Shota Rustaveli

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Biography of the great poet

The most famous Georgian poet of the twelfth century and the author of the world-famous poem “The Knight in the Tiger's Skin” was born in the sixties (according to other sources - in the seventies) of the 12th century. The place of his birth is also not specified by historians, but presumably it was the Georgian village of Rustavi.

Shota Rustaveli studied in Greece, worked as state treasurer of Queen Tamara, and then as an artist and restorer of the Georgian Monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. From rare surviving facts, it is known that the poet was hopelessly in love with the queen, lived only briefly and died in the monastery where he worked. Unfortunately, other biographical information about Shota Rustaveli has not survived. But his imperishable poetic creation called “The Knight in Tiger Skin” has become widely known and popular all over the world.

The poem consists of 1637 stanzas, with 16 syllables in each verse. Numerous manuscripts have reached us, with many interpolations and additions to the poet’s work. The continuation of the poem, called “Omaniani,” has also been preserved. The memory of the great Georgian poet is also immortalized in his homeland, in the State Prize of Georgia named after Shota Rustaveli, in the name of the Georgian State Drama Theater, in the name of the Theater Institute in Tbilisi and the Research Institute of Georgian Literature, in the name of the Batumi State Pedagogical Institute, in the name of the main avenue of Tbilisi and many other streets and avenues in different cities in a number of countries.

"Knight in tiger skin". Hymn to freedom and love

Since the eighteenth century, and in Georgian alone, there have been more than fifty editions of the poem. Many translations have been made into foreign languages, including five in Russian. The plot of the poem is borrowed from an ancient manuscript, about which the poet himself said: “I found a Persian story and translated it into verse, like a large pearl passing from hand to hand.”

The poem “The Knight in the Tiger's Skin” consists of two story cycles: the Indian Tariela and Nestan-Darejan, and the Arab Avtandil and Tinatin. Rustaveli managed to give a fairly deep psychological characterization of the heroes, to depict their inner essence, which became an innovation for the poetry of the twelfth century. Rustaveli's heroes have vibrant, vibrant characters, fearlessly and selflessly fighting for justice and happiness. Their images are typical and generalized for people who lived in the twelfth century. Nestan-Darejan is the main character of the poem, who steadfastly and patiently endures the hardships of imprisonment after refusing a forced marriage. Three knights - brothers-in-arms - are fighting for her release, and this struggle leads all the heroes to a happy ending.

The poem is permeated with the idea of ​​the triumph of justice over tyranny, arbitrariness and evil, and only the strength of the spirit and faith in good can bring happiness to the earth.

Overall, “The Knight in Tiger Skin” is an enthusiastic hymn to freedom and true sublime earthly love. Another ideological line of the poem is patriotism, as a condemnation of feudal strife and separatist aspirations of the nobility, and vice versa, the value of a reasonable life worthy of a noble person. The heroes of the poem are not afraid of death. False knights, cowardly would-be warriors, vile cowards and traitors, flatterers and hypocrites are branded with shame in the poem.

The plot of the poem “The Knight in the Skin of a Tiger” has some plot similarities with Western European novels about knights and with Eastern epic poems of the Middle Ages, but in general it is an absolutely independent work by Rustaveli. As a humanist, the poet extols personal freedom, freedom of thought and feelings, and speaks a lot about the value of human life, created not by fate, but by people themselves.

The significant value of Rustaveli's work is that he raised Georgian poetry as a whole to a great height, and also became the ancestor of the new Georgian literary language, thanks to the elegant poetic word and style of the poem.
“The Knight in the Tiger’s Skin” is an unsurpassed example of ancient Georgian poetry, which has entered world literature and is ranked among the world’s greatest epics.

Top photo: https://www.culture.ru

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