Alexander Chavchavadze
Georgian poet, general, and father of romanticism.
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Prince Alexander Chavchavadze (1786–1846) was a Georgian poet, public benefactor, and military figure. He is regarded as the father of Georgian romanticism and was a prominent aristocrat and a talented general in the Imperial Russian service.
Early life
Alexander Chavchavadze was born in 1786 in St Petersburg, Russia, where his father, Prince Garsevan Chavchavadze, served as ambassador of Heraclius II, king of Kartli and Kakheti. Tsarina Catherine II of Russia was his godmother. Alexander received a Russian education and first saw Georgia at age 13 when the family moved to Tiflis after the Russian annexation of eastern Georgia in 1801. At 18, he joined Prince Parnaoz in the 1804 rebellion in Mtiuleti against Russian rule.
After the uprising was suppressed, he was imprisoned briefly and wrote his first literary works, including the radical poem 'Woe to This World and Its Tenants,' which brought him early fame. His lyrics, influenced by the poet Besiki and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, circulated widely. Following a year's exile in Tambov, he reconciled with the regime and entered a hussar regiment. He fought under Marquis Paulucci against the 1812 rebellion in Kakheti and was wounded.
That year he married Princess Salome Orbeliani. During the War of the Sixth Coalition, he served as aide-de-camp to Barclay de Tolly and was wounded at the Battle of Paris on 31 March 1814. He stayed in Paris for two years and received the Légion d'honneur from the restored Bourbon dynasty. He was impressed by Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Racine, and Corneille, whose works entered Georgian literature through him.
Military and political career
In 1817, Chavchavadze became a colonel in the Russian army and was promoted to major general in 1826. His military career advanced during the wars against Persia and the Ottoman Empire in the late 1820s. He was instrumental in the conquest of Iravan from Persia in 1827 and was appointed military governor of the Armenian Military District in 1828. During the 1828–1829 Russo-Turkish war, he organized a successful defense of the Yerevan province against Kurdish marauders and led forces into Anatolia, taking control of the pashate of Bajazet from 25 August to 9 September 1828.
In 1829, he was dispatched as administrator of the military board of Kakheti, where his estates were located. He was highly respected by Russian and Georgian officers and was considered Georgia's most refined, educated, and wealthy 19th-century aristocrat, fluent in several European and Asiatic languages. His daughter Nino married the Russian diplomat and playwright Alexander Griboyedov; another daughter, Catherine, married David Dadiani, prince of Mingrelia.
At his summer mansion in Tsinandali, he entertained guests with music and wine from his estate winery, which combined European and Georgian traditions and produced the dry white Tsinandali.
Writings
Chavchavadze's influence on Georgian literature was immense. He moved poetic language closer to the vernacular, combining elements of the formal 18th-century high style, Persian lyrical poetry (especially Hafiz and Saadi), the bohemian language of Tiflis streets, and European Romanticism. His subjects ranged from anacreontic in his early period to deeply philosophic in maturity. His contradictory career—participation in anti-Russian rebellion and loyal service to the tsar, including suppression of peasant revolts—is reflected in his writings.
The collapse of the 1832 Georgian plot divides his work into two periods. Before that, his poetry lamented Georgia's lost grandeur and independence, depicting the country under Russian rule as a prison. The death of his friend and son-in-law Griboyedov added to the depressive tone. In poems such as 'Woe, time, time,' 'Listen, listener,' and 'Caucasia,' he contrasted medieval Georgia's golden age with its present.
As a social activist, he remained a cultural nationalist, defending the native language and the interests of the Georgian aristocracy. In letters, he criticized Russian treatment of Georgian culture, comparing it to pillaging by Ottomans and Persians, writing that Russia had inflicted disastrous damage and that Georgia had exchanged one serpent for another.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Alexander Chavchavadze (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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