Nana Pruidze

A Historical Figure in Literary Discourse: Shamil through the Eyes of Akaki Tsereteli

Abstract

The article examines the literary reception of Imam Shamil, one of the most prominent figures in the nineteenth-century history of the Caucasus, in the works of the great Georgian classical author Akaki Tsereteli. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that Shamil’s image in the writer’s legacy is not confined to a single genre; rather, it appears in a complex and multifaceted form in his poetry, prose, autobiographical writings, dramatic works, and journalistic articles published in the periodical press.

An examination of Akaki Tsereteli’s creative interests demonstrates that, even as a very young poet, he clearly understood the profound significance that the outcome of the Caucasian War would have for Georgia. Tsereteli sympathized with the efforts of the freedom-loving highlanders to prevent the establishment of Russian rule in their homeland. He clearly rejected the position adopted by the Georgian military aristocracy, which supported Russia and assisted it in defeating the insurgents. The article analyses how the historical figure’s actual image is transformed within literary discourse and what ideological and aesthetic functions it acquires in Tsereteli’s narrative. It examines the emotional and poetic structure of his poem dedicated to Shamil, while also analysing passages from the writer’s prose and documentary writings in which the phenomenon of the North Caucasian leader is approached from a more analytical perspective.

Those works by Akaki Tsereteli in which his attitude towards Shamil is expressed relatively clearly and unambiguously were never published during the poet’s lifetime—for example, the poem Shamil’s Dream and the play Arsena the Outlaw. It is also noteworthy that these works were written not when Shamil was still an undefeated leader inflicting successive and devastating blows upon the Russian army, but after his capture (Shamil’s Dream, 1859) and one year after the definitive conclusion of the Caucasian War (Arsena the Outlaw, 1865). On 21 May 1864, Russian forces captured the highlanders’ last stronghold, Kbaada, situated near the headwaters of the Mzymta River. This date is regarded as marking the end of the Caucasian War. The war lasted almost half a century—46 years in total—and Russia’s victory came at an immense cost. The name of Shamil, who by that time had been exiled with his family to Kaluga, continued to inspire hope among Russia’s opponents. It is therefore likely that the young Akaki Tsereteli sought to revive the subject for precisely this purpose.

The study employs comparative-historical and discourse-analytical methods. It demonstrates that, for Akaki Tsereteli, Shamil was not merely a historical figure drawn from chronicles of warfare; he constituted a symbolic construct through which the writer engaged with the ideas of Caucasian unity, the struggle for freedom, and resistance to Russian imperial policy. The study offers a new perspective on Akaki Tsereteli’s sociopolitical views and his literary strategies for representing historical memory through literature.

Keywords: Akaki Tsereteli; Imam Shamil; literary discourse; journalism; reception; history of the Caucasus.