Esma Mania

Korneli Kekelidze Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts 

Senior Research Fellow 

Philology 

PhD in Philology 

Tbilisi, Georgia 

esmamania2@gmail.com

The multilayered nature and originality of Galaktion Tabidze’s oeuvre were naturally shaped by a wide range of sources. During the 1920s and 1930s, European literary, essayistic, philosophical, and historiographical works, published both as standalone editions and in periodicals, constituted an especially rich and productive source for the poet. Among the publications available to him, Galaktion Tabidze selected both anthologies and more broadly conceived composite publications, including journals devoted to literature, science, and the arts. He also engaged with critical essays and extensive studies on the history of literature authored by European scholars, while often preferring translations produced by Russian authors whom he regarded as authoritative.

Accordingly, the paper will focus on identifying the publications to which Galaktion Tabidze had access. It will seek to determine the editorial policies and ideological programmes underlying these publications and to examine the ways in which the Georgian poet adapted and remodelled the knowledge they transmitted within his own creative practice.

Of particular importance is the question of how, under conditions of ideological crisis, the poet transformed his knowledge of European artistic images, models, and genre structures; how he responded to the devaluation of values that remained, for him, fundamentally and uncompromisingly significant despite being subjected to intense bureaucratic pressure; and how his intellectual and creative orientation was modified under these circumstances. Attention will also be paid to the gradual shift in emphasis toward German, French, Hungarian, and Polish revolutionary authors.

In the later period, European writers, previously among the direct objects of Galaktion Tabidze’s intellectual interest, increasingly became subjects of retrospective reflection. The paper will examine how their works were reconsidered in relation to the Communist worldview and how the European literary component in Galaktion’s writing shifted from an analytical mode toward a comparatively static form, often taking the shape of collections of maxims, aphorisms, and quotations. At the same time, Soviet authors—primarily Ukrainian and Belarusian writers—gradually emerged and multiplied as objects of the poet’s direct interest.

A separate area of discussion concerns Galaktion Tabidze’s marginal notes in the books he read, the forms of reflection manifested in these annotations, their statistical analysis, as well as the thematic range and purposes of his remarks. Another significant issue is the tendency for references to European authors to appear not in his public or publishable writings, but rather in diaries and private notes. Particular attention will therefore be paid to the contexts and interpretations surrounding such references.

The reciprocal and cumulative influence of adjacent entries also provides valuable indications, as does a quantitative analysis of these notes by year. Taken together, these materials make it possible to refine and further develop one aspect of Galaktion Tabidze’s intellectual portrait—namely, his profile as a reader of European literature.

Keywords: European literature; knowledge transfer; devaluation of values; forms of reflection.