Giorgi Avalishvili (1769 – 1850) was a Georgian

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

 diplomat, writer and one of the founding fathers of the Georgian theatre.

Of a princely family

Avalishvili

Avalishvili was a Georgian noble family, which branched off the Panaskerteli-Tsitsishvili house in the 16th century. The initial appanage of the family was located in the historical area called Tori and now known as the Borjomi Gorge with its center at the village of Sadgeri...

 hailing from the kingdom of Kakheti

Kingdom of Kakheti

The Kingdom of Kakheti was a late medieval/early modern monarchy in eastern Georgia, centered at the province of Kakheti, with its capital first at Gremi and then at Telavi...

 in eastern Georgia, Avalishvili was educated in the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

. After the Russo-Georgian treaty of Georgievsk

Treaty of Georgievsk

The Treaty of Georgievsk was a bilateral treaty concluded between the Russian Empire and the east Georgian kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti on July 24, 1783. The treaty established Georgia as a protectorate of Russia, which guaranteed Georgia's territorial integrity and the continuation of its reigning...

, he served as envoy to St. Petersburg for the Georgian kings Erekle II

Erekle II

Erekle II was a Georgian monarch of the Bagrationi Dynasty, reigning as the king of Kakheti from 1744 to 1762, and of Kartli and Kakheti from 1762 until 1798. In the contemporary Persian sources he is referred to as Erekli Khan, while Russians knew him as Irakli...

 and Giorgi XII

George XII of Georgia

George XII , sometimes known as George XIII , of the House of Bagrationi, was the last king of Georgia from 1798 until his death in 1800...

 between 1784 and 1801.

Avalishvili traveled to the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

 from 1819 to 1820 and wrote a valuable and long travelogue

Travel literature

Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...

. The rest of his work has largely been lost. Avalishvili extensively translated Russian and Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

an authors. He helped to found the first national Georgian theatre at the court of Erekle II in Tiflis in 1791. He is also credited with writing the first original Georgian drama, King Teimuraz

Teimuraz II

Teimuraz II , of the Bagrationi dynasty, was a king of Kakheti, eastern Georgia, from 1732 to 1744, then of Kartli from 1744 until his death.- Life :...

, of which only the author’s prologue survives.