leqsebi

ia mtazeda
14. Khidistavs shavk’rat p’iroba (“At Khidistav we’ll make a pact”). Sources: Ko 60; Go 67.
Recorded in the Kakhetian village Shashiani. Variant in LP 149 #612. Khidistav (lit. “bridge-head”)
is a village near Gori in central Kartli. The Mukhran-Bat’onebi (“Lords of Mukhran”) were a branch
of the Georgian royal family, the Bagrations. They took their name from the seat of their domain:
Mukhran, a village on the Ksani river about 30 km NW of Tbilisi. They reached the zenith of their
power during the period from 1650 to 1722, when they ruled all of eastern Georgia and had great
influence at the Persian court in Isfahan [see HGP pp 174-180]. Sagarejo, where the three raiders
marry their beautiful captives, is in western Kakheti, about 50 km east of Tbilisi. The rest of the
poem is readily interpretable, though one detects echoes of the Mzekala (“Sun-woman”) legend in
the description of the woman liberated from the Mukhran-Bat’oni’s court. The detail of earrings
jingling in the wind also occurs in “The woman Khwaramze” (poem #32). The seating of the
captive, disguised as a man, on an Arabian horse — which seems unmotivated in our poem —
resembles an episode in the folktale “Mzekala and Mzevarda” [GNS 331-338] in which Sun-woman,
in order to escape from her undesirable husband, dressed herself as a man, folded up her hair inside a
cap, and rode off on her faithful horse Mzevarda (“Sun-rose”). Finally, the rather violent kissing to
which the women in “Khidistavi” are subjected by their captors (loq’as avadzrot t’q’avi “let us peel
off the hide from their cheeks”) echoes a phrase in “Lurjasi,” which is also a Sun-woman tale in
K’ot’et’ishvili’s opinion. A talking horse instructs its female rider: “Mount me, hit me with the whip
three times, so that three pieces of my hide come off” (sami p’iri t’q’avi amdzvres) [cited by Ko
357] .
15. Lekso, amogtkom (“Poem, I will declaim you”). Sources: Ko 21; Go 77-78; IWRP 200. Composed
by the Pshavian Mikha Khelashvili; transcribed by V. Khornauli in the Pshavian village
K’ats’alkhevi. This poem expresses with especial clarity the particular intensity of a mother’s love
for her children, a notion finding expression in almost every corner of Georgian linguistic culture.
Looking in the dictionary under the word deda “mother,” one finds, in addition to familiar idioms
such as “mother tongue” and “mother earth,” the expressions deda-azri “mother idea,” a key or
fundamental principle; deda-bodzi “mother pillar,” the column supporting the roof in a traditional
Georgian house; deda-kalaki “mother city,” the capital of a country. According to traditional belief,
each village, stream, valley and forest was under the protection of a local spirit known as adgilisdeda,
“place-mother” (see poem #31). By contrast, mama “father” is almost never used in a
metaphoric sense. All of this gives one the impression that deep in the Georgian national
consciousness motherhood is linked with the notion of support, of being the center and base, of
nurturing and protecting. It should not be seen as unusual, then, that the dying Avtandil dispatches a
carrier pigeon to his mother, not his father or wife (poem #7). The young warrior in the poem
expresses the hope that his name will be remembered each time the ballad he left behind is sung. It is
a sadly ironic fact that the powers that ruled over Georgia for many years would not allow this wish
to be honored. Mikha Khelashvili, born in 1900 in the Pshavian village Akhadi, participated in the
anti-Communist revolt led by Kakutsa Choloq’ashvili in 1924. After the uprising was crushed by the
Soviet Georgian government, Khelashvili went into hiding in the mountains. In January of 1925 the
young poet was betrayed and killed. Until recently his name could not be mentioned in print, even
though some of the poems he composed were widely anthologized (biographical information
provided by Z. K’ik’nadze).
16. T’ialo ts’utisopelo (“Oh wretched, fleeting world”). Source: IWRP 204. Composed by the Pshavian
poet Bat’ark’ats Bekauri. Folk poetry is still a living tradition in Georgia, and many mountaineers
continue to compose poetry within the tradition of their ancestors. Vakhusht’i K’ot’et’ishvili
included a dozen recently composed poems in his anthology of folk poetry, including this one. The
poet declares that he has eaten up his life “like a khink’ali.” This is one of the staples of Pshavian
cuisine: spiced meat encased in a bag of dough, then boiled or fried. (One can easily put away a
dozen or more at a sitting, washed down with beer). Old age has bent him over like a k’irk’ali, a
curved piece of wood, especially one fashioned as a rocker for a cradle.
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