Chubinashvili David

Chubinashvili David (1814–1891), Linguist, lexicographer and philologist, the 1st Georgian professor at the University of St. Petersburg. As of 1860, he was the member of Russian Geographic Society, Imperial Archeological Society (since 1869), honorary member of Philological Society and member of the ‘Society for Spreading Literacy among Georgians’. He was born in Tbilisi, Georgia. In 1839 he graduated from the Faculty of Oriental Philology of St. Petersburg University. In 1840 D. Chubinashvili was appointed an interpreter at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. In 1844 he was invited to the University of St. Petersburg as a teacher of Georgian language. In 1855-71, professor D. Chubinashvili headed the newly founded Chair of Georgian Language and Philology at the same University. In 1840 he embarked on the path of scientific research. He compiled Georgian-RussianFrench Dictionary (1840) and Russian-Georgian Dictionary (1846), which was supplied with his introductory essay on the grammar of Georgian language. D. Chbinashvili has fruitfully worked on analyzing and publishing of literary monuments of old Georgian writings. He participated in the publication of The Man In the Panther’s Skin in 1841 and helped I. Bartdinski in preparing the Russian translation of the said epic poem by Sh. Rustaveli (1845). He made an inventory of Georgian antiquities of Jerusalem; he was the first to supply the information on the fresco of Shota Rustaveli at the Georgian Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem.

D. Chubinashvili died in St. Petersburg.