Strabo's words about the military capacity of Svaneti in his time stand in sharp contrast to the later historical periods - and particularly to the present state of affairs in this sparsely populated part of Georgia. Strabo notes that an army of Svans reached 200,000 warriors. B. Nijaradze explains this number easily, by pointing at the toponymy in the valleys and lowlands of Georgia which, according to the names of the places, prove to have their meaning in Svanuri - and at the same time prove that the area of their habitat in that period was much more widespread and was not limited to the Caucasus.

Apart from the significance of this fact by itself, it also explains the range of observations about the mentality of the people living with the concept of alienation in their highlands with their eight-month-long winter and practically zero connections with the rest of the country.

Considering that the above-mentioned conditions have lasted for many centuries, it is logical to conclude that the ethnic mentality was determined by the centuries of `estrangement' induced by its geography and climate. Harsh in many aspects of everyday life and ethics, the creative mentality of the Svans proves unexpectedly multifaceted and flexible in matters of lyricism and in the dramatic confrontation of a person with reality, which includes both the social and physical environment.

Добавлено (2007-03-09, 8:25 Pm)
---------------------------------------------
Poetry as a Reflection of the World with its Order and Drama
Poetry is extremely characteristic of Svanuri culture. The aspects of the Svans' creative perception are rich and amazing. Taking into consideration the lack of extensive cultural and social communications with the cultures that had direct access to the treasuries of the world art and philosophy, the angle of vision of reality, as the Svans display it, impresses with ist originality and independent approach to the scene of the outer world.

There is no need to praise the verses that describe the beauty of the country, its nature and landscape - this is typical of all peoples living in exotic places, be it in the highlands or at the seashore. The more interesting feature is the way the ancient images of pagan religion are accumulated and "legalized" in the culture, which has proclaimed Christianity an official religion since the 4th century. Those details of ancient cults include the sun goddess Dali, the patroness of hunting, holy bulls and deer.

Where the attributes and details are similar, the difference should be found in the spirit.

The guiding line in this respect is the dramatic vision. The dramatic effect is achieved in the best possible way: the images are sharp and laconic, evoking in the memory the style of Spanish romance. But the richness of the images transforms the scene into a dynamic nightmare that can take place openly under the shining sun, as is the case in the poem Dere, which can be compared to the manner that European painting displayed in the course of its evolution and to the classical symphonies for their finale. Here we make a point and insist on the seriousness of this claim in view of the unique fate of Svanuri culture, which was completely cur off from any influence of West-European culture and art. So, working out on its own the norms and canons associated with the concept of classical symphony, this sample of aesthetic forms and meter in Svanuri folklore provides a unique example of developing a similar aesthetic idea and form under completely diverse conditions of historical and cultural development. Therefore, this is a matter of various aspects, including the psychological element of perception in the process of creativity.

It is difficult to make out the prevailing note in the poem, and this difficulty adds an additional element of merit to the force of the whole piece. The story-teller and protagonist of the poem is extremely unusual - it is Dere itself that signifies the downslide of a glacier in the mountains and causes an instantaneous cataclysm, a genuine embodiment of the Wrath of God and the End of the World materialized within the borders of the small universe of a gorge. Dere's monologue could be viewed in a simplified way, limiting its purpose to the temper of Nature and interpreting the text as an effective confession of Nature but in that case the poem could not be interpreted as a symphony. Meant for the audience to listen to, and later - now- for the public to read, we pay another detail its due - the mixture of snapshots that Dere provides us, describing the scenes of life that the disaster tore out of their existence and in its roar of White End, hurried down to the only destination - the Black Sea. The people, the victims of the drama portrayed in the manner of snapshots, represent the fates and images of all those who were destined to remain in the memory of their descendents ever young, ethereal and intangible, as a colorful decoration to the notion of Life as a Mystery of Unperceived Logic and Justice. The only reward the poem finds is in the sense of beauty that stoicism to their reality dictates, with the idea of readiness for the Fatal Final Chance.

The simplicity of form makes many poems extremely attractive in the present age of eclectics and in the permanent search of reliable examples of lasting artistic value. The examples differ and impressions vary, too. Even a slight change transforms the tone of the poem. Since the tone implies the difference also in spirit, the latter suggests a new vision and a grain of emotional philosophy, mostly stoic.

Each of the four three-lined verses of Dinol exist of the two repeating lines - the first and the third - of the same question and the same answer of a youth who is looking for his beloved, and all four answers he receives affect his growing disappointment and confusion.

Добавлено (2007-03-09, 8:26 Pm)
---------------------------------------------
Where my Dinol can she be?
I searched in vain she was nowhere.

The repetition in the last verse after the final answer converts the sentence into a concept of the mysterious freedom of spirit. This is especially important because the poetry of highlanders differs sharply from the evolution of folklore in the lowlands with the corresponding elements of civilization in the center of the state, where poetry is mostly male-centered and male-oriented, females being the objects of infatuation, deprived even of an optional note of discordant attitude to the chances they never craved.

The specter of problems that emerge in the poems is both rich and original, and the detailed study of the poetry of the Georgian highlands is certainly a revelation.

When reading or listening to the recital of highland poetry, the first thing that attracts attention is usually the dialect. However, the most impressive difference is the lack of the "i" ending of the nominative case, which is used in Standard Georgian. To the ear of a Georgian acustomed to the frequent repetition of the sound, the lack of that ending increases the tonal force of the preceding consonant and adds additional force to the melody, and the strict reality of conventional dramatic existence acquires a kind of alertness, even if the issue is conventional and routine.

In Svanuri poetry we can find all of the typical features of the old culture's folklore which are characteristic of the ancient societies and their attitude toward reality: themes like naпve bravado and self-assurance, which were often taken by their adversaries as boasting. This attitude of their enemies provided further development between the neighboring tribes - which, in turn, suggested other themes of the folklore.

The said attitude is both strong and traditional, because it persisted in Svanuri folklore until the time of firearms. The final verses of the popular poem Kansav Kipian are as simple as they are direct.

Tambi must be viewed as a unique example even among the few poems that represent the dramatic combat between a man and a beast. The Georgian poetic tradition - apart from the widely-known motive of Rustaveli's The Knight in the Tiger's Skin - represents one of the gems of our folklore, The Poem of a Tiger and a Youth. The theme goes back to the ancient roots of confrontation of human spirit and animal force and the almost immediate regional vicinity of Babylonian literary tradition in the epic on Gilgamesh.

What makes Tambi different even from the above-mentioned beauty of The Poem of the Tiger and a Youth, with its exceptional twist in the relevant theme that Europeans know from the Beowulf epic? There the fight between the heroes is complicated by introducing the dragon's mother into the scene with her pain and desire to help her son. The Georgian poem proves definitely deeper, because the mother of the dying youth decides to meet the tiger's mother to express her condolence to the tigress because she had lost her beloved son, too. What makes the poem exceptional is the theme of compassion so strongly proclaimed in the world of the pre-Christian culture, when such feeling had not been so officially supported by the public morality and social life.

Even more amazing seems the poem Tambi, in which the drama is based not on the easily understandable sense of motherhood as an inbred feeling of kinship among mothers, but on the appreciation and hailing of beauty - even to the point of setting it in the foreground, where it outweighs the traditional values of blood-ties and family, the love of one's father, brother and son. This serves as a perfect example to show that aesthetic values are not necessarily the product of the long evolution of art and/or of experiments in form carried out by various schools. Equally important is the conclusion that this example supports the points we expressed earlier about the cycling evolution of art and culture.

The first detail that differs qualitatively from similar themes comes in the lines:

The Striped-one hit with his paw
And iron-shirt went apart.
- Will I cherish my body, a-singing with lines
If my leap proves futile!

The last line here is extremely interesting, because in view of the coming lines with the priority of beauty that we suggest, this particular example represents the supremacy of the essential and the functional with respect to the imagery and form.