Page 25 - Potocco, Marcello, ed. 2018. Literatura v preseku družbe, družba v preseku literature. The Crossroads of Literature and Social Praxis. Zbornik povzetkov. Book of Abstracts. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem
P. 25
a Elbakidze the crossroads of literature and social praxis, ljubljana, 2018 23
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
The Forbidden Homeland: Victor Nozadze’s Scientific
Activity from the Standpoint of Soviet Ideology
„Every Georgian abroad is a representative of his nation,“ - these
words belong to the Georgian émigré writer and scholar Viktor
Nozadze, who was doomed to live outside his homeland, endlessly
wandering. The time of his creative maturity coincided with the pe
riod when the new Georgia, which started to be called Communist
in 1921, blocked the way for all those who could not see the coun
try‘s political future in red colors. The path of his dramatic life cov
ers a fairly wide geographical area - France, Germany, Austria, Ar
gentina, Chile, Brazil, Spain and finally France again ... During these
thirty-year “wanderings” he created six monumental volumes
which deal with the main problematics of Rustaveli‘s „Vepkhistqa
osani“ (“The Knight in the Panther‘s Skin”) – completely alone with
out any financial support, thanks to his enormous talent and will.
The research on „Vepkhistqaosani“, or, to use Niozadze‘s words,
„the search“, was started by him in the Berlin period of his life at the
end of World War II. As the scholar himself pointed out, his goal was
to bring the investigated problematics of „Vepkhistqaosani“ into the
system by studying Rustaveli‘s Weltanschauung and its connection to
the world culture, making it easier for the next generation of re
searchers to place Georgian writing into the context of world civili
zation. The scholar rightly noted that the Georgian nation did not act
as a supplier in the development of world culture, but was rather the
recipient of this culture. The acceptance of culture and its processing
in its own national consciousness, and its transfer to one’s own na
tional soil is not characteristic of all nations. And if the Georgian na
tion was the follower of the world culture and still is, this is, in Noza
dze‘s opinion, the outcome of its national talent.
The aim of this paper is to show the ideological mechanism as a re
sult of which Nozadze’s work appeared to be unknown and inac
cessible to Georgian researchers until the end of the fifties of the
last century; to study the reasons for which it was unacceptable and
inadmissible to refer to him as an author before the beginning of
„perestroika“, and under what circumstances occurred the rehabil
itation of Viktor Nozadze as a citizen and a scholar.
Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
The Forbidden Homeland: Victor Nozadze’s Scientific
Activity from the Standpoint of Soviet Ideology
„Every Georgian abroad is a representative of his nation,“ - these
words belong to the Georgian émigré writer and scholar Viktor
Nozadze, who was doomed to live outside his homeland, endlessly
wandering. The time of his creative maturity coincided with the pe
riod when the new Georgia, which started to be called Communist
in 1921, blocked the way for all those who could not see the coun
try‘s political future in red colors. The path of his dramatic life cov
ers a fairly wide geographical area - France, Germany, Austria, Ar
gentina, Chile, Brazil, Spain and finally France again ... During these
thirty-year “wanderings” he created six monumental volumes
which deal with the main problematics of Rustaveli‘s „Vepkhistqa
osani“ (“The Knight in the Panther‘s Skin”) – completely alone with
out any financial support, thanks to his enormous talent and will.
The research on „Vepkhistqaosani“, or, to use Niozadze‘s words,
„the search“, was started by him in the Berlin period of his life at the
end of World War II. As the scholar himself pointed out, his goal was
to bring the investigated problematics of „Vepkhistqaosani“ into the
system by studying Rustaveli‘s Weltanschauung and its connection to
the world culture, making it easier for the next generation of re
searchers to place Georgian writing into the context of world civili
zation. The scholar rightly noted that the Georgian nation did not act
as a supplier in the development of world culture, but was rather the
recipient of this culture. The acceptance of culture and its processing
in its own national consciousness, and its transfer to one’s own na
tional soil is not characteristic of all nations. And if the Georgian na
tion was the follower of the world culture and still is, this is, in Noza
dze‘s opinion, the outcome of its national talent.
The aim of this paper is to show the ideological mechanism as a re
sult of which Nozadze’s work appeared to be unknown and inac
cessible to Georgian researchers until the end of the fifties of the
last century; to study the reasons for which it was unacceptable and
inadmissible to refer to him as an author before the beginning of
„perestroika“, and under what circumstances occurred the rehabil
itation of Viktor Nozadze as a citizen and a scholar.
