Shota Rustaveli

  1. Home
  2. Wiki
This article is about the Georgian poet. For other uses of "Shota Rustaveli", see Shota Rustaveli (disambiguation).
Shota Rustaveli
შოთა რუსთაველი
Fresco of Rustaveli in the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem
Fresco of Rustaveli in the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem
Born
Rustavi, Meskheti
Kingdom of Georgia
Died
Jerusalem
Resting placeMonastery of the Cross
Jerusalem (undisclosed)
Pen nameRustveli
Meskhetian poet
Occupationpoet, thinker, statesman, prince, treasurer
LanguageMiddle Georgian
NationalityGeorgian
CitizenshipKingdom of Georgia
Alma materGelati academy
Ikalto academy
Academy in Byzantine Empire
PeriodReign of Queen Tamar
Georgian Golden Age
Genrepoetry, national epic
Notable worksThe Knight in the Panther's Skin

Shota Rustaveli (Georgian: შოთა რუსთაველი, c. 1160 – after c. 1220),[1] 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 the greatest contributors to Georgian literature. Rustaveli was the author of The Knight in the Panther's Skin, a Georgian national epic poem.

Biography

[edit]

Little, if anything, is known about Rustaveli from contemporary sources. Shota Rustaveli was born in 1160.[2] He started serving Queen Tamar as a Minister of Finance in 1191. His poem itself, namely the prologue, provides a clue to his identity: the poet identifies himself as "a certain Rustveli." "Rustveli" is not a surname, but a territorial epithet that can be interpreted as "of/from/holder of Rustavi"; although a 10th century manuscript fragment found in 1975 in Saint Catherine's Monastery in Sinai attests to its use as a cognomen by a noble house of Ru(i)staveli.[3] Later Georgian authors from the 15th through 18th centuries are more informative; they are almost unanimous in identifying him as Shota Rustaveli, a name that is preserved on a fresco and a document from the formerly Georgian Monastery of the Holy Cross at Jerusalem. The fresco was described by the Georgian pilgrim Timote Gabashvili in 1757/58 and rediscovered by a team of Georgian scholars in 1960. The same Jerusalem document speaks of Shota as a sponsor of the monastery and a mechurchletukhutsesi ("high treasurer"), echoing a popular legend that Rustaveli was a minister at Queen Tamar’s court and retired to the monastery at an advanced age.

Both a folk tradition and the 17th-century royal poet Archil identify Rustaveli as a native of the southern Georgian region of Meskheti, where his home village Rustavi was located (in modern-day Aspindza Municipality, not to be confused with the modern-day city of Rustavi near Tbilisi). A legend states that Rustaveli was educated at the medieval Georgian academies of Gelati and Ikalto, and then in "Greece" (i.e., the Byzantine Empire). He must have produced his major work no earlier than the 1180s and no later than the first decade of the 13th century, most probably 1205-1207.[4]

Rustaveli was well acquainted with Persian "and was therefore able to read and appreciate its poetry without having to resort to faulty translations".[5] Rustaveli may have composed Persian verse as well.[5]

The Knight in the Panther's Skin

[edit]

The Knight in the Panther's Skin is a celebrated medieval epic poem written by Shota Rustaveli. It is considered the national epic of Georgia and one of the greatest works of Georgian literature. Although the poem takes place in the fictional settings of "India" and "Arabia," events in these distant lands are but a colorful allegory of the rule of Queen Tamar of Georgia and the size and glory of the Kingdom of Georgia in its Golden Age.[6] The poem has been translated into many languages. It was first printed in 1712 in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.[7] The manuscripts of The Knight in the Panther's Skin occupy an important place among the works produced in Georgia. Two folios of this text, dating from the 16th century, are preserved at the Georgian National Center of Manuscripts in Tbilisi, and some lines of the poem, dating from the 14th century, are also kept there.[8] All other known copies of the poem date from the 17th century.[9]

Rustaveli's Fresco in Jerusalem

[edit]
Fresco of Rustaveli before and after being vandalized in 2004

The only known contemporary portrait of Shota Rustaveli was painted on the eastern face of the southwest pillar of the church of the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. It is set at the foot of two much larger images of saints and is accompanied by a Georgian-language inscription.

The portrait was vandalized in June 2004 by an unknown perpetrator, who scratched out Rustaveli's face and part of the accompanying Georgian inscription with his name. Georgia officially complained to Israel after the priceless fresco was defaced.[10] The portrait and inscription have been restored.[11]

Legacy

[edit]

The highest Georgian state prize in the fields of art and literature is the Shota Rustaveli State Prize. Tbilisi's main thoroughfare is Rustaveli Avenue. In Tbilisi, one can also find the Rustaveli Theatre, the Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, the Shota Rustaveli Tbilisi International Airport and the Rustaveli metro station, among many other landmarks bearing his name.

Rustaveli has been featured on the 100 Georgian lari bill since the introduction of the currency in 1995. In 2001 Israel and Georgia jointly issued postage stamps to honor Shota Rustaveli.

Streets in a number of cities in the former Soviet Union are named after Rustaveli, including in Moscow, Saint Petersburg (Russia), Kyiv, Lviv (Ukraine), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Yerevan, Gyumri (Armenia), and elsewhere, such as pathway in Jerusalem, which leads to the Monastery of the Cross.

Mihály Zichy, a 19th-century Hungarian painter, rose to the rank of "national painter" in Georgia as he produced the classic illustrations that have been frequently used in editions of Rustaveli's poetry. A sculpture and a street commemorate Zichy's work in Tbilisi. Georgian composer Tamara Vakhvakhishvili set Rustaveli's poetry to music in her composition Citation for voice and orchestra.

As a part of the 65th Anniversary of the Recovery of Shota Rustaveli's Fresco, Oxford Interfaith Forum organises a series of educational events, including the Bodleian Library Manuscript Presentations, and Multi-lingual Reading.[12]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Shota Rustaveli, Encyclopædia Britannica
  2. ^ Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. Tbilisi: 1984, pp. 506–508.
  3. ^ Aleksidze, Nikoloz (2018). Georgia: A Cultural Journey through the Wardrop Collection. Oxford: Bodleian Library. pp. 40–41. ISBN 9781851244959.
  4. ^ Baramidze, Alexandre. Shota Rustaveli: The Date of “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin”. Tbilisi, 1975, p. 30.
  5. ^ a b Farmanfarmaian 2009, p. 26.
  6. ^ David Marshall Lang. Landmarks in Georgian Literature. School of Oriental and African Studies, 1966, p. 20
  7. ^ Baramidze, Alexander (1975). Shota Rustaveli: Manuscripts and Editions of The Knight in the Panther’s Skin (in Georgian). Tbilisi. p. 357.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ Bregadze, T. (1962). "Several More Verses of The Knight in the Panther's Skin in the Notes of Old Manuscripts". Bulletin of the Institute of Manuscripts (in Georgian). IV. Tbilisi: 93–96.
  9. ^ Tatishvili, Lamara (2000). The Scribes of The Knight in the Panther’s Skin (in Georgian). Tbilisi: Copenhagen. pp. 1–2.
  10. ^ "Precious Jerusalem fresco defaced". BBC. 5 July 2004. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  11. ^ "მიზანმიმართული ბოროტება!". კვირის პალიტრა. 19 April 2010.
  12. ^ "The 65th Anniversary of the Recovery of the Iconic Interculturalist Poet Shota Rustaveli's Medieval Fresco in the Jerusalem Monastery" (in Georgian). MCM. 6 November 2025.

Sources

[edit]
[edit]

Literature

[edit]
  • Tite Margwelaschwili. "Der Mann in Pantherfell".- "Georgica", London, 1936 (in German)
  • Zviad Gamsakhurdia. "Tropology of The Knight in the Panther's Skin" (a monograph), Tbilisi, 1991, 352 pp (in Georgian, English summary)
  • Shota Rustaveli. The Lord of the Panther-Skin, Albany: SUNY Press, 1977, 240 pp, translated by R.H. Stevenson, UNESCO Collection of representative works: Series of translations from the literatures of the Union of Soviet Socialist republics
  • Shota Rustaveli. The Man in the Panther's Skin, London: The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1912, translated by Marjory Scott Wardrop, repr. 1966.
  • Shota Rustaveli. The Knight in Panther Skin, London: The Folio Society, 1977, A free translation in prose by Katharine Vivian.
  • Beynen, G. Koolemans. "Murder, Foul and Fair, in Shota Rustaveli's The Man in the Panther Skin", in Medieval and Early Modern Murder, Larissa Tracy, ed. (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2018), pp. 350–70.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shota Rustaveli.