Donald Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia: A History. Second revised edition.

Richmond, England: Curzon. Bibliography, Index. 320 pp. $80.00 (cloth).

Professor Rayfield and Curzon Press deserve credit for the second edition of The

Literature of Georgia: A History, the only full-scale history of Georgian literature in

English and an absolutely essential reference source for students and general readers

interested in the subject. First published in 1994 and now thoroughly up-dated,

Rayfield’s work may inspire another generation to learn more about this fascinating but

little-known literature and culture of the Caucasus, a bridge between East and West for

over 1500 years.

Rayfield organizes Georgian Literature into five broad chronological, stylistic and

thematic periods: the making of the Classical Age (fifth to eleventh centuries), the

Golden Age, Fall and Resurrection (twelfth to eighteenth centuries), Romantic and Civic

Literature (nineteenth century), Rediscovery and Roots (1890-1914), and the Age of

Internationalism (twentieth century). In vigorous and clear prose, Rayfield describes how

the Georgians’ assimilation of Byzantine religious literature and the courtly epics of

Persia created the path to an original literature of courtly epic and romance in verse and

prose that would result in the Georgian Golden Age of the twelfth and thirteenth

centuries. Rayfield provides a vivid account of the genesis and importance of the greatest

work of this period, Shota Rustaveli’s The Knight in the Panther Skin, the high point of

Georgian Literature and one of the great works of world literature. Georgia’s Dark Ages

began with the Mongol invasion at the end of the fourteenth century and continued for

almost two hundred years, when the sources of Golden Age literature were slowly

rediscovered and the foundations laid for the rebirth of Georgian literature in the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

 The enlightenment reached Georgia via Russia in the eighteenth century, when

the Georgian language was standardized, the first Georgian books, including the first

dictionary of the Georgian language, were published and the first truly secular prose texts

(moralizing tales) were written. The eighteenth century was also the period of the first

great poets of modern Georgia, Guramishvili (1705-92), Sayat-Nova (1712-1801?) and

Besiki (1750-91). Through biographical surveys, paraphrase and some judicious

quotation from their major works, Rayfield is able to convey, at the very least, a general

sense of the importance of these writers to readers with no Georgian.

In the nineteenth century, the geopolitical and cultural center of gravity in the

Georgian world shifts from the Middle East to Russia, which incorporates Georgia into

the Russian Empire in 1801. Although Russification was, in many respects, a disaster for

Georgia, by comparison with the periods of Persian and Turkish dominance, the new

masters treated the Georgians quite gently. There were also cultural advantages to be had

from being a part of the Russian Empire, chief among them was easier access to

European literary and cultural trends. Not surprisingly in a century which saw several

hopeless rebellions against Russian dominance in the name of national self-

determination, Romanticism became the dominant literary style for nineteenth century

Georgian writers and intellectuals. In the poetry of the best Georgian Romantics, the

tragic life of the poet represents the tragic history of the nation. The nineteenth century

also sees the birth of modern prose (especially the historical novel), drama, and journals,

under the influence of Russian social realism and progressive politics. The greatest

literary figures of this period, Ilia Chavchavadze (1837-1907) and Akaki Tsereteli (1840-
1915), are treated against a background of the evolution of the Georgian intelligentsia

over the course of the century.

By the end of the nineteenth century, Georgian literature was divided into three

ideological camps: the Realists, who saw literature as a tool of Revolution, the

Symbolists who believed in art for art’s sake, and the advocates of a return to the folk

roots of Georgian culture. The transformation of the heroic poetry of Georgia’s semi-

mythical past into a modern idiom capable of satisfying the aesthetic demands of a

contemporary audience was accomplished by Vazha-Pshavela (pseudonym of Luka

Razikashvili, 1861-1915), the greatest Georgian poet since Rustaveli. After an

informative summary of Vazha-Pshavela’s life and main works, Rayfield considers one

of the distinctive elements of Georgian literary history in a fascinating chapter devoted to

“folk poetry and its relevance to literature.”

Following the passing of the nineteenth-century titans Chavchavadze, Tsereteli

and Vazha-Pshavela, Georgian literature enters another Dark Age. Rayfield movingly

describes the dire results of decades of political interference, censorship, repression and

terror on the Georgian intelligentsia and Georgian literature. While worthwhile literary

works were produced in two brief interludes between 1905-21 and 1924-30, Rayfield’s

main theme here is the treachery, suffering and sadism, the opportunism, hypocrisy and

bad writing that went into the creation of that chimerical creature, Soviet Georgian

literature. Following the death of Stalin and Beria’s execution, the cultural liberalization

of Khrushchev’s Thaw was excruciatingly slow in coming to Georgia, whose cultural

institutions remained firmly in the power of a corrupt party until Eduard Shevardnadze

became Republic Party Secretary in 1972. While the beginnings of a cultural revival may
be seen in the 1970s and 1980s, especially in Georgian theater and cinema, the crumbling

of Soviet power and subsequent liberation of Georgia from the Soviet Union have,

tragically, resulted in “a hell of demagoguery, criminality, hysteria and civil war” (288).

As should be clear from this summary, Rayfield is writing very traditional literary

history. In fact, a fair amount of his text betrays its origins in a series of discrete

encyclopedia entries commissioned for the Everyman Companion to East European

Literatures (Dent, 1992). While Rayfield is very good indeed with the facts (names,

dates, places, editions, summaries, etc.), readers interested in questions of cultural

interactions, social institutions, historical contexts or theoretical issues of writing literary

history will want to consult other sources mentioned in Rayfield’s excellent bibliography.

All is all, this is an important book about a fascinating culture and a pleasure to read.

Rayfield writes with style and verve, wears his learning lightly and succeeds brilliantly in

communicating his passion for Georgian culture to his readers. I for one hope that his

passion will prove contagious.

Anthony Anemone
College of William and Mary

Published in Slavic and East European Journal, 47:4 (2003), 706-7.