Simon Ivanes dze Chikovani ( ka, სიმონ ჩიქოვანი; 27 December 1902 – 24 April 1966) was a prominent Georgian poet. He set out to be the leader of the Georgian

Futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futures studies or futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities ...

movement and ended up as a Soviet establishment figure.

Early life and career

Born near the town

Abasha Abasha ( ka, აბაშა) is a town in western Georgia (country), Georgia with a population of 4,941. It is situated between the rivers of Abasha (river), Abasha and Noghela, at 23m Above mean sea level, above sea level and is located some t ...

, he was educated at the

Kutaisi Kutaisi ( ; ka, ქუთაისი ) is a city in the Imereti region of the Georgia (country), Republic of Georgia. One of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, it is the List o ...

Realschule Real school (, ) is a type of secondary school in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia (''realna gimnazija''), the Austrian Empire, the German Empire, Denmark and Norway (''realskole''), Sweden (''realskola''), F ...

and

Tbilisi State University Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University ( ka, ივანე ჯავახიშვილის სახელობის თბილისის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტი, tr; often shorten ...

from which he graduated in 1922. As a teenager, he was associated with the Blue Horns, a group of young Georgian Symbolists. Although he stood far from any “

proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist philo ...

” thematic, he joined the nascent "Left" poets and became their spokesman. In 1924, was arrested and nearly shot on a walking-tour to

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 ...

during the

Red Terror The Red Terror () was a campaign of political repression and Mass killing, executions in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia which was carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police ...

that followed the Georgian rebellion against 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 ...

rule. Between 1924 and 1929, he produced two series of poems (ფიქრები მტკვრის პირას The Thought at the Mtkvari"">Mtkvari.html" ;"title="The Thought at the Mtkvari">The Thought at the Mtkvari" 1925; მხოლოდ ლექსები ["Only Poems"], 1930) that earned him a reputation of one of the most original Georgian poets of the 20th century. In the words of modern British scholar Donald Rayfield, "most are energetic and provocative Walt Whitman, Whitmanesque heckling and satirising of the older generation of poets: Chikovani sported Vladimir Mayakovsky, Mayakovsky’s mantle."

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'', pp. 265-260.

Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

, . Since 1924, he edited the notorious Futurist journal '' H₂SO₄'' and directed his attacks against his former associates from the Blue Horns group, chiefly

Titsian Tabidze Titsian Tabidze ( ka, ტიციან ტაბიძე, simply referred to as Titsiani; ka, ტიციანი) (16 December 1937), was a Georgian poet and one of the leaders of the Georgian symbolist movement. He fell victim to Joseph ...

and

Paolo Iashvili Paolo Iashvili ( ka, პაოლო იაშვილი; 29 June 1894 – 22 July 1937) was a Georgian poet and one of the leaders of the Georgian symbolist movement. Under the Soviet Union, his obligatory conformism and the loss of his friends ...

Later years and turn to politics

From 1930 onward, he distanced himself from his innovative Futurism and brought his work more in line with ideologically-sanctioned patriotic lyrics and love-poetry, suppressing all reference to his versatile early work, especially during the 1937

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

, in which his brother was shot. He went on to serve as a secretary of the Georgian Union of Writers from 1930 to 1932, its president from 1944 to 1951, and finally as deputy of the

Supreme Soviet The Supreme Soviet () was the common name for the legislative bodies (parliaments) of the Soviet socialist republics (SSR) in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). These soviets were modeled after the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, establ ...

from 1950 to 1954. There are streets named after Simon Chikovani in

Tbilisi 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 ( ...

and

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chikovani, Simon 1902 births 1966 deaths Burials at Mtatsminda Pantheon Male poets from Georgia (country) 20th-century poets from Georgia (country) Place of death missing People from Kutais Governorate 20th-century writers from Georgia (country) Soviet poets

Early life and career

Later years and turn to politics

See also

References