Georges Charachidzé (Giorgi Sharashidze; ka, გიორგი შარაშიძე) (February 11, 1930 – February 20, 2010) was a French- Georgian scholar of the Caucasian cultures. His most important works focused on the history of Georgian feudalism, pagan religious beliefs of the Georgians as well as the Caucasian

comparative mythology Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics.Littleton, p. 32 Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes. For example, scholars have used ...

and the

North Caucasian languages The North Caucasian languages, sometimes called simply Caucasic, is a proposed language family consisting of a pair of well established language families spoken in the Caucasus, predominantly in the north, consisting of the Northwest Caucasian ...

.Georges Charachidzé ✝ 1930-2010
batsav.com. Accessed January 29, 2012. Méloua, Mirian (5 mars 2010)
Georges Charachidzé (1930-2010), linguiste et historien du Caucase, d'origine géorgienne
. colisee.org. Accessed January 29, 2012.

Family

Georges Charachidzé was born into the Georgian émigré community of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. His father David Sharashidze (French: ''Charachidzé''; 1886–1935) was a journalist and a member of the Constituent Assembly of Georgia before being forced to leave his homeland following the Soviet takeover of Georgia in 1921. Sentenced to death by the Soviet government, Charachidzé had moved to Paris, where he had married a young French teacher, who gave birth to Georges Charachidzé in 1930.

Career

Georges Charachidzé grew up speaking both Georgian and French. In 1953, he obtained the supervision of

Georges Dumézil Georges Edmond Raoul Dumézil (4 March 189811 October 1986) was a French Philology, philologist, Linguistics, linguist, and religious studies scholar who specialized in comparative linguistics and comparative mythology, mythology. He was a prof ...

, a leading French scholar of the Caucasus, for his doctoral thesis, which was published, in 1968, as his first book ''Le système religieux de la Géorgie païenne'' ("The religious system of pagan Georgia"). In 1965, he accompanied Dumézil to

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

for a field-work study of the Caucasian communities, descending from the 19th-century refugees of the Russian conquest wars in the Caucasus. While in Turkey, he assisted Dumézil in the reconstruction of the vanishing

Ubykh language Ubykh is an extinct Northwest Caucasian language once spoken by the Ubykh people, an ethnic group of Circassian nation who originally inhabited the eastern coast of the Black Sea before being deported ''en masse'' to the Ottoman Empire during ...

and in recording its last living speaker,

Tevfik Esenç Tevfik Esenç (; 1904 – 7 October 1992) was a Turkish citizen of Ubykh origin, known for being the last speaker of the Ubykh language. He was fluent in Ubykh, Adyghe and Turkish. After his death in 1992, the Ubykh language went extinct desp ...

, who died in 1992. Charachidzé produced several studies on the pagan religious systems of the Georgians and other Caucasians, the Georgian feudalism, the Avar grammar, Ubykh texts, and the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

–Caucasian interaction. Charachidzé was a regular contributor to the long-running, Paris-based journal for Caucasian studies '' Bedi Kartlisa'', founded and sponsored by the Georgian émigrés

Kalistrat Salia Kalistrate Salia ( ka, კალისტრატე სალია; 1901–1986) was a Georgian émigré historian and philologist active in France. Salia was born on 18 July 1901 in Mingrelia, western Georgia. He studied at Zugdidi and Khas ...

and Nino Salia. In 1985, Charachidzé, together with Dumézil, founded the successor journal ''Revue des Etudes Géorgiennes et Caucasiennes''. Charachidzé taught Georgian at the

Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (; ), abbreviated as INALCO, is a French Grand Etablissement with a specializing in the teaching of languages and cultures from the world. Its coverage spans languages of Central Europ ...

from 1965 to 1998. He served as the president of the

Société de Linguistique de Paris The Société de Linguistique de Paris (established 1864) is the editing body of the ''BSL'' (''Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique'') journal. Members of the society have included such well-known French linguists as Bréal, Saussure, Meil ...

in 1984. He was also a member of the

Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres The () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the . The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions (epigraphy) and historical literature (see Belles-lettres). History ...

. Georges Charachidzé died in Paris in 2010. Catinchi, Philippe-Jean (25 février 2010), "Linguiste et historien, spécialiste du Caucase Georges Charachidzé". ''

Le Monde (; ) is a mass media in France, French daily afternoon list of newspapers in France, newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average print circulation, circulation of 480,000 copies per issue in 2022, including ...

''
Scanned paper
at the Georgian National Academy of Sciences website. Accessed January 29, 2012.

Bibliography

Some of the most important works by Charachidzé are: *Charachidzé, G. 1960. Travail et mort dans la montagne géorgienne. ''L’Ethnographie'' 54: 45-62. *Charachidzé, Georges. 1968. ''Le système religieux de la Géorgie païenne: analyse structurale d’une civilisation''. Paris: Maspero. *Charachidzé, Georges. 1971. ''Introduction à l’étude de la féodalité géorgienne: le Code de Georges le Brillant''. Paris: Librairie Droz. *Charachidzé, Georges. 1979. ''L’aigle en clé d’eau: un exemple d’inversion conservante. La fonction symbolique''. Michel Izard & Pierre Smith, eds. Paris: Gallimard, pp 83–104. *Charachidzé, G. 1981. "Géorgie. La religion et les mythes des Géorgiens de la montagne." ''Dictionnaire des mythologies et des religions des sociétés traditionnelles et du monde antique''. (ed. Yves Bonnefoy). Vol 1, pp 451–459. Paris: Flammarion. *Charachidzé, G. 1981. "Arménie. La religion et les mythes." ''Dictionnaire des mythologies et des religions des sociétés traditionnelles et du monde antique''. (ed. Yves Bonnefoy). Vol 1, pp 67–69. Paris: Flammarion. *Charachidzé, G.. 1981. "Caucase du Nord." ''Dictionnaire des mythologies et des religions des so-ciétés traditionnelles et du monde antique''. (ed. Y. Bonnefoy). Vol 1, pp 129–132. Flammarion. *Charachidzé, G. 1981. "Les Ossètes." ''Dictionnaire des mythologies et des religions des sociétés traditionnelles et du monde antique''. (ed. Y. Bonnefoy). Vol 2, pp 215–218. Paris: Flammarion. *Charachidzé, G. 1986. ''Prométhée ou le Caucase''. Paris: Flammarion. *Charachidzé, G. 1987. ''La mémoire indo-européenne du Caucase''. Paris: Hachette.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Charachidze, Georges 1930 births 2010 deaths 20th-century French historians Linguists from France Ubykh language French people of Georgian descent Kartvelian studies scholars French philologists Indo-Europeanists Mythographers Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Writers from Paris Comparative mythologists French male writers