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 Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: *Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea Arts *Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea ** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...

movement. He fell victim to

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

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 ...

, was arrested and executed on trumped-up charges of

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...

. Tabidze was a close friend of the well-known Russian writer

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 ...

, who translated his poetry into Russian.

Early life

Tabidze was the son of a Georgian Orthodox priest in the province of

Imereti Imereti ( Georgian: იმერეთი, ) is a region of Georgia situated in the central-western part of the republic along the middle and upper reaches of the Rioni River. Imereti is the most populous region in Georgia. It consists of 11 mun ...

, western Georgia, then part of

Kutais Governorate The Kutaisi or Kutais Governorate was a province (''guberniya'') of the Caucasus Viceroyalty (1801–1917), Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire. It roughly corresponded to most of western Georgia (country), Georgia throughout most of its ...

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 * ...

. Educated at the

University of Moscow Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...

, he returned to Georgia to become one of the cofounders and main ideologues of the Blue Horns, a coterie of young Georgian symbolists founded in 1916. Later, Tabidze's work combined European and Asian trends into eclectic poetry which significantly leaned towards

Futurism Futurism ( ) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the ...

and

Dadaism Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

, while also paying tribute to the classics of Georgian literature, which had been attacked by the early Blue Horns. After the establishment of Soviet rule in Georgia in 1921, he chose a conciliatory line towards the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

regime, but did not abandon his Futuristic and

decadent Decadence was a late-19th-century movement emphasizing the need for sensationalism, egocentricity, and bizarre, artificial, perverse, and exotic sensations and experiences. By extension, it may refer to a decline in art, literature, science, ...

style despite half-hearted attempts at praising the "builders of

socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

". His poetry on the history of the Caucasus, particularly

Imam Shamil Imam Shamil (; ; ; ; ; 26 June 1797 – 4 February 1871) was the political, military, and spiritual leader of North Caucasian resistance to Imperial Russia in the 1800s, the third Imam of the Caucasian Imamate (1840–1859), and a Sunni Muslim ...

, propounded "an avant-garde aesthetic of transgressive sanctity". Tabidze was a close friend of the Russian writer

and the correspondent in his ''Letters to Georgian Friends''. Pasternak knew Titsian as "a reserved and complicated soul, wholly attracted to the good and capable of clairvoyance and self-sacrifice", and translated his poetry into Russian.

The Great Purge

Early in 1936, the Soviet press published several articles critical of formalism in the arts. Titsian Tabidze and fellow Georgian poets

Konstantine Gamsakhurdia Konstantine Gamsakhurdia ( ka, კონსტანტინე გამსახურდია, tr) (May 3, 1893 – July 17, 1975) was a Georgians, Georgian writer and public figure. Educated and first published in Germany, he married West ...

, Simon Chikovani, and Demna Shengelaia came under fire for their "failure to free themselves from the old traditions and forge closer contact with the people." Many poets and writers, horrified by the emerging political purges in the Soviet Union, accepted the criticism and made public recantations. Tabidze refused to do so and counterattacked. Foreseeing the consequences of Tabidze's defiance, Pasternak, in a private letter, urged his friend to just ignore the attacks on formalism: "Rely only on yourself. Dig more deeply with your drill without fear or favor, but inside yourself, inside yourself. If you do not find the people, the earth and the heaven there, then give up your search, for then there is nowhere else to search."Suny, Ronald Grigor (1994), ''The Making of the Georgian Nation: 2nd edition'', p. 272.

Indiana University Press Indiana University Press, also known as IU Press, is an academic publisher founded in 1950 at Indiana University that specializes in the humanities and social sciences. Its headquarters are located in Bloomington, Indiana. IU Press publishes ...

Arrest and execution

On 10 October 1937 Tabidze was expelled from the Union of Georgian Writers and then arrested by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

. He was charged with

anti-Soviet agitation Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (ASA) () was a criminal offence in the Soviet Union. Initially, the term was interchangeably used with counter-revolutionary agitation. The latter term was in use immediately after the October Revolution of 1917 ...

and betraying the Motherland. Broken under torture and denial of sleep, Tabidze "confessed" to all the charges. When interrogators demanded to know the names of his co-conspirators, Tabidze, with bitter sarcasm, named only the 18th-century poet Besiki. Within two months he was shot, although no announcement of this was leaked.

Legacy

Tabidze's arrest and disappearance was a shock to all who knew him. His lifelong friend and fellow symbolist poet, Paolo Iashvili, had already been forced to denounce several of his fellow poets as

enemies of the people The terms enemy of the people and enemy of the nation are designations for the political opponents and the social-class opponents of the power group within a larger social unit, who, thus identified, can be subjected to political repression. ...

. But after Tabidze's arrest, Iashvili shot himself with a hunting rifle inside the Writers’ Union in Tbilisi. For almost two decades, however, Tabidze's family and friends believed that he was still alive. In 1940, Boris Pasternak helped Nina Tabidze draft a petition to Lavrenty Beria on her husband's behalf. However, it was not until the mid-1950s, during the

Khrushchev thaw The Khrushchev Thaw (, or simply ''ottepel'')William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, London: Free Press, 2004 is the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s when Political repression in the Soviet Union, repression and Censorship in ...

, that the truth about Tabidze's fate emerged.Barnes, Christopher J. (2004), ''Boris Pasternak: A Literary Biography'', p. 147.

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

, . Tabidze's poetry has been translated into many languages, including Russian and English. Russian poets Boris Pasternak and Osip Mandelstam translated him into Russian. Rebecca Ruth Gould's translations of Titsian Tabidze into English have appeared in ''Seizure'', ''The Brooklyn Quarterly'', ''Tin House'', ''Prairie Schooner'', and ''Metamorphoses''. Gould also interviewed Titsian Tabidze's daughter Nita in the Tbilisi home Nita shared with her father in 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tabidze, Titsian 1890s births 1937 deaths People from Imereti People from Kutais Governorate Male poets from Georgia (country) Great Purge victims from Georgia (country) People executed for treason against the Soviet Union 20th-century poets from Georgia (country)

Links

T. Tabidze. A Poem Landslide (audio) (English)

T. Tabidze. Okroqana (Golden Field) (audio) (English)

T. Tabidze. Slowly Walking To and Fro (audio) (English)
Executed writers