Shio Aragvispireli ( ka, შიო არაგვისპირელი) was a

penname A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

of Shio Dedabrishvili ka, შიო დედაბრიშვილი; December 14, 1867 – January 2, 1926), a Georgian writer popular for his stories of protest against social inequality, the reality of oppressed peasants and underlings and decadent lords, and the struggle between individual happiness and social dogmas. He was born into a priest’s family near

Dusheti Dusheti () is a town in Georgia (country), Georgia, the administrative center of Dusheti Municipality, in the Mtskheta-Mtianeti mkhare, region, 54 km northeast of the nation's capital of Tbilisi. History Dusheti is on both banks of the small ...

, and enrolled in the

Tbilisi Theological Seminary Tbilisi Theological Academy and Seminary ( ka, თბილისის სასულიერო სემინარია, tr; ) is a seminary in Tbilisi, Georgia. It operated from 1817 to 1919 under the name Tiflis Theological Seminary in ...

in 1883. In 1887, he was excluded from the seminary for his rebellious ideas, but restored again in 1889. From 1890 to 1895 he studied at the

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

veterinary college, where he engaged in a student underground society. He was arrested by the

Imperial Russia Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * ...

n police for having formed the League for Georgia’s Freedom in Warsaw. He then worked as a veterinary inspector in the Tbilisi slaughterhouse, until he was sacked as a "

whistle-blower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...

" in a scandal about contaminated pork. Aragvispireli brought his personal working experience into a series of short stories from 1895 and quickly won popularity. One of his best stories, ''It's Earth'' (მიწაა) appeared in 1901. It was a story of a consumptive Georgian convict exiled to Siberia and killed there for refusing to throw away a bag of Georgian earth he has kept for his grave. Aragvispireli married contemporary European influences, particularly

Maupassant Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (, ; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, celebrated as a master of the short story, as well as a representative of the Naturalism (literature), naturalist School of thought, sc ...

and Przybyszewski to native traditions of idealization of the primitive typical to the Georgian mountaineer writers such as

Alexander Kazbegi Alexander Kazbegi ( ka, ალექსანდრე ყაზბეგი, ) (1848–1893) was a Georgian writer, famous for his 1883 novel '' The Patricide''. Early life Kazbegi was born in Stepantsminda the great grandson of Kazibek C ...

. In his drama ''Shio the Prince'' (შიო თავადი, 1905), he took a Symbolist view of Georgian history, but it failed. His most successful work, the novel ''A Fractured Heart'' (გაბზარული გული, 1920), was a sentimental fairy-tale of the love of a princess and a goldsmith. It even earned appraisal from the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

critics who had frequently attacked Aragvispireli’s gruesome Expressionism. His later years were unproductive.

Rayfield, Donald 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 Jose ...

(2000), '' The Literature of Georgia: A History'': 2nd edition, p. 181. Routledge, .

References

*Mikaberidze, Alexander (ed., 2007)
Aragvispireli, Shio
Dictionary of Georgian National Biography. Accessed on August 14, 2007. {{DEFAULTSORT:Aragvispireli, Shio 1867 births 1926 deaths Burials at Didube Pantheon Writers from Georgia (country) Writers from the Russian Empire