Sandro Shanshiashvili (Georgian: სრნáƒ"რáƒ
შრნშირშვილი) (1888-1979) was a Georgian poet and
playwright.Shanshiashvili was born in the small village Jugaani near
Sighnaghi (then part of the Russian Empire). In the 1900s, he was
noted for his dramas in verse and prose. At the same time, he engaged
in revolutionary movement against the Tsarist rule and was put in
prison in 1908. He then began writing long poems based on Greek
legends of Colchis and composed his conventionally titled book of
lyrics, The Garden of Sadness (სáƒ"ვáƒ"ის áƒ'რღი, 1909)
influenced by the 18th-century Georgian poet Besiki and his
contemporary French Symbolist Paul Verlaine. Around 1910, he was
praised by critics as the most promising and the most Europeanized
Georgian poet. Study at Berlin, Zurich, and Leipzig (1911-1914)
brought more pronounced influence of Symbolist narrative poetry.
During World War I, he joined the Georgian National Democratic Party
advocating the independence from Russia and edited the newspaper
Sakartvelo and the magazine Merani. In 1925, Shanshiashvili gathered
twenty years of his lyrics into The High Road I Have Travelled
(áƒ'რვლილი áƒ'ზრ), followed by a series of heroic
poems. At last, in 1930, he achieved fame throughout the Soviet Union
with Anzor, an adapted translation into a Caucasian setting of
Vsevolod Ivanov’s civil-war play Armoured Train 14-69. Sandro
Akhmeteli, director of the Rustaveli Theatre, transformed the play
into a Wagnerian spectacle. The "left" Soviet critics immediately
attacked Anzor for trivializing the revolution. In the 1930s,
endangered by the Stalinist purges due to his ties with the purged
Georgian intellectuals, he made half-hearted attempts to praise Joseph
Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria. His later dramas draw factually on the
misfortunes of the 18th-century Georgia and the civil war
catastrophes. He was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1949.
შრნშირშვილი) (1888-1979) was a Georgian poet and
playwright.Shanshiashvili was born in the small village Jugaani near
Sighnaghi (then part of the Russian Empire). In the 1900s, he was
noted for his dramas in verse and prose. At the same time, he engaged
in revolutionary movement against the Tsarist rule and was put in
prison in 1908. He then began writing long poems based on Greek
legends of Colchis and composed his conventionally titled book of
lyrics, The Garden of Sadness (სáƒ"ვáƒ"ის áƒ'რღი, 1909)
influenced by the 18th-century Georgian poet Besiki and his
contemporary French Symbolist Paul Verlaine. Around 1910, he was
praised by critics as the most promising and the most Europeanized
Georgian poet. Study at Berlin, Zurich, and Leipzig (1911-1914)
brought more pronounced influence of Symbolist narrative poetry.
During World War I, he joined the Georgian National Democratic Party
advocating the independence from Russia and edited the newspaper
Sakartvelo and the magazine Merani. In 1925, Shanshiashvili gathered
twenty years of his lyrics into The High Road I Have Travelled
(áƒ'რვლილი áƒ'ზრ), followed by a series of heroic
poems. At last, in 1930, he achieved fame throughout the Soviet Union
with Anzor, an adapted translation into a Caucasian setting of
Vsevolod Ivanov’s civil-war play Armoured Train 14-69. Sandro
Akhmeteli, director of the Rustaveli Theatre, transformed the play
into a Wagnerian spectacle. The "left" Soviet critics immediately
attacked Anzor for trivializing the revolution. In the 1930s,
endangered by the Stalinist purges due to his ties with the purged
Georgian intellectuals, he made half-hearted attempts to praise Joseph
Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria. His later dramas draw factually on the
misfortunes of the 18th-century Georgia and the civil war
catastrophes. He was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1949.
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