The Image of (Black?) Sea in the Poetry of Valerian Gaprindashvili
The Image of (Black?) Sea in the Poetry of Valerian Gaprindashvili

Summary/Abstract: The significance of Black Sea in the mental geography of Georgians cannot be matched by its significance in the mental geography of other nations at the Black Sea littoral. Being the sole sea to which Georgia has access, lying to the west of that Europeanising Christian nation and representing itself the liquid element in its pure form (if there is a Black Sea coast which lacks islands and peninsulas, in this sea poor in the former but relatively rich in the latter, it is the Georgian coast), Georgian Black Sea is potentially charged with heaviest cultural symbolism. It could symbolise alien space; ultimate openness to other cultures and creatures; freedom; scene of contact with the western (Christian, European, democratic) world; and, possibly, an urge to reconsider the relation between the horizontal and the vertical axes of space-time. Thus it takes roughly the half of all possible meanings within a cosmography (a picture of the world amalgamating archaic myths, cultural traditions and scientifically-supported geopolitical concerns).

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