Abukura

Abukura is a monument of ancient Georgian literature.

The existence of literary work bearing this name became known to science from “Life of Ioane and Ekvtime”, where only the title of this work is mentioned – Abukura. In the 80s of 19th century, there was a hypothesis that the author of “Life of Ioane and Ekvtime”, when mentioning Abukura, might have meant some Apocrypha (analogical to Abukorofa-Apukorofa in ancient Georgian) or some literary work of Theodore Abu Qurrah, bishop of Harran. In 1918, K. Kekelidze published “Martyrdom of Sant Michael” (Kimeni, t. I). This monument describes how Theodore Abu Qurrah told his pupils about Michael who toiled Mar Saba.

The name of the narrator Abukura later became the title of the work. The work itself was written in Arabic by someone called Basilius (9th century). At the beginning of the 10th century, some unknown writer translated it into Georgian. According to old sources, Euthymius the Athonite translated Georgian text into Greek. Some believe that Abukura is in the “Life” of Theodore of Edessa, which was translated from Greek to Georgian by Ephrem Mtsire.

Literature: კ ე კ ე ლ ი ძ ე  კ., ქართული ლიტერატურის ისტორია, ტ. 1, თბ., 1960.

R. Baramidze