Eristavi Rapiel

Eristavi, Rapiel [9(21) April 1824, village Kvemo Chala, present-day Kaspi Municipality – 19 February (4 March) 1901, Telavi], was a writer, ethnographer, lexicographer, and public figure. He was a descendant of the Eristavi family of Aragvi, which had settled in Kakheti. He spent his childhood on the family estate in the village of Kistauri. His mother, Nino Amilakhvari, taught him reading and writing in Georgian, while a private tutor taught him Russian. He studied at the Telavi District School and later at Shuamta Monastery under F. Kiknadze. After graduating from Tbilisi Gymnasium (1844), he worked as a translator in the Tusheti-Pshavi-Khevsureti administration, later in the office of the Viceroy in Tbilisi, and then in Kutaisi as a senior official for special assignments. From 1857 to 1867, he served as head of the Zugdidi Uezd; from 1867 to 1870, as head of a department in the Kutaisi provincial administration; and from 1889 to 1896, as a censor in the Caucasian Censorship Committee.

From 1846, Eristavi’s reviews, historical and ethnographic essays, and articles promoting Georgian culture appeared in the Russian press (“Kavkaz,” “Novoe Obozrenie”). Beginning in 1847, he provided valuable information about Georgian culture and history to M. Brosset. Eristavi played a major role in founding the Georgian Museum and the Society for the Spreading of Literacy among Georgians. He was one of the founders of the professional Georgian theatre, chairman of the Georgian Dramatic Society (1884–86), and one of the initiators and members of the 1882 commission that established the authoritative text of The Knight in the Panther’s Skin.

Eristavi’s creative work was diverse. His first poems (Darigeba - “Advice” and Kvavilebs - “To the Flowers”) which already showed closeness to the folk tradition, were published in Tsiskari in 1852. His first story, Oborvanets (“The Wretched One”), appeared in the Russian almanac Zurna in 1855, and his first prose work in Georgian, Nino, in Tsiskari in 1857. In this story, as in his poems—Eristavi, as Ilia Chavchavadze later remarked, was the first to raise his voice against serfdom. He responded to the “Fathers and Sons” struggle with his story “Literaturni Vecher” (Tsiskari, 1862).

In the 1870s and 1880s, his poetry gained renewed force, characterized by humanism and democratic spirit. His poems revealed the hardships of the peasantry: “Sesia’s Thoughts,” “Tandila’s Sorrow” (1882), “Berua’s Complaint,” “Berua’s Reflection” (1883), and others. He continued the tradition of the Georgian historical poem with works such as Aspindzis Brdzola (“The Battle of Aspindza”) (1880) and “Tamariani” (1887).

His poems inspired by love of homeland—“Dedaena” (“The Mother Tongue”), “Ratom Kvitineb Deda” (“Why Do You Weep, Mother?”), and others—quickly gained popularity and became songs (music by N. Sulkhanishvili). A brilliant example of patriotic lyricism is “Khevsuris Samshoblo” (“The Homeland of the Khevsur”) (1881). Eristavi was also one of the founders of Georgian children’s literature; his poems appeared regularly in children’s books and magazines of the time (Bunebis Kari, Deda Ena, Nobati, Jejili and others).

Eristavi enriched the repertoire of the Georgian theatre with his original and adapted plays. He is considered the introducer of the vaudeville genre into Georgian dramaturgy. His first vaudeville was The Revolving Tables (1868), followed by The Lawyers, First they Died - Then they got Married, and a cycle of sketches titled, Scenes from the Life of Our People, among others.

He made great contributions to Georgian folklore and ethnography. Together with Ilia Chavchavadze, he published Peasant Songs, Poems, and Proverbs (1873). In the same year, in the journal Krebuli (No. 7), he published “Georgian Folk Poetry” with an introduction and examples. In 1877, he compiled and published a collection of Georgian riddles. Eristavi studied the agricultural traditions, labor practices, architecture, settlements, and social structures (clan and community systems) of the Khevsurs, Pshavs, Tushs, Kakhetians, Imeretians, Mingrelians, and Svans, as well as their family life and wedding customs.

He played an important role in the ethnographic research of the Caucasian branch of the Russian Geographical Society and in organizing and systematizing the historical-ethnographic collections of the Caucasian Museum (later the Georgian State Museum).

Eristavi also worked on scientific terminology in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and other fields. In 1873, he published the Concise Latin-Russian-Georgian Botanical Dictionary, and in 1884, a short Georgian-Russian-Latin dictionary From the Kingdoms of Plants, Animals, and Metals. That same year, under his editorship, Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani’s Georgian Dictionary was printed for the first time.

The fiftieth anniversary of Eristavi’s literary and public activity, held in 1895 on the initiative of Ilia Chavchavadze and Akaki Tsereteli, became a great national celebration. His works were published repeatedly in collected editions (Works, vols. 1–2, 1882–90; vol. 1, 1893; Selected Poems, 1927; Selected Works, 1958, and others).