THE STORY OF ERECTING THE SHOTA RUSTAVELI STATUE IN TBILISI AND THE PRIORITIES OF THE COMPETITION

Abstract

On the 20th of August 1934, because of the USSR Georgian Communist Party's central committee's decision, The Shota Rustaveli Anniversary Committee was founded and it started functioning under The Georgian Council of People's Commissars. It was ordered to prepare for the 750th anniversary of Rustaveli. Among the many events that were planned to be held during the anniversary was the erection of the Rustaveli statue in Tbilisi too. The Anniversary Committee created the contest requirements and the contest itself was announced, where dozens of local and foreign authors took part. In the end, sixteen entries were chosen, the final choice of which became Konstantine Merabishvili's project. In 1937 the anniversary of Rustaveli was celebrated and the Anniversary Committee stopped functioning too, though the statue still hadn't been erected in Tbilisi by then. It was unveiled later on, in 1942, in the Luxembourg garden, and there were notable changes in the finished project, compared to the original version.

Extensive research is still required on the topic of the Georgian sculpture in the round. This especially refers to the works from the Soviet period. Most of the existing information about those art pieces is very biased. Considering the historical-cultural context, unbiased analysis of the events is the only right way of rethinking the past and overcoming the gap forcefully created in Georgian art's natural evolution process – the gap that's referred to as socialist realistic art.

In the case of socialist realism, only name tagging isn't enough. These processes need objective, thorough analysis and step-by-step research, which means comparativistic, also historical-art analysis with iconographical research methods and, of course, art-stylistic analysis.

The history of Georgian sculpture is unusually uneven. The pre-Christian sculpture in the round is fully replaced by relief upon conversion to Christianity. Sculpture in the round, as a new art form, returned in the late 19th century to Georgian reality, and in the 1930s, when the Rustaveli sculpture contest was announced, it was still referred to as one of the younger art forms. At the same time, the propaganda of monumental art is already in full power in the Soviet Union. The contest, being done with such background, gives a possibility to see the events in sum. The criteria which were used to choose the projects are interesting, alongside what it became to express and what was the goal of the contest, which compiled so many events in itself. As it's known, the Soviet ideologies didn't fancy Rustaveli, as he was a poet praising a king. This situation was changed radically in the early 1930s, which, of course, related to ideological reasons more than anything. During the contest, the Anniversary Committee participants were changed, the overall perception of art took a drastic turn and so did the criteria, rating it.

The story of the Rustaveli statue erection in 1935-1937 clearly depicts the process of the government trying to make artists work for the regime and doing it in a way that simultaneously applies to the people's interests and also fulfills a purely political order.

Key words: Shota Rustaveli; Sculpture; Rustaveli anniversary.