European Discourse in the “Transitional Period” of the Georgian Literature

Abstract

The “Transitional period” occupies a special place in the history of old Georgian Literature. It is at this time, at the turn of the XVIII - XIX centuries, when the great changes in the political or spiritual life of the Georgian nation are marked, which have radically changed the public life of the Georgians and, to some extent, the consciousness as well. These changes were followed by the greatest literary event of the XIX century, Georgian Romanticism, the chronologically preceding period of which the socalled “Transitional period” coincides with the existence of a directly preced-ing literary phenomenon of Romanticism in Europe, known as “Preromanticism”. Therefore, this period is a kind of “preparatory” stage for Romanticism and, quite logically, is considered as “Preromanticism”. Representatives of Georgian “Preromanticism” and later Georgian Romanticists of the XIX century translated and in-troduced to the public the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, Cornell, Racine, Lafontaine, Hugo, Mickiewicz, Heine, Derzhavin, Pushkin, Lermontov and others.