Shota Rustaveli, a Georgian statesman and twelfth-century poet, is best known as the creator of the epic poem The Knight in the Tiger Skin. This masterpiece is considered an important phenomenon not only of Georgian, but also of all world literature.
Information about the life of Rustaveli and his great poem
Information about the real biography of the poet is very small. He was most likely born in 1172 (the exact date is unknown) in the village of Rustavi. And the nickname "Rustaveli" he obviously received in accordance with the place of birth. According to some reports, the medieval poet belonged to the eminent feudal family. In his poem, the author claims that he is a Meskh (as representatives of one of the sub-ethnic groups of Georgians call themselves).
Shota received his education in Greece, then was the treasurer of the famous Queen Tamara (this is evidenced by the signature of Rustaveli on a document from 1190). The poet lived at a time when Georgia was a powerful and influential state. In addition, at the court of the young queen, much attention was paid to the support of the poets. Tamara herself patronized poetry.
It is obvious that Rustaveli was a very educated person - this can be understood from the text “The Knight in the Tiger Skin”. The author was clearly well acquainted with Persian and Arabic literature, with the philosophy of Plato, with the foundations of ancient Greek poetics and rhetoric.
The author himself in the sixteenth stanza stated that the story is an arrangement of the “Persian story”. But researchers have still not found a similar plot in the literature of ancient Persia. The protagonist of the poem is the hero of Tariel. He is trying to find and free his beloved Nestan-Darejan, who is imprisoned in a distant impregnable fortress … But the poem attracts not only an interesting plot, but also an aphoristic language: many lines of the epic eventually turned into proverbs and sayings.
Relations between Rustaveli and Tamara
It is very likely that the prototype of Nestan-Darejan was Queen Tamara. There are several legends about the relationship between the great Georgian ruler and the poet Rustaveli. One legend tells that, despite his love for Tamara, Rustaveli was forced to marry another woman named Nina. Some time after the wedding, Tamara ordered the poet to translate into Georgian a message from a certain defeated shah. Shota brilliantly fulfilled this order, but at the same time refused a reward for his work, that is, showed impudence. And a week after that, the poet was killed and beheaded by someone.
Another legend says that Rustaveli, unable to withstand the fact that the queen does not reciprocate, decided to abandon worldly life and spent his last days in the cell of the Jerusalem monastery of the Holy Cross.
