ილია ჭავჭავაძის სატირული ლირიკა. Satirical Lirics by Ilia Chavchavadze

Abstract

12 of Ilia Chavchavadze’s 77 poems are satirical. This percentage is not very high, but it must be considered that Ilia’s satirical poems and his story Is a Human a Man?! Resulted in such reaction from the society, as none of other writers’ satirical literary works have. Ilia’s satirical verses of the 60s are of general character: the poet scolds the injustice and the governor, who commits all the sins because of money (Sound from the Grave); he believes the advice from the drunkard to be irrelevant, as the latter takes life lightly, “as a bird” and avoids having any responsibilities (Advice of the Drunkard); if the writers from the Renaissance Era artificially mocked the fate, the image created thanks to Ilia’s imagination skills – the Fate dancing to Poet’s Duduk – puts it (the Fate) in a truly pathetic situation, while Ilia raises over it and looks at it from above. More “attacking” satirical poems appear in Ilia’s literary works from the 70s. They were created one after another and were aimed at waking up the society. One of such is – What we have done, what we have been doing or Georgian history of the 19th century. Ilia’s satirical poems are mostly of riddle form or are pure riddles. By the form, we mean saying the truth in a concealed, hinting form. Therefore, a reader must guess which real fact or person the verses are meant about. It may also be that Ilia is not in certain cases aiming to disguise the truth, but, readers may not be able to guess the event meant by the author, may not have relevant information about it. For example, in this poem we decrypted the words said about King Giorgi XII – “He has assigned the Leks as our guardians”; we also identified the person who was against the creation of the bank, as he did not worry about “childless” future himself. It is noteworthy that, for describing Georgian nation, in parallel with negative, satirical epithets, Ilia also uses positive epithets, which lose function against the background of all the negative. Ilia’s “sword” must be very painful if a reader realizes the described defects and believes oneself to be part of those defects, as a representative of this nation. More “attacking” satirical poems appear in Ilia’s literary works from the 70s. They were created one after another and were aimed at waking up the society. One of such is – What we have done, what we have been doing or Georgian history of the 19th century. Ilia’s satirical poems are mostly of riddle form or are pure riddles. By the form, we mean saying the truth in a concealed, hinting form. Therefore, a reader must guess which real fact or person the verses are meant about. It may also be that Ilia is not in certain cases aiming to disguise the truth, but, readers may not be able to guess the event meant by the author, may not have relevant information about it. For example, in this poem we decrypted the words said about King Giorgi XII – “He has assigned the Leks as our guardians”; we also identified the person who was against the creation of the bank, as he did not worry about “childless” future himself. It is noteworthy that, for describing Georgian nation, in parallel with negative, satirical epithets, Ilia also uses positive epithets, which lose function against the background of all the negative. Ilia’s “sword” must be very painful if a reader realizes the described defects and believes oneself to be part of those defects, as a representative of this nation. Several months after this poem was written, Ilia created two more satirical verses – Riddles and More Riddles. If in folklore riddles the necessary connection between the situation described in text and meant object is not seen in folklore riddles, in a literary riddle text is in direct connection with the object; there is no naivety of relating in it and the necessary reference is apparent. Literary riddle preserves its form from the viewpoint that by listing specific features, it points back to the specific; it stops at one, from many options. Ilia’s Riddles and More Riddles were created as result of specific fact. In 1871, for the arrival of Emperor Alexander II, Georgian Nobility prepared an Address to the Emperor on the request to open university in Tbilisi, but the then Marshal of the Nobility Revaz Andronikashvili agreed to the desire of a certain group of the nobles and presented to the Emperor the address with the request to open Cadet Corps in Tbilisi. Ilia considered such slavish and flattery attitude towards the Emperor as the betrayal of patriotic affairs and dedicated riddles to all those who took part in it. In response to those literary works was created Grigol Orbeliani’s Response to the Sons, which was written by not so upset Grigol Orbeliani just for having the excuse “up, there”. Ilia’s Response to Response followed immediately after. Ilia agrees to the pose of the oppressed and uses the same offensive vocabulary used by Grigol Orbeliani when describing the modern generation (“You, little kittens, where are you meowing from…” and etc.), but this pose is not the only one expressing Ilia’s satirical attitude to the old generation. He makes emphasis on their ranks, which they have sacrificed the fate of the country to. Ilia’s satirical-humorous poem The Two-Voice New-Year Operetta, reveals the whole spectrum of Georgian publicist life; expressed in separate nuances of interrelation of periodicals and their employees. In general, the New Year Operetta is aimed against the Third Troupe and its leader; it also targets the publicists who cooperate with Kvali (Tracks) Newspaper and also those who oppose Ilia in the banking affairs. As usual, Ilia himself is one of the characters. When discussing himself, the author keeps the satirical attitude. Ilia’s style is, along with revealing the bad, to praise what is good. In the More Riddles and the Operetta, the poet also includes those public figures, who he only says good about. One of Ilia’s untitled satirical verses is included in the section of excerpts of the publication of his literary works of 1914; it appears that the publishers did not consider it as a finished poem. Indeed, we cannot see specific signs characterizing a person in those riddles, in order to be able to identify the addressee. In our article, we also attempted to identify those addressees. As we can see, Ilia’s satire lyrics were mainly created during 70s-90s, in relation to specific events and persons. Ilia masterly uses satire expression techniques: pose of the oppressed, change of the satire object by mocking own self, imitating-remaking another literary work, their intertextual usage, naivety characterizing folklore, irony, representing an event in an opposite aspect, satirical comparison, epithets, metaphors, underestimation technique and etc. Ilia’s satire has public significance. The Poet mainly “attacks” those, in the actions of whom he sees lack of national feelings.