Giorgi Eristavi (1813 – September 9, 1864) 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...

 playwright, poet, journalist, and the founder of modern Georgian theatre.

Prince Giorgi Eristavi was born in the village of Odzisi (near Dusheti

Dusheti

Dusheti is a town in Georgia, situated in the Mtskheta-Mtianeti region, 54 km northeast of the nation’s capital of Tbilisi.Dusheti is located on both banks of the small mountainous river of Dushetis-Khevi at the foothills of the Greater Caucasus crest at an elevation of 900 m above sea level...

) of a prominent noble family

House of Sidamoni

The House of Sidamoni was a noble family in Georgia, their principal line known as Aragvis Eristavi by virtue of being eristavi of Aragvi from 1578 to 1743. They were also known as Sidamonidze , Sidamonishvili , and Sidamon-Eristavi...

, who had once served as the eristavi

Eristavi

Eristavi was a Georgian feudal office, roughly equivalent to the Byzantine strategos and normally translated into English as "duke". In the Georgian aristocratic hierarchy, it was the title of the third rank of prince and governor of a large province...

 ("duke

Duke

A duke or duchess is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy...

") of Aragvi

Duchy of Aragvi

The Duchy of Aragvi was an important fiefdom in medieval and early modern Georgia, strategically located in the upper Aragvi valley, in the foothills of the eastern Greater Caucasus crest, and ruled by a succession of eristavi from c...

 for the kings of Georgia. He received his early education in Tiflis and Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. On return to Georgia, he became involved with the underground society which plotted a coup against the Imperial Russian rule. He had his first poem published in 1832. This was An Ossetic Tale (ოსური მოთხრობა; revised and republished as Zare and Qanimat, ზარე და ყანიმათ, in 1853), a story of ill-fated lovers set against the background of the struggle of Georgian and Ossetian

Ossetians

The Ossetians are an Iranic ethnic group of the Caucasus Mountains, eponymous of the region known as Ossetia.They speak Ossetic, an Iranian language of the Eastern branch, with most also fluent in Russian as a second language....

 mountaineers against the Persian armies of Shah Abbas I in the 17th century.

After the collapse of the anti-Russian plot in 1832, Eristavi spent a year in prison and four years as an exiled infantryman in Wilno (now Vilnius

Vilnius

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

, Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

), where he mastered Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

 and came under the influence of Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...

's Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

. In 1842, he was able to permanently return to Georgia where he married and joined the Russian civil service soon to become assistant to the Viceroy of the Caucasus

Viceroyalty of the Caucasus

The Viceroyalty of the Caucasus is a term used to denote the Imperial Russian administrative and political authority in the Caucasus region exercised through the offices of glavnoupravlyayushchiy and namestnik...

 Mikhail Vorontsov

Mikhail Vorontsov

Mikhail Vorontsov may refer to:*Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov , Russian prince, field-marshal, statesman*Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov , Russian count, statesman, diplomat...

. Under the patronage of this liberal viceroy, Eristavi took charge of the Georgian theatre in Tiflis, dormant since 1795.

The company premiered on January 1, 1851 and was later able to stage its performances in the new theatre building in the city’s central square

Freedom Square, Tbilisi

Freedom Square , formerly known as Erivan Square under Imperial Russia and Lenin Square under the Soviet Union, is located in the center of Tbilisi at the eastern end of...

. He almost single-handedly created and directed a troupe and wrote first actable comedies – original as well as translated – in which he himself took leading parts. He also created and edited the 24 issues of the literary journal Tsiskari ("Down") and, under the pseudonym Glukharich (Russian for "son of the deaf, or capercaillie

Capercaillie

The Western Capercaillie , also known as the Wood Grouse, Heather Cock or Capercaillie , is the largest member of the grouse family, reaching over 100 cm in length and 6.7 kg in weight. The largest one ever recorded in captivity had a weight of 7.2 kg....

"), wrote the first literary reviews. In spite of Eristavi’s loyal service in the Russian administration, the imperial government as well as the eroding system of Georgian aristocracy was a frequent subject of indignation and satire in his best plays such as The Lawsuit (დავა; 1840), and The Family Settlement (გაყრა; 1849). Eristavi boldly attacks a degenerating Georgian noble, who has lost all of his ideals and is full of envy and anger, exploiting his serfs; a corrupt Russian bureaucrat and an Armenian money-lender who exploit the feuding gentry; and treats the newer, Russian-educated generation of idealist liberals with condescending sympathy. These plays had a popular support and were tolerated by Vorontsov.

However, after Vorontsov's departure from Georgia in 1854, Eristavi was forced to resign. He retired to the village of Khidistavi near Gori

Gori, Georgia

Gori is a city in eastern Georgia, which serves as the regional capital of Shida Kartli and the centre of the homonymous administrative district. The name is from Georgian gora , that is, "heap", or "hill"...

. His protégé and successor, Ivane Kereselidze, was able to keep the company for only two years and, in 1856, the theatre went defunct. Apart from comedies, lyrics and journalism, Eristavi also wrote an account of his 1862 journey to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to inspect machinery. He died in Gori in 1864 and was buried at the Ikorta church

Ikorta church

The Ikort’a church of the Archangel , commonly known as Ikort’a , is a 12th-century Georgian Orthodox church located at the outskirts of the village Ikort’a in Shida Kartli region of eastern Georgia....

.

External links

Khakhanov, Alexander

Alexander Khakhanov

Aleksandr Solomonovich Khakhanov born Aleksandre Khakhanashvili was a Georgian-Russian historian, archaeologist, and one of the most acclaimed scholars of Georgian literature....

, Эристов Георгий Давидович (Eristov, Georgiy Davidovich). Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary

Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary

The Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary is, in its scope and style, the Russian counterpart to the Encyclopædia Britannica. It contains 121,240 articles, 7,800 images, and 235 maps...

. Retrieved on 2008-08-31.