Davitiani

3 hrs. 16 min.

Poetry

Language Russian

Author David Guramishvili

Narrator Sergey Chonishvili

Description

David Guramishvili was a Georgian poet and the largest representative of national pre-Romanticism. He came from a princely family. Around 1728, he was kidnapped by Lezgin raiders and spent several months in captivity before managing to escape. On foot, he made his way through mountain ranges to the Terek valley, where he received help from the inhabitants of a Cossack stanitsa. From there, he went to Moscow, where he joined the retinue of King Vakhtang, who had relocated to Russia. After Vakhtang’s death in 1737, members of his retinue took Russian citizenship. Guramishvili was enrolled as a private in a Georgian Hussar regiment; he took part in campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, Sweden, and Prussia. During the last one, in 1758, he was seriously wounded, captured, and held in prison in Magdeburg for about a year. In December 1759, he was released and sent back to Russia. After returning, due to health reasons, he retired and settled in his estates in Little Russia, and began compiling “Davitiani”—a huge cycle of autobiographical lyrics, completed in 1787 and sent with a delegation to Georgia. In his poems, Guramishvili expresses anxiety for the fate of his homeland, describes its hardships and the events of his life, and conveys hope for Georgia’s revival. We offer you the audio version of this remarkable work—a true monument of Georgian literature. Also don’t miss the earlier released audiobooks: Shota Rustaveli’s “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin,” Vazha-Pshavela’s “Eteri,” “The Guest and the Host,” David Guramishvili’s “Davitiani,” and Ilia Chavchavadze’s “Dmitry the Self-Sacrificer.”