Abstract:
Aleksandre Tsagareli is one of the outstanding figures
among the nineteenth-century Kartvelologists. He is more famous
for his linguistic and historical works, however, Tsagareli is
also the author of the cycle of letters "Our Unfortunate Literature
in this Century" ("Droeba" 1870, No. 2-7), in which he introduced
himself as a critic of new Georgian literature. This essay is
important it shows for the first time the differentiation of Georgian
writing of the nineteenth century into separate stages.
Aleksandre Tsagareli singles out three main stages of the development
of new Georgian literature and connects them with the
names of specific writers. He names Aleksandre Chavchavadze
as the central figure of the first period. According to the critic,
Anacreontic motifs, the great influence of Persian love poetry,
archaic language, indifference to civil problems mark his works.
The key author of the second period is Giorgi Eristavi, the creator
of national comedy, who founded his literary school and gave
rise to satirical writing. The leading writers of the third period
are Ilia Chavchavadze and Akaki Tsereteli. According to Alexandre
Tsagareli, Nikoloz Baratashvili stands completely apart in
Georgian literature. The critic draws a parallel between the poetry
of Nikoloz Baratashvili and Mikhail Lermontov, thereby pointing
to the romantic context of the Georgian poet's work. Tsagareli
thinks that "Bedi Kartlisa" (“The Fate of Kartli”) gave birth
to civic poetry in Georgia.
Alexandre Tsagareli's discussion about Ilia Chavchavadze's
work is noteworthy. The value of his thought is mainly determined
by the fact that it opposes the opinion of previous critics (G.
Baratashvili, B. Jorjadze, A. Furtseladze, A. Tsereteli), according to which Ilia Chavchavadze lacks the natural talent of a lyric poet
and writes poems "in a haphazard manner". Analyzing particular
samples of Ilia ChavChavadze’s lyrics, Alexandre Tsagareli
proves that Ilia was blessed with the talent of a lyricist.
Alexandre Tsagareli considers the energy of the poetic
phrase to be one of the main virtues of Ilia Chavchavadze's poetry.
According to the critic, the fact that Ilia Chavchavadze's
lyrics have a special emotional impact on the reader comes
from this.
Among Ilia's works, Tsagareli is most fascinated by "Is that a
Man?!". The value of Tsagareli’s article for the history of the
study of Ilia Chavchavadze’s prose is determined by the fact that
he raised the issue of Ilia's relation to Nikolai Gogol's work. It is
true that Tsagareli did not manage to solve this problem to the
end, but he created the basis for starting a special discussion
about the reception of Gogol in Georgian literature and in particular
- in the work of Ilia Chavchavadze. Later, Grigol Kiknadze,
an outstanding critic of new Georgian literature, in his famous
monograph "Issues of speech style" devoted a special study to
this problem, in which he presented the relationship between
the creative methods of Ilia Chavchavadze and Nikolai Gogol.
