Anastasia Eristavi-Khoshtaria Anastasia Eristavi-Khoshtaria ( ka, ანასტასია ერისთავი-ხოშტარია) (February 3, 1868 – May 1, 1951) was a

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

woman novelist.

Biography

She was born into an aristocratic family in

Gori, Georgia Gori ( ka, გორი ) is a city in eastern Georgia, which serves as the regional capital of Shida Kartli and is located at the confluence of two rivers, the Mtkvari and the Liakhvi. Gori is the fifth most populous city in Georgia. Its name ...

, then part of

Imperial Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...

. Eristavi-Khoshtaria began as a teacher in her birthplace, Gori, where she founded a free school for peasant children and later established a women’s organization Mandilosani (1913-4). She debuted in 1885 when her translation of an

Ossetic Ossetian (, , ), commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete (), is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken predominantly in Ossetia, a region situated on both sides of the Greater Caucasus. It is the native language of the Ossetia ...

legend ბესო (''Beso'') was published. In the 1890s she was encouraged by the popular Georgian writer

Akaki Tsereteli Count Akaki Tsereteli ( ka, აკაკი წერეთელი) (1840–1915), often mononymously known as Akaki,Sometimes mistakenly rendered in Russian as Akakiy. Georgian spelling Akaki and Russian spelling Akakiy are both derived from th ...

to move to

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the Capital city, capital and the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia, lying on the ...

to continue her work on original writings. Her first novels, მოლიპულ გზაზე (''On the Slippery Path'', 1897) and ბედის ტრიალი (''The Wheel of Fate'', 1901), enjoyed recognizable success. Being the first Georgian female writer who set her work from a feminine view and direct it at educated adults, Eristavi-Khoshtaria’s novels and stories follow one pattern: they trace the career of a Georgian noblewoman, thrown into turmoil of the collapse of the old economic and moral orders in the mid-19th century, defending her ideals of free work and truthful love against a corrupt background and clay-footed heroes. After the Soviet invasion of 1921, she withdrew from literary and public activities and wrote little, except ideologically corrective introductions to reprints of her own works .

Rayfield, Donald Patrick Donald Rayfield OBE (born 12 February 1942, Oxford) is an English academic and Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary University of London. He is an author of books about Russian and Georgian literature, and about Josep ...

(2000), '' The Literature of Georgia: A History'': 2nd edition, p. 217. Routledge, Anastasia Eristavi-Khoshtaria was married to Dutu Megreli (Dimitri Khoshtaria) (1867-1938), an author of popular patriotic poems and children's stories.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eristavi-Khoshtaria, Anastasia 1868 births 1951 deaths Novelists from Georgia (country) People from Gori, Georgia 19th-century writers from Georgia (country) 20th-century writers from Georgia (country) 19th-century novelists 20th-century novelists 20th-century women writers from Georgia (country) 19th-century women writers from Georgia (country) Feminists from Georgia (country)

Biography

See also

References