Visramiani
Encyclopedia
Visramiani is a medieval Georgian
version of the old Iranian
love story Vīs and Rāmīn, traditionally taken to have been rendered in prose by Sargis of T'mogvi, a 12th/13th-century statesman and writer active during the reign of Queen Tamar (r. 1184-1213).
The Georgian version is a free translation which fully retains the spirit of the Persian original but differs from it in a number of minor details, at the same time rendering the translation a vivid national coloring. Visramiani proved to be a considerable influence on all further development of Georgian literature. The story is mentioned and admired virtually in all classical pieces of medieval and early modern Georgian literature, including in the poem by Shota Rustaveli
which is a crowning merit of the medieval Georgian poetry. Notably, Vis and Ramin feature among 12 most famous pairs listed by Queen Tamar’s official chronicle The Histories and Eulogies of Sovereigns on the occasion of her marriage to the Alan
prince David Soslan
.
The importance of Visramiani for the history of the Persian text lies in that, being the oldest known manuscript of the work and better preserved than the original, it helps restore corrupted lines and determine the reliable editions in different Persian manuscripts a bulk of which date to a later period (17th-18th centuries).
Visramiani was first published by the writer Ilia Chavchavadze in 1884 and first introduced to the English-speaking world through the translation by Sir Oliver Wardrop as Visramiani: the story of the loves of Vis and Ramin, a romance of ancient Persia in 1914. It was later extensively studied and compared with the Persian text by the Georgian Iranologists
Alexander Gvakharia and Magali Todua in the 1960s.
Georgian language
Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
version of the old Iranian
Persian literature
Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language...
love story Vīs and Rāmīn, traditionally taken to have been rendered in prose by Sargis of T'mogvi, a 12th/13th-century statesman and writer active during the reign of Queen Tamar (r. 1184-1213).
The Georgian version is a free translation which fully retains the spirit of the Persian original but differs from it in a number of minor details, at the same time rendering the translation a vivid national coloring. Visramiani proved to be a considerable influence on all further development of Georgian literature. The story is mentioned and admired virtually in all classical pieces of medieval and early modern Georgian literature, including in the poem by Shota Rustaveli
Shota Rustaveli
Shota Rustaveli was a Georgian poet of the 12th century, and one of the greatest contributors to Georgian literature. He is author of "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" , the Georgian national epic poem....
which is a crowning merit of the medieval Georgian poetry. Notably, Vis and Ramin feature among 12 most famous pairs listed by Queen Tamar’s official chronicle The Histories and Eulogies of Sovereigns on the occasion of her marriage to the Alan
Alania
Alania may refer to:*Alania, the medieval state of the Alans or Alani people in the North Caucasus*The short name of the modern North Ossetia-Alania, one of the Caucasian republics in the Russian Federation...
prince David Soslan
David Soslan
David Soslan was an Alan prince and a King Consort of Georgia as the second husband of Queen Regnant Tamar who married him c. 1189. He is chiefly known for his military exploits during Georgia’s wars against its Muslim neighbors.- Origins :...
.
The importance of Visramiani for the history of the Persian text lies in that, being the oldest known manuscript of the work and better preserved than the original, it helps restore corrupted lines and determine the reliable editions in different Persian manuscripts a bulk of which date to a later period (17th-18th centuries).
Visramiani was first published by the writer Ilia Chavchavadze in 1884 and first introduced to the English-speaking world through the translation by Sir Oliver Wardrop as Visramiani: the story of the loves of Vis and Ramin, a romance of ancient Persia in 1914. It was later extensively studied and compared with the Persian text by the Georgian Iranologists
Iranian Studies
Iranian studies , is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the study of history, literature, art and culture of the Iranian people. It is a part of the wider field of Oriental studies....
Alexander Gvakharia and Magali Todua in the 1960s.
See also
- Amiran-DarejanianiAmiran-DarejanianiAmiran-Darejaniani , translated into English as "The story of Amiran, son of Darejan", is a medieval Georgian romance, dating probably from the early or middle decades of the twelfth century. It is one of those literary works which heralded the emergence of native secular literature after several...
, a 12th-century Georgian chivalric romance - The Knight in the Panther's SkinThe Knight in the Panther's SkinThe Knight in the Panther's Skin is an epic poem, consisting of over 1600 shairi quatrains, was written in the 12th century by the Georgian epic-poet Shota Rustaveli, who was a Prince and Treasurer at the royal court of Queen Tamar of Georgia. The Knight in the Panther's Skin is often seen as...
, a 12th-century Georgian epic poem
Further reading
- D. M. LangDavid Marshall LangDavid Marshall Lang , was a Professor of Caucasian Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He was one of the most productive British scholars who specialized in Georgian, Armenian and ancient Bulgarian history.David M...
, G. M. Meredith-Owens. Amiran-Darejaniani: A Georgian Romance and Its English Rendering. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of LondonUniversity of London-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
, Vol. 22, No. 1/3 (1959), pp. 454–490.
External links
- Gippert, Jost. Towards an automatical analysis of a translated text and its original. The Persian epic of Vīs u Rāmīn and the Georgian Visramiani. Studia Iranica, Mesopotamica et Anatolica 1, Prag 1994 [1995], 21-59