GEORGIAN DISCOURSE OF GEORGE GORDON BYRON IN THE XX-XXI CENTURIES IN GEORGIA

Abstract

According to the principles of Romanticism, one of its main characteristics is an interest in travelling Eastern countries.  One of the leading figures of the Romantic movement was a well-known British poet George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), who intended journey to Georgia, where Byron was welcomed.  In Georgia Byron’s poetical works were still actual during his life.  Georgian scholars:  N. Orlovskaya, M. Kuchukhidze, N. Zedgenidze, D. lashkaradze, G. Gachechiladze, I. Merabishvili scientifically learned his works and had some detailed discussions about Byron and his pieces. The aim of this paper is to present the popularity of George Gordon Byron and his works in Georgia in the 20^th-21^st centuries.

     Georgian society got acquainted Byron with his works through translations (French, Russian) and letters published in the 19^th- century press. Therefore, 19^th century translations were rarely equivalent to the original. When Georgian writers were translating Byron’s works, striving to imitate the poet, limited by the flaws in the process of translation. However, some of them managed to expand his artistic achievements and express the poet’s intention in their translations. Georgian translations   in the 20^th- century about the life of Byron and his pieces were carried out from the source text, thus these translations are considered to be better than the previous ones. The latest 21^st - century translations about the life of   Byron and his world-famous masterpieces are connected to the name of Georgian academician, Merabishvili Innes, who established   a new principle in translation studies and promoted a variety of academic activities relating to Byron in Georgia.

     The reasons for Byron’s popularity were determined by his freedom-loving dispositions in verses or poems. This corresponded to the spirit of the deprived Georgian people. Thus, the translations of Byron’s work somehow found a solid basis for their echo in Georgian readers. And if from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards this process was confined to translations or information mainly from the intermediate language, the twentieth century is connected with a scientific approach to Byron’s works, which reached the complete academic discipline by the end of the twentieth century, but the 21^st century is considered to be the highest stage in translation studies in terms of its accurate translation and scholarly studies.