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.





Stages of Introducing and Establishing Sonnets into Georgia

This articledeals with the characterisation and complexity of the stages accompanying the process of establishment of the genre of the sonnet in Georgia.

Having been isolated from the European cultural space, it took Georgia almost the whole of the XIX century to cannonise the parameters of this stable verse form (strophic, rhythmic and metrics), although the first, original sonnet was published in Georgian in 1859, in the journal “Tsiskari”.

In the first decade of the XX century the intellectual circles of Georgia and the order of Tsistperkantselebi (Blue Horns) considered the sonnet to be a universal symbol and hence its immense popularity in the period. In the conditions of the totalitarian regime the sonnet was banned and was only revived after the rehabilitation of   Tsisperkanstelebi

In the 80s of the 20th century, on the other hand, enhancement of the issues connected with the history and theory of the sonnet and the revival of the national movement brought yet unseen popularity to this European stable verse form.


keywords:sonnet, stable verse form, symbol Category: SCHOLARLY STUDIES Authors: Tamar Barbakadze
The Concept of Road in the Narrative Space of Grigol Robakidze’s “The Snake’s Skin”

 

This work deals with the concept of “road” in Grigol Robakidze’s novel The Snake’s Skin. The article presents an analysis of the function of the road in the narrative structure of the novel. Road takes an important place in the narrative world of The Snake’s Skin. The protagonist is a young Georgian émigré Archibald Mekeshi, who is travelling to his homeland, Georgia. He travels crossing the territories of Europe, Russia and Iran. The main road of the protagonist runs through the mountains of Iran. The road transfers the main character from his physical space into a metaphysical one.  


keywords:Concept of road, Metaphysical Space, Time, Grigol Robakidze, The Snake’s Skin Category: SCHOLARLY STUDIES Authors: Tamar Barbakadze
Influences or Literary Relations in the Georgian Literary Process of the first half of the XIX Century

 

In Georgian literary thought of the 19th century it was considered to be ordinary not only to translate European or Russian literary works but also to recast and imitate them. My intention is to reveal that in many cases we deal with the literary taste adequate to the period, the desire not to lag behind the time and not with an act of mere copying. 


keywords:19th century, translation, imitation, literary relations Category: SCHOLARLY STUDIES Authors: Tamar Barbakadze
Intertext from Oscar Wilde in the Works by Niko Lortkipanidze

 

The process of the modernization of Georgian literature in the beginning of the 20th century had a contradictory character. Georgian writers strived to overcome the tradition at the same time making efforts to rethink the European literary experience. Modernist aesthetics became the determining trend for the Georgian culture of the period. It is only natural that such writers as Wilde, Meterlink, Malarme, Verlain and Hamsun became increasingly popular. In addition, by being educated in Europe, Georgian artists and writers became acquainted with a number of worthwhile and interesting tendencies.   From this point of view the works by Niko Lortkipanidze, a well-known Georgian writer deserve special attention as both: the issues raised in his works and the ways of their interpretation are conditioned by the impressionist vision along with  a  number of reasons provoked by the general disposition of the epoch. One of these can be the existence of Oscar Wilde’s intertext in Lortipanidze’s works (The Singer, The Funeral, First Steps of Venus, God has been killed, The Creator, The Verdict of the Omnipotent). 


keywords:Modernism, demiurge, intertext, Oscar Wilde, Niko Lortkipanidze Category: SCHOLARLY STUDIES Authors: Tamar Barbakadze
The compositional function of a parodic allusion to the Classical Tradition in Rustaveli’s ''The Man in the Panther Skin''

 

In the first part of the paper a new case of the allusion to the Classical Tradition is identified in Rustaveli’s The Man in the Panther Skin. According to the author of the research, one of the chapters of the poem with the title The Council of Tariel reveals the parodic allusion to the Trojan wooden horse, the best known from the Homeric epic. In the second part of the paper the compositional function of the above-mentioned parodic allusion is analysed.


keywords:The Man in the Panther Skin, Homer, the Trojan Horse, the Parodic Allusion, an Epic Composition Category: SCHOLARLY STUDIES Authors: Tamar Barbakadze