Orbeliani, Vakhtang

Orbeliani, Vakhtang Vakhtangovich 

Born Apr. 5 (17), 1812; died Sept. 29 (Oct. 11), 1890, in Tbilisi. Georgian prince, poet, and lieutenant general.

In 1830, Orbeliani graduated from the Corps of Pages in St. Petersburg. In 1832 he was exiled to Kaluga for taking part in a conspiracy of Georgian nobles. After an amnesty in 1837, he entered the military service.

Orbeliani began to publish in 1857. A romantic poet, he idealized the past, eulogized the battle exploits of Georgian national heroes, and expressed sorrow concerning his homeland’s lost independence (the poems “Farewell,” “Hope,” “The Homeland’s Reply,” and “Erekle and His Time”). Orbeliani rejected the imitation of Persian poetry and instead found new means of poetic expression in Western European versification and Georgian poetry, including the poetry of S. Rustaveli.

WORKS

Lek’sebi. Tbilisi, 1949.
In Russian translation:
[Verse.] In Poeziia Gruzii. Moscow-Leningrad, 1949.

REFERENCES

Gruzinskie romantiki. Edited by N. Tikhonov and Iu. Tynianov. Leningrad, 1940.
Baramidze, A. G., Sh. Radiani, and B. Zhgenti. Istoriia gruzinskoi literatury. Tbilisi, 1958.