The Kartvelologist

The Kartvelologist” is a bilingual (Georgian and English) peer-reviewed, academic journal, covering all spheres of Kartvelological scholarship. Along with introducing scholarly novelties in Georgian Studies, it aims at popularization of essays of Georgian researchers on the international level and diffusion of foreign Kartvelological scholarship in Georgian scholarly circles.


“The Kartvelologist” issues both in printed and electronic form. In 1993-2009 it came out only in printed form (#1-15). The publisher is the “Centre for Kartvelian Studies” (TSU), financially supported by the “Fund of the Kartvelological School”. In 2011-2013 the journal is financed by Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation.





 

Anthology of Georgian Poetry in French

 

On my first visit to Georgia I had the good fortune to meet Sergo C’uladze in Tbilisi. He told me then that he was working on an anthology of translations of Georgian poetry into French. A few years earlier, I had read his most distinguished translation of Vepxist’q’aosani – extracts from which appear in this anthology – and found it an excellent companion and guide to a study of the poem, as also was his monograph Connaissance de Roustaveli. Now, with his last book before me, I deeply regret that I cannot meet him again and discuss it with him. He was a truly great translator, at home in Georgian and French alike, and brought to his work the polished intellect of a scholar and the artistry of a poetic nature.

This collection of poems ranges far in time – from the early Middle Ages to the 20th century – and covers a broad field of moods and subject matter. The translator displays his skill in a variety of poetic forms. He moves from the quiet, reflective mood of me da yame  through the gay and lilting tones of Giorgi Leonidze’s song to the first fall of snow, the stirring cavalier rhythms of Merani, to the noble, elevated style of xma k’at’amontan,  capturing  and conveying the essential quality of these different poems.

The eloquence of Georgian verse is very largely due to the use of rhyme, alliteration and assonance – effects which cannot easily be reproduced in another language without losing or distorting some of the sense. As regards accent and metre, however, French and Georgian are in more natural accord. In the classical French alexandrine, as in the Rustavelian sixteen-syllable line, there is a caesura dividing the line in two. Unlike English verse, in which there may be a variable number of unstressed syllables, both Georgian and French lend themselves to a syllabic rather than an accentual metre, since in polysyllabic words the stress is more evenly distributed [Cetereli Giorgi, Met’ri da ritma Vepsist’q’aosanŝi, Tbilisi 1973] Thus the Georgian metre can be closely approximated in French, as Sergo C’uladze so successfully shows in his translation of Vepxist’q’aosani, Mtac’mindis mtvare and other poems.  In another respect, however, the two languages are less concordant. The genius of French in its later development lies in its precision, clear definition and disciplined form. Earlier French – that of Rabelais, for example, with its cornucopial richness and variety – might more truly have reflected the subtleties and overtones of Georgian, in which a writer can often suggest more than he overtly states. C’q’nari, in Mtac’mindis mtvare, has resonances that the French paisible does not altogether convey; the meaning of zγap’ari, in another poem by Galak’tïon T’abidze, is too strictly limited by the French romance.  In K’olau Nadiradze’s Bevri ar mitkvams ... the words net’av, unet’areso, essentially a Georgian concept, are – perhaps inevitably – lost in translation.

These are small points, however. In Gantiadi C’uladze’s verses sing like those of the great Ak’akï; in xma k’at’amontan the translator matches Irak’li Abashidze’s nobility of style and depth of feeling. The close affinity – an almost mysterical understanding – with nature in all its forms, revealed by many Georgian poets, is reproduced by C’uladze not only with poetic mastery but with deep sensitivity and perception. H makes us aware with Važa Pšavela of the moods of mountain and sky; with Valerian Gaprindašhvili he exposes the role of the tree in the lives of men. Poetry can only be translated by one who is himself a poet, ideas expressed by one who has made them his own. Sergo C’uladze appears to understand and reflect the true spirit of Georgian poetry.

To know a little of Georgian literature is to wish to know more, and this anthology offers to students of Georgian a well-mixed aperitif to stimulate the appetite. With brief notes on each of the writers translated, it is a most valuable contribution to the store of Georgian literature in translation.

Katharine Vivian