Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature, Tbilisi State University
Chief Research Fellow
Philology
Doctor of Philological Sciences
Tbilisi, Georgia
Abstract
An Interdisciplinary Study of a Mysterious Note by Galaktion The study of archival notes preserved in writers’ archival collections is never a simple task as such texts are usually not intended for public circulation. However, when dealing with major literary figures whose every step and intention is of significance to scholarship, researchers are compelled to determine the purpose behind each such entry. In the archive of Galaktion, such materials fill entire volumes. Determining the intentionality of such notes is often difficult because words are frequently abbreviated, while phrases and ideas remain unfinished. To extract information from such material, a researcher must conduct textual, historical and biographical researches to clarify the context, without which such notes are often impossible to interpret. This paper analyzes a six-page note by the poet, aiming to define its essence and purpose. The text is densely and continuously written, with words and phrases separated only by single dots. At the beginning, it bears the inscription: “Here are the titles of his work”. In total, there are 448 units or, if we trust the introductory note, 448 titles. However, it remains unclear whose titles these are, and if they are indeed titles in such quantity, why the word “work” appears in the singular. It is evident that in this case the poet is more interested in titles than in authors. However, in order to determine the nature of the note, it was necessary to establish which authors and which genres of works are listed here. Since most of them were unfamiliar and could not be found in Georgian catalogs, we concluded that the poet must have encountered them in Russian. Given that the note dates from 1924, each of the texts must have been published in Russian at least once prior to that year. To identify the authors, we used the electronic catalogs of the Russian State Library and established that 126 of the titles belong to European writers. There are also American, Canadian, Asian, and Russian authors represented. The vast majority of the texts are prose works. The research revealed that Galaktion intended to write hundreds of poems within a short period and planned to use these titles as poem titles as well as within the poetic texts themselves. He also intended to incorporate them into dramatic works, and after 1935 he included part of these titles in a short essay devoted to Paris and Europe in general.
Keywords
გალაკტიონ ტაბიძე. ქართული ლიტერატურა. ინტერდისციპლინური კვლევები. საარქივო კვლევები. ტექსტოლოგიური კვლევები. ბიოგრაფიული კვლევები