Tradition – Innovation in the Lyrics of Besik Gabashvili, a Georgian Poet of the Renaissance Period

Abstract

The lyrics of Besik (Besarion) Gabashvili (1750 – 1791), a poet of the royal court and a diplomat was quite popular in the Georgian poetry of the XVIII XIX centuries. Due to Georgian political events his fate got somehow related to the city Iaşi, Romania, where the poet is buried. In the period of activity of Georgian – Romanian relations, in the 70s of the XX century, a collection of poems “Armies of Sadness”, where the poet`s 25 poems are included, was translated into Romanian language by Georgian (G. Jinjikhashvili and L. Kochladze) and Romanian (Dumitru M. Ion) translators. Thus, we decided to focus on the lyrics of a famous poet Besarion Gabashvili, who is very popular among the Georgians and more or less familiar to the Romanians. He was the poet who finished the love lyrics, dictated by Eastern motifs, and marked with traditional Georgian signs; the lyrics, which is full of new metaphors, inspired to seek real, specific poetic faces from the “book-mannered” expression of love. The novelty, as the research showed us, is represented by an amazingly proper, highly artistic poetic word. Its sad disposition appeared to accompany the lyrics of Romanticists as well, and it did not lose its importance up to the present day. In the XX century, the lyrics of Besarion Gabashvili was taught in the secondary school for 70 years, and in the higher institutions his works are an integral part of the education course “Georgian Literature 1”. In the current paper we focus on his lyrics in the context of world literary processes.