PAGES OF UKRAINIAN RUSTAVELIANA. CONTINUATION: V. PACHOVSKY, G. GVAZAVA

The authors examine two materials bypassed by researchers of Ukrainian-Georgian cultural and literary relations and inscribe new pages in their history. The latter concerns the reception problems of the classic Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli, who wrote the poem "The Knight in the Tiger's Skin". One of the authors is the prominent Ukrainian poet Vasyl Pachovskyi, who published "Shota Rustaveli – the Genius of Georgia" ("Dilo", 1938, № 2), and the other, G. Gvazava, who published an article "A Knight in the Panther's Skin (on the 750th Anniversary of Rustaveli)" in the Literary and Scientific Supplement of the "New Time" (1938, № 5). The publication traces the ways these materials entered the Ukrainian literary process. Analyzing the works of V. Pachovsky and G. Gvazava, the authors show that Rustaveli's poem fits into Malanyukov's model of "non-East"; it is not a reworking, borrowing, or retelling of an Eastern plot, as argued, in particular, by supporters of the St. Petersburg "scientific-critical school" of N. Marr, but a work rooted in Georgia, the traditions of national literature. The material analyzed demonstrates that interest in Rustaveli's poem is not accidental. It is stimulated, as the paper shows, by the contacts of both authors with Rustaveli's research and translations in Ukraine and Poland, and by the poetic inspiration of the work. The study of materials related to the work of G. Gvazava, whose name is not mentioned in any of the reference books developed based on Ukrainian-Georgian ties, reveals that his interest in Ukraine and the desire to familiarize Ukrainian readers with Rustaveli's poem were stimulated primarily by his environment in Paris, where many Ukrainians lived and participated in the Ukrainian literary process: O. Lototskyi, author of the study "Historical and Literary Prospects of Georgia", V. Prokopovych, a former graduate of the Faculty of St. Volodymyr University, the S. Petliura Library founded in Paris, etc. G. Gvazava aimed not only to familiarize the Ukrainian reader with "The Knight" but also to have his say in the discussion about the origin of the poem, not Persian but Georgian, which was extremely important at that time in protecting Georgia's national interests and establishing its statehood: the problem of the plot of "The Knight" was already considered a "problem with political overtones." The study of the above materials uncovered the unknown pages in the history of Ukrainian-Georgian relations of the twentieth century, and new names in it; showed the ways of entry of the foreign/Georgian, represented by the world-famous poem by S. Rustaveli, stimulated by various forms of communication.