''Visramiani'' ( ka, ვისრამიანი) is a medieval

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 ...

version of the old

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

love story '' Vīs and Rāmīn'', traditionally taken to have been rendered in prose by Sargis of Tmogvi, a 12th/13th-century statesman and writer active during the reign of

Queen Tamar Tamar the Great ( ka, თამარ მეფე, tr, lit. "King Tamar") ( 1160 – 18 January 1213) reigned as the Queen of Georgia from 1184 to 1213, presiding over the apex of the Georgian Golden Age. A member of the Bagrationi dynasty ...

(r. 1184-1213). The Georgian version is a free prose translation which fully retains the spirit of the Persian original but differs from it in a number of minor details, at the same time rendering the translation a vivid national coloring. ''Visramiani'' proved to be a considerable influence on all further development of Georgian literature. The story is mentioned and admired virtually in all classical pieces of medieval and early modern Georgian literature, including in the poem by

Shota Rustaveli Shota Rustaveli ( ka, შოთა რუსთაველი, c. 1160 – after c. 1220), mononymously known simply as Rustaveli, was a medieval Georgian poet. He is considered to be the pre-eminent poet of the Georgian Golden Age and one of th ...

which is a crowning merit of the medieval Georgian poetry. Notably, Vis and Ramin feature among 12 most famous pairs listed by Queen Tamar's official chronicle ''The Histories and Eulogies of Sovereigns'' on the occasion of her marriage to the

Alan Alan may refer to: People *Alan (surname), an English and Turkish surname * Alan (given name), an English given name **List of people with given name Alan ''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.'' *A ...

prince

David Soslan David Soslan ( ka, დავით სოსლანი, tr) (died 1207) was a prince from Alania and second husband of Queen Tamar, whom he married in c. 1189. He is chiefly known for his military exploits during Georgia's wars against its Musli ...

.Gvakharia, Aleksandr
Georgia IV: Literary contacts with Persia
, in: ''

Encyclopaedia Iranica An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

Online Edition''. Accessed on April 25, 2008. The importance of ''Visramiani'' for the history of the Persian text lies in that, being the oldest known manuscript of the work and better preserved than the original, it helps restore corrupted lines and determine the reliable editions in different Persian manuscripts a bulk of which date to a later period (17th-18th centuries). ''Visramiani'' was first published by the writer

Ilia Chavchavadze Prince Ilia Chavchavadze ( ka, ილია ჭავჭავაძე; 8 November 1837 – 12 September 1907) was a Georgian public figure, journalist, publisher, writer and poet who spearheaded the revival of Georgian nationalism during the ...

in 1884 and first introduced to the English-speaking world through the translation by

Sir Oliver Wardrop Sir John Oliver Wardrop KBE CMG (10 October 1864 – 19 October 1948) was a British diplomat, traveller and translator, primarily known as the United Kingdom's first Chief Commissioner of Transcaucasia in Georgia, 1919–20, and also as the fo ...

as ''Visramiani: the story of the loves of Vis and Ramin, a romance of ancient Persia'' in 1914. It was later extensively studied and compared with the Persian text by the Georgian

Iranologists Iranian studies ( fa, ايران‌شناسی '), also referred to as Iranology and Iranistics, is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the research and study of the civilization, history, literature, art and culture of Iranian peoples. It ...

Alexander Gvakharia and Magali Todua in the 1960s.Jean-Claude Polet (1992), ''Patrimoine littéraire européen: anthologie en langue française'', pp. 515-520. De Boeck Université, .

See also

References

Further reading