The Knight in the Panther Skin

"Literary life in Georgia became particularly active in the 12th century, in the age of Shota Rustaveli, a genius Georgian poet and thinker. A great number of literature scholars all over the world consider Rustaveli one of the major representatives of the medieval period and his epic, one of the greatest masterpieces of world literature. As I said, it’s been translated into some 60 languages. Georgians sometimes call it the second Bible. “Even the Iron Curtain could not stand against the greatness of The Knight in the Panther Skin , which has been translated into about 60 languages” Structurally, the poem consists of the prologue, body text, and the epilogue, and it is written in lines of 16 syllables (in addition to that, Rustaveli employs perfect rhyme for all four lines of each quatrain). The poem is particularly notable for many wise and philosophical aphorisms. About 160 manuscripts of The Knight in the Panther Skin have survived; the first printed edition, however, came in 1712, and it was edited and annotated by King Vakhtang VI of Kartli (in the eastern part of contemporary Georgia). Get the weekly Five Books newsletter It’s true that the poem goes beyond the boundary of Georgia to tell the story of Arabia and India. But scholars believe that the author was employing the common literary device of the mask—if you know a bit about that period in Georgian history, it is not difficult to perceive the historical reality of Rustaveli’s contemporary Georgia within the poem—to allow him to include the risky historical allusions or references, and liberal and humanist views and ideas he does. According to widespread opinion, the tales of the main female characters of the poem Tinatin and Nestan-Darejan bear close resemblance to two stories from the life of Queen Tamar, the only daughter of Giorgi the Third of Georgia: the first one is her coronation; the second, the proposal of marriage made by Sultan of Rúm. It is assumed that Shota Rustaveli cast himself in the roles of both Avtandil and Tariel, the two heros. According to historical sources, The Knight in the Panther Skin was persecuted for centuries by both secular and clerical authorities. It is widely known that the author had to leave the country and find shelter in Jerusalem, at the Monastery of the Cross. The main reason must have been his humanist views: he was a man ahead of his time, a different thinker, who wrote of love and passion, equality, and friendship, putting human values above everything else, including social status, gender and origin. On the one hand, The Knight in the Panther Skin is a chivalry epic with dominant themes of love and friendship; on the other hand, however, the poem is laden with profoundly philosophical and psychological issues, concerning human life in general. Way back in the twelfth century, the poet was exploring liberal ideas and gender equality—take this line (as translated by Lyn Coffin): “Lion’s whelps are equally lions, though female or male they be.” The contemporary critic Levan Bregadze has called Shota Rustaveli “a true dissident of his time.” The story opens with the decision of the ageing King Rostevan of Arabia to crown his only daughter Tinatin in his own lifetime. Despite the fact that she is the queen (in Georgian, the word meaning ‘the ascension to the throne’ is literally translated as ‘to become a king’, regardless of the monarch’s gender), the young woman accepts the advances of her commander in chief, Avtandil, who is madly in love with her. While on a hunting competition, Avtandil and King Rostevan come across a strange, seemingly foreign young man sitting beside the river and bitterly crying. Later, on Tinatin’s request, Avtandil finds, and befriends the stranger, Tariel. Tariel, who is revealed to have been a commander in chief of India’s military forces, tells Avtandil the sorrowful love story of himself and Nestan-Darejan, the only daughter of the King of India. Nestan’s parents decide to marry their daughter to another man but, on Nestan’s request, Tariel kills the bridegroom. Nestan’s punishment is severe and exemplary: her family has her locked in an ark and pushed out to sea to be lost forever. It is after a vain search for his beloved, when Tariel is broken, that Avtandil meets him and vows to help… Yes, it was a tradition in Georgia. We know that in past times it was required of a noble family to give either manuscript or printed versions of The Knight to their daughter as part of her dowry. The earliest data on this custom is preserved in documents from the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Furthermore, the custom does not seem to be entirely forgotten. More generally, though, there is hardly a family in Georgia that does not have at least one copy of Rustaveli’s poem. Respect of women has always been strong in Georgia, since the earliest times. The twelfth-century rule of Queen Tamar (or King Tamar, as she is generally referred to in Georgia) is commonly known as the Golden Age. It’s worth noting that, on her ascension to the throne, Queen Tamar abolished the death sentence, as well as the popular medieval use of torture. Gender equality is one of the most dominant themes in The Knight : a king, who gives the throne to his only daughter; a society that recognizes and respects the female ruler; strong and manipulative female characters (Tinatin and Nestan-Darejan are the ones who first speak of their love). To come back to contemporary life, Georgian women today are more active than they have ever been. This is partly conditioned by the difficulties and poverty that our country went through in the late twentieth century. In Georgia, as in many other ex-Soviet countries, women had to carry the main burden of poverty. In the years of early independence, a great number of Georgian men died either during the state coup, or during the Russia-Georgia war; most of the surviving men broke down psychologically, or became addicted either to alcohol or to drugs. This is when women came to the stage, and they did their best to keep their families and—in a greater sense—their country alive; they traded in the streets, or went abroad to earn a living. At that time, most boys were attracted to street life, while studying was considered an activity for girls. This mentality changed over time, as the country developed, but it did allow women to increase their dominance in certain roles and functions. Certainly, gender inequality, family abuse and violence remain, as all over the world, but today more and more women manage to live independent and free lives in Georgia."