ახალი სამეცნიერო კრებული მოდერნიზმისა და რეალიზმის შესახებ
New Scholarly Collection about Modernism and Realism

Summary/Abstract: The review deals with the scholarly collection dedicated to the 130th anniversary of two eminent fi gures of Georgian literature – Mikheil Javakhishvili and Niko Lortkipanidze. There are indications in the title that the edition is thematic and engages various studies having diverse attitudes, addressing certain issues and containing some novelty. The content of each paper presented in the collection, as well as its well-thought-out conceptual background, form a general opinion about the challenges facing Georgian literature and, in particular those two writers of that epoch, the 10s of the 20th century, from the politicalideological, cultural and aesthetic standpoints. Furthermore, what are new challenges against which new literary studies read and analyze their creative work? Bela Tsipuria’s work “Modernistic Experience in Georgia”, which is making emphasis on cultural studies, leads a reader to the depth of this problem. In the author’s viewpoint, the synchronization of Georgian culture with western experience takes place”, expressing anti-colonial attitude of creative consciousness, the trend to confront with the tendency considering Russian as a cultural centre. This trend was apparent even in the 19th century, in Ilia Chavchavadze’s “Letter of the Traveller”. Backed by this tradition, Georgian modernists use a new model, emphasizing Georgian culture, as means to confront empirical myth concerning the superiority of Russian culture. This came true during the fi rst independent Georgian republic. In the letter “Archetype of Spirituality”, Tamaz Vasadze studies the concept of the highest value, family in Niko Lortkipanidze’s work from traditional, spiritual and social standpoints. The scholar is concerned with the interrelation of modernistic context towards traditional values, contrastive stylistic resolution of the issue of family in Niko Lortkipanidze’s and Mikheil Javakhishvili’s works. In fi rst case, impressionistic and in the second – realistic work saturated with “bitter skeptical coloring and sarcasm”. Maia Jaliashvili analyzes “Mikheil Javakhishvili’s neo-realism as a modernistic alternative”. It is known from Mikheil Javakhishvili’s correspondence that he called his own works as neo-realistic. It should be pointed out that in his non-decadent revelation, modernism which aimed at returning to instincts of western consciousness, myth could not serve as an alternative of Javakhishvili’s realism. According to this evaluation, it was defi nitely a part of neo-realism, where the prefi x neo indicated more to a new, widened viewpoint, than an alternative of modernism. Mikheil Javakhishvili’s interest towards trickster type was conditioned by grotesque profile of socio-cultural and political environment of historical crossroad. Trickster appears on the stage of degraded reality - a protagonist of farce.

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