![Titsian_Tabidze_and_Valerian_Gaprindashvili](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Titsian_Tabidze_and_Valerian_Gaprindashvili.jpg)
Valerian Gaprindashvili ( ka, ვალერიან გაფრინდაშვილი) (December 21, 1888 – January 31, 1941) 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 ...
poet and translator whose early,
Symbolist, poetry was of much influence on development of Georgian metaphor and verse.
Born in
Kutaisi, he graduated from the
Moscow University in 1914. Returning to Georgia, Gaprindashvili was one of the founder members of the Symbolist group
Blue Horns in 1915/16. His early, innovating poems illustrate the world as a mystic show populated with phantoms and doubles mixed with nearly "sacral" heroes from history and literature such as
Cagliostro
Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (, ; 2 June 1743 – 26 August 1795) was the alias of the Italian occultist Giuseppe Balsamo (; in French usually referred to as Joseph Balsamo).
Cagliostro was an Italian adventurer and self-styled magician. ...
,
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
,
Ophelia
Ophelia () is a character in William Shakespeare's drama '' Hamlet'' (1599–1601). She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and potential wife of Prince Hamlet, who, due to Hamlet's actions, ends u ...
,
Hannibal, etc. His first and best book, ''Daisebi'' ("Sundowns", 1919), at a time he called "the
Dionysian
The Apollonian and the Dionysian are philosophical and literary concepts represented by a duality between the figures of Apollo and Dionysus from Greek mythology. Its popularization is widely attributed to the work ''The Birth of Tragedy'' by Fr ...
night" of Georgia, introduced into Georgian the aesthetics of
Baudelaire and
Paul Valéry
Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, mus ...
, as well as the
mannerisms of the Russian Symbolists. Gaprindashvili significantly distanced himself from the Georgian literary classics’ understanding of a poet's mission and suggested an outcast, mad and suicidal person as an eventual result of a poet's natural evolution. From the 1920s, like many of his fellow Symbolists, he faced an ideological pressure from the newly established
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
regime which forced him to make a conciliatory move towards the standards of Soviet literature. He survived
Stalinist purges
In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...
of the 1930s, but his later years were unproductive.
Gaprindashvili also made translations from
Eugène Edine Pottier
Eugène Edine Pottier (; 4 October 1816 – 6 November 1887) was a French revolutionary, poet, freemason and transport worker.
Pottier was elected a member of the Paris municipal council - the Paris Commune, in March 1871. Following the Commu ...
,
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...
,
Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
,
Lermontov
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (; russian: Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ˈjurʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲɛrməntəf; – ) was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucas ...
,
Alexander Blok
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok ( rus, Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Бло́к, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈblok, a=Ru-Alyeksandr Alyeksandrovich Blok.oga; 7 August 1921) was a Russian lyrical poet, writer, publ ...
,
Nikolay Nekrasov
Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasov ( rus, Никола́й Алексе́евич Некра́сов, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪtɕ nʲɪˈkrasəf, a=Ru-Nikolay_Alexeyevich_Nekrasov.ogg, – ) was a Russian poet, writer, critic and publi ...
,
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (, ; rus, Влади́мир Влади́мирович Маяко́вский, , vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ məjɪˈkofskʲɪj, Ru-Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.ogg, links=y; – 14 Apr ...
, and others. He also translated and published in Russian the works of the Georgian Romanticist poet
Nikoloz Baratashvili
Prince Nikoloz "Tato" Baratashvili ( ka, ნიკოლოზ "ტატო" ბარათაშვილი; 4 December 1817 – 21 October 1845) was a Georgian poet. He was one of the first Georgians to marry modern nationalism with European R ...
.
References
*Robert B. Pynsent, Sonia I. Kanikova (1993), ''Reader's Encyclopedia of Eastern European Literature'', p. 120. Harpercollins,
External links
Sentimental Trioletin Georgian and parallel English translation with video
1888 births
1941 deaths
Burials at Didube Pantheon
Male poets from Georgia (country)
Symbolist poets
People from Kutaisi
20th-century poets from Georgia (country)
20th-century translators
20th-century male writers
{{Georgia-poet-stub