Titian Tabidse

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Titian as a young adult

Tizian Tabidze ( Georgian ტიციან ტაბიძე), Tiziani (Georgian ტიციანი) for short , (born March 21, 1895 ; died December 16, 1937 ), was a Georgian poet and an important leader of the Georgian symbolism movement . He was arrested in the course of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge and executed for alleged treason. Tabidze was a close friend of the Russian writer Boris Pasternak , who translated his poems into Russian .

Life

Early years

Tabidze was born in 1895 as the son of an Orthodox priest in the Imereti region in western Georgia , at that time still part of the Kutais Governorate in the Tsarist Empire . After studying at Moscow University , he returned to his homeland, where he became a co-founder and important ideologue of the Blue Horns , a closed society of young symbolists founded in 1916. Tabidze later combined European and Oriental influences in a versatile poetry, which was strongly oriented towards Futurism and Dadaism , at the same time also incorporated elements of the classical literature of Georgia, which had been attacked by the early Blue Horns . After the establishment of Soviet rule in Georgia in 1921, he showed himself to be forgiving of the Bolshevik regime, but never abandoned his decadent style despite his half-hearted attempts to praise the "builders of socialism".

Tabidze forwarded Boris Pasternak's letters to friends in Georgia. Pasternak knew Titian as "a reserved and complex soul, completely attracted to the good and capable of clairvoyance and self-sacrifice" and translated his poems into Russian.

Titian with his daughter Nita ( ca.1937 )

Big purge

In early 1936, the Soviet press published several articles that were critical of the formalism in art. Titian Tabidze and compatriots Konstantine Gamsachurdia , Simon Chikowani and Demna Schengelaia were criticized for their "inability to break away from old traditions and to seek closer contact with the people". Many poets and writers, intimidated by the ongoing political cleansing in the Soviet Union, accepted the criticism and initiated public revocations. Tabidze refused and launched a counterattack.

Aware of the consequences of Tabidse's defiance, Pasternak pleaded his friend in a private letter to ignore the attacks on the formalism: «Trust only in yourself. Dig deeper with your drill without fear or favor, but within yourself, within yourself . If you cannot find the people, the earth and the sky there, then give up your search, because then you will not be able to look anywhere else. "

Arrest and Execution

On October 10, 1937, Tabidze was expelled from the Union of Georgian Writers and arrested by the Interior Ministry of the USSR . He was charged with rioting against the Soviet Union and treason against the fatherland. Under torture and lack of sleep, Tabidze "confessed" everything; When he was asked to name his co-conspirators during interrogation, he only mentioned Besiki , a poet of the 18th century, with bitter sarcasm . After two months in detention, he was shot dead without any notification.

Legacy

Tabidse's detention and disappearance came as a shock to his circle of friends. His lifelong friend and like-minded friend, Paolo Iaschwili , was previously forced to accuse other poets as enemies of the people. But after Tabidse's arrest, Iashvili shot himself with a hunting rifle in Tbilisi .

For nearly two decades, Tabidse's family and friends believed he was still alive. In 1940 Boris Pasternak helped Nina Tabidze to submit a petition in favor of her husband to the head of the secret service, Lavrenti Beria . However, the truth did not become known until the mid-1950s, during the so-called thaw period .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lang, David M .: A Modern History of Georgia . Ed .: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. London 1962, p. 255 .
  2. ^ A b Suny, Ronald Grigor: The Making of the Georgian Nation: 2nd edition . 1994, ISBN 0-253-20915-3 , pp. 272 .
  3. ↑ 70 years of Soviet Georgia: CURZON. Retrieved November 13, 2018 .
  4. ^ Barnes, Christopher J .: Boris Pasternak: A Literary Biography . Cambridge 2004, ISBN 0-521-52073-8 .
personal data
SURNAME Tabidze, Titian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES ტაბიძე, ტიციან (Georgian); Tiziani; ტიციანი (Georgian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Georgian poet
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1895
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 1937