Giorgi Eristavi

This was An Ossetic Tale (ოსური მოთხრობა; revised and republished as Zare and Qanimat, ზარე და ყანიმათ, in 1853), a story of ill-fated lovers set against the background of the struggle of Georgian and Ossetian mountaineers against the Persian armies of Shah Abbas I in the 17th century.

In 1842, he was able to permanently return to Georgia where he married and joined the Russian civil service soon to become assistant to the Viceroy of the Caucasus Mikhail Vorontsov.

He almost single-handedly created and directed a troupe and wrote first actable comedies – original as well as translated – in which he himself took leading parts.

In spite of Eristavi’s loyal service in the Russian administration, the imperial government as well as the eroding system of Georgian aristocracy was a frequent subject of indignation and satire in his best plays such as The Lawsuit (დავა; 1840), and The Family Settlement (გაყრა; 1849).

Eristavi boldly attacks a degenerating Georgian noble, who has lost all of his ideals and has much envy and anger, exploiting his serfs; a corrupt Russian bureaucrat and an Armenian money-lender who exploit the feuding gentry; and treats the newer, Russian-educated generation of idealist liberals with condescending sympathy.