Aleksandre Ch'avch'avadze
Alexander Chavchavadze (in georgiano ალექსანდრე ჭავჭავაძე?; in russo Александр Чавчавадзе?, traslitterato in Aleksandr_Čavčavadze) (San Pietroburgo, 1786 – 6 novembre 1846) è stato un poeta e generale georgiano.
Considerato il "padre del romanticismo georgiano", fu anche un famoso aristocratico ed un generale al servizio dell'impero russo.
Gioventù
Alexander Chavchavadze era membro della nobile famiglia elevata al rango di principe dal re georgiano Costantino II di Cachezia nel 1726. La famiglia era originaria di Khevsureti, ma si era legata tramit matrimonio ad altre nobili famiglie georgiane.
Alexander nacque nel 1786 a San Pietroburgo, Russia, dove il padre Garsevan Chavchavadze era ambasciatore di Eraclio II, re di Kartli-Kakheti in Georgia orientale. La Zarina Caterina II di Russia fu madrina di battesimo del giovane Alexander.[1]
La prima educazione di Alexander fu russa. Vide per la prima volta la nativa Georgia all'età di 13 anni, quando la famiglia fece ritorno a Tbilisi dopo l'annessione russa della Georgia orientale (1801). All'età di 18 anni Alexander Chavchavadze si unì al principe Parnaoz, membro dell'ormai decaduta famiglia reale, nella ribellione che nel 1804 scoppiò sulle montagne georgiane dello Mtiuleti, nel tentativo di cacciare gli invasori russi. Dopo la soppressione della rivolta fu per breve tempo imprigionato, e qui compose le sue prime opere letterarie, compreso il primo poema radicale in georgiano, Guai a questo mondo ed ai suoi abitanti (ვაჰ, სოფელსა ამას და მისთა მდგმურთა). Il poema divenne popolare in poco tempo, e valse al suo giovane autore una notevole fama. I suoi manoscritti circolarono rapidamente, e le sue liriche d'amore o protesta, scritte con lo spirito del poeta georgiano del XVIII secolo Besiki o dell'illuminista francese enlightener Jean-Jacques Rousseau, furono cantate in tutta Tblisi e nel resto della Georgia.
Dopo un anno di esilio passato a Tambov, Chavchavadze si riconciliò col nuovo regime e si arruolò in un reggimento di Ussari. Ironicamente, combatté con la divisa russa guidato da Filippo Paulucci quando nel 1812 scoppiò una nuova rivolta anti-russa in Cachezia. Quello stesso anno sposò la principessa georgiana Salome Orbeliani, discendente della dinastia Bagrationi.
Nel corso della guerra della sesta coalizione (1813-1814) contro Napoleone Bonaparte fu aiutante di campo del comandante russo Barclay de Tolly, e fu ferito alla gamba nella battaglia di Parigi del 31 marzo 1814. Ufficiale nelle forze russe, rimase a Parigi due anni, e la restaurata dinastia Borbone gli concesse la Legion d'onore. Aperto a nuove idee, in particolare a quelle del primo romanticismo francese, fu colpito da Alphonse de Lamartine e Victor Hugo, così come da Jean Racine e Pierre Corneille, che conobbero la letteratura georgiana grazie a Chavchavadze.
Military and political career
In 1817, Prince Chavchavadze became a colonel of the Russian army. Promoted to Major General in 1826, his military career reached remarkable achievement during the Russian wars against the Persian and Ottoman empires in the late 1820s. He was instrumental in the conquest of Iravan from Persia in 1827[2] and was appointed, in 1828, a military governor of the Armenian Military District. During the 1828-9 Russo-Turkish war, with a small detachment, he organized a successful defense of the Yerevan province against the marauding Kurds and surged into Anatolia, taking control of the whole pashate of Bajazet from the Turkish forces from August 25 to September 9, 1828.[3] In 1829, he was dispatched as an administrator of the military board of Kakheti, where his patrimonial estates were located.
Back in Georgia, Alexander enjoyed overwhelming popularity among the Georgian nobility and people. He was highly respected by his fellow Russian and Georgian officers. At the same time, he remained Georgia’s most refined, educated and wealthy 19th-century aristocrat, fluent in several European and Asiatic languages and with extensive friendly ties with the cream of Georgian and Russian society who frequented his famous salon in Tiflis. The prominent Russian diplomat and playwright Alexander Griboyedov married his 16-year-old daughter Nino, whom the famous Russian poet had tutored in music during his brief stay in Tiflis. Another daughter, Catherine, married David Dadiani, prince of Mingrelia, and inspired in Nicholas Baratashvili the hopeless love that made him the greatest poet of Georgian Romanticism.
At his Italianate summer mansion in Tsinandali, Kakheti, he frequently entertained foreign guests with music, wit, and – most especially – the fine vintages made at his estate winery (marani). Familiar with European ways, Chavchavadze built Georgia’s oldest and largest winery where he combined European and centuries-long Georgian winemaking traditions. The highly regarded dry white Tsinandali is still produced there.[4] According to his acquaintance, Juan Van Halen, Chavchavadze, "a Georgian prince, educated in Europe,... though serving in our regiment with the rank of colonel, had succeeded, without neglecting his military duties, in improving his valuable inheritance in such a manner that few Georgian nobles can cope with him in wealth."[5]
Despite his loyal service to the Russian crown, Chavchavadze’s nostalgia for Georgia’s lost independence, monarchy, and the autocephalous church once again pushed him into rebellion, joining the 1832 conspiracy aimed at organizing a large-scale uprising against the Russian hegemony. The failed coup plot turned a disaster for the Georgian literature: most of his poetry written between 1820 and 1832, inspired by the pathetic Romanticism and egalitarianism, was burned by the author as possible evidence against him. He was sentenced to the five-year exile to Tambov, but the tsar, who needed his talents amid the ongoing Caucasian War, forgave him, however. Chavchavadze eagerly joined the expedition against the rebellious mountaineers of North Caucasus. Like his many fellow Georgian nobles, he found a good opportunity to take revenge for the permanent marauds organized by the mountaineers of North Caucasus on the Georgian marches in the past.
He was promoted lieutenant general in 1841, and continued his service in the Caucasus, briefly as head of the civil administration of the region from 1842 to 1843. In 1843, he fought his last war, commanding a successful punitive expedition against the rebellious Dagestani tribes. Later, he was appointed a member of the Council of the Chief Administration of Transcaucasus.
In 1846, Alexander Chavchavadze fell a victim to an accident,[1] under somewhat mysterious circumstances: while going back to his palace in Tsinandali at night, somebody from the near woods approached and splashed hot water while he was galloping on his horse. He lost the control of the horse and crashed into the ditch nearby. He died from severe head injuries on the spot. Although the tragedy was most likely an accident, it has been rumored that he was killed by Russian assassins. He was buried at the Shuamta Monastery in Kakheti, Georgia.
Chavchavadze was survived by a son, David, who was also Lt Gen in the Russian service during the Caucasus Wars, and three daughters, Nino, Catherine, and Sophia.
Writings
Chavchavadze’s influence over Georgian literature was immense. He moved the Georgian poetic language closer to the vernacular, combining the elements of the formal wealth and somewhat artificial antiquated "high" style inherited from the 18th-century Georgian Renaissance literature, melody of Persian lyrical poetry, particularly Hafiz and Saadi, bohemian language of the streets of Tiflis and the moods and themes of European Romanticism. The subject of his works varied from purely anacreontic in his early period to deeply philosophic in his maturity.
Chavchavadze’s contradictory career – his participation in the struggle against the Russian control of Georgia, on one hand, and the loyal service to the tsar, including the suppression of Georgian peasant revolts, on the other hand – found a noticeable reflection in his writings. The year 1832, when the Georgian plot collapsed, divides his work into two principal periods. Prior to that event, his poetry was mostly impregnated with laments for the former grandeur of Georgia, the loss of national independence and his personal grievances connected with it; his native country under the Russian empire seemed to him a prison, and he pictured its present state in extremely gloomy colors. The death of his beloved friend and son-in-law, Griboyedov, also contributed to the depressive character of his writings of that time.
In his Romantic poems, Chavchavadze dreamed of Georgia's glorious past, when "the breeze of life past" would "breathe sweetness" into his "dry soul." In poems Woe, time, time (ვაჰ, დრონი, დრონი), Listen, listener (ისმინეთ მსმენნო), and Caucasia (კავკასია), the "Golden Age" of medieval Georgia was contrasted with its unremarkable present.[6] As a social activist, however, he remained mostly a "cultural nationalist," defender of the native language, and an advocate of the interest of Georgian aristocratic and intellectual elites. In his letters, Alexander heavily criticized Russian treatment of Georgian national culture and even compared it with the pillaging by Ottomans and Persians who had invaded Georgia in the past.[3] In one of the letters he states: The damage which Russia has inflicted on our nation is disastrous. Even Persians and Turks could not abolish our Monarchy and deprive us of our statehood. We have exchanged one serpent for another.[2]
After 1832, his perception of the national problems became different. The poet unambiguously pointed out those positive results which had been brought about by the Russian annexation, though the liberation of his native land remained to be his most cherished dream.[7] Later his poetry became less romantic, even sentimental, but he never abandoned his optimistic steak that makes his writings so different from those of his predecessors. Some of the most original of his late poems are, Oh, my dream, why have you appealed to me again (ეჰა, ჩემო ოცნებავ, კვლავ რად წარმომედგინე), and The Ploughman (გუთნის დედა) written in the 1840s. The former, a rather sad poem, surprisingly ends with hope for the future in contemplation of the poet. The latter combines Chavchavadze’s elegy for his past years of youth with calm humorous farewell to lost sex-life and potency.[8]
Chavchavadze also composed a historic work, "The Short sketches of the history of Georgia from 1801 to 1831."
Honours and awards
- Order of St. Anne, 1st Class
- Order of Vladimir, 2nd Class
- Order of the White Eagle
- Legion of Honour (France)
See also
- Chavchavadze, Georgian surname
References
- ^ a b Kveselava, M (2002), Anthology of Georgian Poetry, The Minerva Group, Inc., ISBN 0-89875-672-3, p. 181
- ^ a b Allen, WED (1971), A History of the Georgian people: From the Beginning Down to the Russian Conquest in the Nineteenth Century, New York: Barnes and Noble, p. 234.
- ^ a b Blanch, L (1995), Sabres of Paradise, Carroll & Graf Publishers, ISBN 0-88184-042-4 , p 54.
- ^ Goldstein, D (1999), The Georgian Feast: The Vibrant Culture and Savory Food of the Republic of Georgia, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-21929-5, p. 53.
- ^ Don Juan Van Halen, Narrative of Don Juan Van Halen's Imprisonment in the Dungeons of the Inquisition at Madrid: And His Escape in 1817 and 1818, New York, J & J Harper, p. 269.
- ^ Suny, RG (1994), The Making of the Georgian Nation: 2nd edition, Indiana University Press, ISBN 0-253-20915-3, p. 124
- ^ Gamezardashvili, DM (2001), Georgian Literature, The Minerva Group, Inc. ISBN 0-89875-570-0, p. 50
- ^ Rayfield, D (2000), The Literature of Georgia: A History, Routledge (UK), ISBN 0-7007-1163-5, p. 148
External links
- (RU) Марков, Александр (Международная Лермонтовская Ассоциация, 2006). Грузинский князь Александр Чавчавадзе
| Controllo di autorità | VIAF (EN) 306165045 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0000 8194 0045 · LCCN (EN) nr94007124 · GND (DE) 1123171866 |
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