Chabua Amiredschibi

Tschabua (Msetschabuk) Amiredschibi ( Georgian ჭაბუა [მზეჭაბუკ] ამირეჯიბი; born November 18, 1921 in Tbilisi ; † December 12, 2013 ibid) was a Georgian writer. The dissident spent 15 years in Soviet prisons. His main work is the novel Data Tutaschchia .

Life

His parents were arrested during the Great Terror . His father was shot in 1938, his mother in a labor camp of the Gulag locked. He was drafted into the Red Army during World War II , but released soon after because of his convicted parents.

He took part in anti-Soviet activities and became a member of the opposition underground organization Tetri Giorgi . He was arrested in April 1944 and sentenced to 25 years in prison in Siberia for planning an attack . After 15 years in prison, three escape attempts and two death sentences, he was rehabilitated in 1959.

He started to write. In 1962 he published the short story collection Gsa ( Eng . The Street ). Chemi medschghane bidsa (German: My Radaumacher-Uncle ) followed in 1963, Charis aghsareba (German: The Bull's Confession ) in 1964 , and Giorgi Burduli in 1965 .

His most important work was the novel Data Tutaschchia , published from 1971 to 1975, which was published in German in 2018. The publication in Ziskari magazine was a sensational success for the author and the publisher. It could only take place because the then General Secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze , advocated it against the censors. Amiredschibi had already come up with the 700-page novel while he was in prison. It is about a Georgian outlaw in the tsarist times, combined with thriller elements and Dostoevskian plot. It's about fate, morals and injustice. Above all, the novel covertly defends the right to personal freedom and criticism in a repressive political system .

The novel is told by the Russian police officer, Prince Szeged, who repeatedly passes the description on to other people. He describes the life of the bandit Tutaschchia, who managed to escape the police for years. It is led by Tutashchia's cousin, Muschni Zarandia, an impartial and imperturbable official. The book and its later film adaptation made the hero of the novel Tutaschchia a folk hero who is still very popular in Georgia today.

Amiredjibi supported Georgia's declaration of independence in April 1991 and was elected to the Georgian parliament in 1992. The death of his eldest son in the Abkhazian War in 1992/1993 threw him into a deep crisis. In 1995 he published the novel Gora Mborgali ( Eng . Rasend ). It is set in the period of the Soviet Union after 1978 and is based on the author's experience in prison.

Awards

In 1992 Amiredschibi was awarded the Schota Rustaveli State Prize. He has received various high civil orders of Georgia as well as Russian and international literary prizes.

literature

• Steffi Chotiwari-Jünger: "The development of the Georgian historical novel" (Micheil Dshawachishwili, Konstantine Gamsachurdia, Grigol Abaschidze, Tschabua Amiredshibi and Otar Tschiladse), 195 p., Verlag Peter Lang GmbH, Berlin 1993, pp. 1116-132 (especially about the novel "Data Tutaschchia").

• Tschabua Amiredschibi: "Data Tutaschchia. The noble robber from the Caucasus", Stuttgart: Kröner 2018.

Web links

• Tschabua Amiredschibis website ( Memento from December 9, 2006 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alexander Mikaberidze (ed.): Amirejibi, Chabua. In: Dictionary of Georgian National Biography ( Memento of the original from April 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Found April 9, 2007. 
2. ^ ^{A b} Donald Rayfield: The Literature of Georgia: A History. Routledge, 2000, pp. 282-283, ISBN 0-7007-1163-5 .