film director Giorgi (Gia) Mataradze – 1992 * "Host and Guest" Dramatic adaptation of Vazha-Pshavela's epic poem of the same name, devised by

Synetic Theater (Arlington, Virginia) Synetic Theater is a non-profit Physical theatre, physical theater company located in the Washington metropolitan area. It performs at the Crystal City Theatre in Crystal City, Virginia, Crystal City in Arlington County, Virginia. Since its f ...

– USA – directed by Paata Tsikurishvili – 2002

References

External links