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eBook - Poem of Shota Rustaveli: The Knight in the Tiger Skin A word on Shota Rustaveli by Irakly Abashidze(continue 2)Rustaveli figures in popular tradition as a minister of the queen. He is supposed to have been educated first in Georgia, at the academies of Gelati or Ikaltoy, and then in Athens or on Mount Olympus, where many Georgians studied at that time. The poet became a master of Greek, Arabic and Persian and gained an intimate knowledge of the literature and philosophy of these countries before receiving a high post at the court of Queen T'hamar. Indeed, his poem indicates that Rustaveli was well read in the ancient philosophers, including Heraclitus and Empedocles; however, many Georgian scholars now assert that the principal source of his ideas was the writings of such Georgian thinkers as Petrus the Iberian, loane Laza, loane Moskh (Meskh), Yefrem Mtsyre and loane Petritsi, who radically revised the ideas of the ancients. Academician N. Y. Marr consistently advanced the view that Georgians of the 10th and llth centuries were studying the same problems which were occupying the most advanced minds in Christian countries of West and East during the period and that they were ahead of Europe inasmuch as they were able to respond before anyone else to the new philosophical trends and possessed a model apparatus of philosophical criticism for the time. According to the same sources and to popular tradition Shota Rustaveli travelled widely-as is also evident from The Knight in the Tiger Skin-journeying in his old age to Palestine, there in Jerusalem to die. Georgian scholars now have all the necessary documents to prove conclusively that Rustaveli was minister of finance at the court of Queen T'hamar. It is known that as early as the 5th century Georgians founded the Monastery of the Cross in Palestine. For twelve hundred years they carried out a great educational and cultural mission from this monastery until it was captured by the Greeks in the 17th century. There, in the course of the centuries, a history of the monastery was written and information was compiled on its leading figures, the names of whom were inscribed in a "Memorial Book". Hundreds of volumes in Georgian, Greek and other languages used at that time by Georgians in Palestine, including the "Memorial Book" and the church calendars, passed into the possession of the Greek church and are now kept in the library of the Greek patriarch in Jerusalem. Georgian scholars have at their disposal only a number of microfilms, among them copies of the church calendars. One of these microfilms states: "On this Monday the funeral mass of the treasurer, Shota, is to take place." This entry relates to the first quarter of the 13th century. For many centuries scholars in the poet's homeland knew nothing of this. In the middle of the 18th century the Georgian public figure, Timote Gabashvili, visited Georgian antiquities in Palestine, among them the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem. Gabashvili described his travels in a book entitled A Journey, in which the following reference to the Monastery of the Cross occurs: "Below the cupola the columns have been renovated and painted . . . by the treasurer, Shota Rustaveli, who is himself depicted there as an old man." Gabashvili conjectured that Shota the treasurer must have been the poet, Shota Rustaveli. He based his supposition that Rustaveli was a minister of finance on the traditional legends of the people. Who destroyed the cupola and columns of the monastery, restored and painted with the assistance of Shota Rustaveli, and when did this happen? The Monastery of the Cross was destroyed and rebuilt, repaired and reconstructed several times in the course of its history. It may be assumed that Shota Rustaveli arrived in Palestine after the destruction and capture of Jerusalem by the Egyptian sultan, Saladin, during the third crusade. Georgian scholars possess a document written by the Arab historian, Ibn-Sheded, which states that when in 1187 Saladin took Jerusalem, the Monastery of the Cross also fell to him. Queen T'hamar of Georgia offered a ransom of 200,000 dinars for the cloister. Some researchers speculate that the queen sent her minister of finance to Jerusalem on this mission. Rustaveli took part in restoring the walls and columns of the Georgian cloister in Palestine, which had been destroyed by Saladin. As a mark of gratitude, Shota himself was depicted on one of the columns of the monastery. Rustaveli was portrayed in secular dress, kneeling beside St. John Damascene, the great medieval Christian poet, and Maxim the Confessor, who developed Christian philosophy and theology on the basis of neo-Platonism. Of interest here is the fact that in the 7th century Maxim the Confessor opened up the way to the teachings of Dionysius the Areopagite, who was considered a neo-Platonist in the Middle Ages, although he was an orthodox Christian. Dionysius is referred to in The Knight in the Tiger Skin as "Dionos"; his thinking is entirely Christian and philosophical and, Georgian scholars assert, it is this view of the world that was the source of Rustaveli's poem. The poet may have personally chosen a place for this fresco between these two saints. All these facts have become known only in recent years, since Georgian scholars obtained a portrait of Shota from Palestine, for the fresco of Rustaveli about which Timote Gabashvili wrote in the mid-18th century and which was described by the members of a scientific expedition in the 19th century disappeared at the end of the last century. Georgian scholars arriving in Palestine failed to find it. How many secrets were buried together with the portrait! Indeed, everything that has been written above has come to light only since the rediscovery of the fresco. Georgian travellers to Palestine at the turn of the century sadly reported that the whereabouts of the portrait were unknown. The fresco seemed, indeed, to have been irrevocably lost. This problem began to concern me fifteen years ago, when the idea was conceived of celebrating Rustaveli's jubilee. I resolved to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the Rustaveli portrait in Palestine.  |
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