Giorgi
Leonidze
Giorgi Leonidze, the
Georgian poet, writer and philologist, was born in the Kakhetian
village Patardzeuli (near Sagarejo,
ca. 20 km east of
After finishing the Clerical Seminarium of
Tbilisi he studied Philology at the State University of Tbilisi. Being member
of the symbolistic order “Blue horns” (from
1918) he, like his colleagues, was engaged in the technical improvement of the
Georgian poetry. At the same time he was the chief-editor of the weekly
newspaper “Bakhtrioni” issued by the above
circle.
Though Giorgi Leonidze
paid a big tribute to the modernism in his early years, he is a very
distinctive and deeply national poet who was connected more than his
contemporaries with the ancient Georgian literary roots, existing from the 5th
century A.D. In the opinion of John
Steinbeck, Leonidze was a most original poet, more than anyone else closely bound up
with the mysteries of the language in which he wrote [Boris
Pasternak, in: Nobel Prize Library, By William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Eugene
O'Neill. 1971, p. 280]. English writers coming to
His poems bear the tint of an extraordinary merging of the old
chivalrous traditions with the asthetism. Being a
very good expert of the Georgian history, he dedicated many poems to the past
of his homeland. One of them, a long poem “Samgori”, where he assigned to
The more and more heavy interference and compulsion of Soviets in every
sphere of the cultural life beginning from the early thirties put some imprint also on G. Leonidze’s poetry. Therefore his best poems belong to the preceeding time; e.g. “Vision in the night” (1915),
“Autoportrait” (1921), “Sun tabasta” (1922), “On the gallows” (1922), “Slaughterhouse
of Tiflis” (1923), “Tsitsari”
(1925), “The night of Iori” (1925), “The
night of Ninotsminda” (1926), “The song of the
first snow” (1926), “Mating season” (1928), “An Appointment with Qipchagh” (1928), “Qipchaghian
night” (1928), “Ole” (1931). He created again new masterpieces at
the sunset of his life when the control by authorities had been weakened –
among them the book of short stories “The tree of desire”, an
amalgamation of epic stories with a strong poetic stream. This book was filmed
by the film-producer T. Abuladze with a big success
in 1976.
His closest friends and brothers in poetry, Titsian
Tabidze and Paolo Iashvili,
as well as his brother Professor Leon Leonidze
(microbiologist), became victims of Communist repressions of 1937-1938. The
fact that G. Leonidze already worked on the long poem
dedicated to Stalin, “Stalin, vol. I: The childehood and adolescence” (1936), had saved his life
from the same destiny. This long poem describes in reality the nature, history
and habits of Georgia and the Georgians with a great mastery. This was the main
reason why the poet could not fulfil his task to
write the second part of the same long poem dedicated to the revolutionary past
of the Soviet leader, though
The letter written by the Russian poet Boris Pasternak to Nino Tabidze, the wife of Titsian, is
very informative to characterize Giorgi Leonidze’s personality: “I bow my head before the poet Leonidze and his poetry with the same low bow as before his
wife, his fate and his house. I can even force myself to be more
strict: I bow my head before a spark of childishnessity,
skipping through his hands and manuscripts and going down to his children. And
I am speaking not at all about that pseudo-Rafaelistic
imagination of childehood which does not exist in the
world, exept on the top of candy boxes. But I speak about
the simplicity, nonsensnence and defencelessnence
of a childe, about its conductivity. About the childe’s
ability to create at the same time a whole world by his toys and the danger to
be run over by crossing a street. About a sight of a childe
among a big, far (by that time) going life, which it manages in a childlike
simple, nonsensical, efficient and defenceless way.” [From a book: Giorgi
Leonidze. The Selected Poetry. Ed.: G.Margvelashvili. Tbilisi. Publishing House
Merani, 1986 (in Russian), pp. 15-16].
Leonidze served as the real prototype of the Pasternak’s Artist. This
Cycle – “The Artist” – is connected with Pasternak’s visit to the
Giorgi Leonidze devoted
many years of his life to philology. He was doctor of philological sciences (honoris causa). He
wrote many articles and books about Rustaveli, Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani, king-poet
Vakhtang VI, Josef Tbileli,
David Guramishvili, Antimos
Iverianu, Besiki, Sayat-Nova, Mamuka and Nikoloz Baratashvili, Ilya Chavchavadze, Akaki Tsereteli, Mamia Gurieli, Vaja-Pshavela, Vasili Barnovi (Barnaveli) etc. He was
the chief-editor of “Literary heritage” and “Literary herald”. Besides he is
the founder of the
Back:
http://www.geocities.com/komblege/kavta.html