Topuria, Varlam

Topuria, Varlam Trifonovich 

Born Jan. 8, 1901, in the village of Ontopo, in western Georgia; died Aug. 21, 1966, in Tbilisi. Soviet linguist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR (1944).

Topuria graduated from Tbilisi University in 1922 and began teaching at the university in 1926; in 1945 he became head of the subdepartment of the modern Georgian language. He also worked for the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR. His main works were devoted to the history of the Kartvelian languages (phonetics and word-derivation), Georgian dialectology, and the grammar of Svanetian. Topuria collected Svanetian texts, particularly those on folklore. He published a number of studies on the Lak language of Dagestan, and he developed a method for the teaching of Georgian. Topuria was awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and several medals.

WORKS

[T’op’uria, V.] Shromebi. Vol. 1: Svanuriena: Zmno. Tbilisi, 1967.
K‘art‘uli enis ort‘ograp‘iuli lek‘sikoni. Edited by Ivane Gigineishvili. Tbilisi, 1968.

REFERENCE

Kiziria, A., and M. K‘algani. Variant T‘op‘uria. Tbilisi, 1968.