Abstract:
Georgian folktales about Alexander the Great show literary influences
from Antiquity and the Middle Ages, followed by his development as an
organic part of national oral folk tradition.
Two traditions of narratives about Alexander of Macedon existed in
Antiquity: historical and literary. Legendary material related to the Greek quasifabulous
prose biography of Alexander is found in the Alexander Romance by
Pseudo-Callisthenes (c. third century AD). This text is the basis of all the
Alexander legends in the Middle Ages. In Europe Alexander Romance spread
via the Latin translation of Julius Valerius Alexander (third to fourth centuries
AD) and won great popularity. The original Greek text was the basis for
medieval Persian, Syrian, Coptic, and Ethiopian versions.
Between the fourth and sixteenth centuries, European and Eastern
literature (including that of the Christian Orient, the Caucasus area, the Near
East, and Central Asia) produced a major cycle of legends about Alexander the
Great. The fiction occupies a honorary a place. Historic enterprises are not the
main subject in this text.
In Georgian folklore Alexander appears only in the folktales which might
be classified as realistic tales (novelle). Caucasian folktales about Alexander
show miscellaneous interpretations of the hero, perhaps in part also because of
the variety of literary and oral traditions which influenced Georgian folklore.
The folkloric character of Alexander is far from the ideal of medieval
knighthood; his image in the realistic tales and novelle is in general less
attractive than in the Alexander Romance.
The Georgian folktales never depict Alexander thus, like a wonder-tale
hero. He appears only in the realistic, non-magical, novelle. Wonder tales are
marked by the high moral qualities of the hero. They are often tales of
individual endeavour, and opportunities to become a moral, even perfect, human being. Even heroes who break prohibitions early on manage to atone for
this: one’s salvation then depends on oneself. One could say that none of the
narrative genres of folklore stresses the spiritual strength of a human being as
much as the wonder tales do.
Alexander the Great is a literary character converted into an insatiable
king of the realistic tale. He thus shows generally negative characteristics. In the
Georgian tales Alexander is represented as a strong king who wants to conquer
the heavens and the earth, but he, as with any mortal, has his own weaknesses,
too.