Georgia: The Ministry of Culture and Sports of Georgia honors the memory of Grigol Abashidze, his outstanding merit to Georgian literature and national culture.
Grigol Abashidze was born on August 1, 1914 in the Rgan, Chiaturi municipality village. 110 years have passed since the birth of Georgian writer and social activist Grigol Abashidze
In 1936, he graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Tbilisi State University, and two years later – the script department of Moscow Cinematography Institute.
The writer’s work encompasses many fields of literature: poetry, prose, dramaturgy, translation, statistics, and more. He received almost all the awards at that time.
Grigol Abashidze’s great authority was defined by his writing: extraordinary poems, stories, novels, and translations.
Three historical novels were given unique names: “Lasharella,” “Big Night,” and “Tsotne, or The Fall and Rise of Georgians.”
Georgian readers have attracted and loved the translations of Shandor Petef’s poems. Grigol Abashidze’s personality was fascinated by a great internal culture and outstanding intellect.
Grigol Abashidze was the chief editor of several magazines, including Crocodile, Flag, and And Mnatobi. From 1967 to 1981, he headed the Union of Writers of Georgia, first as secretary and then as chairman.
In 1979, he was elected as a writer-academic. From 1982 until his death, he was the Rustaveli and State Premium Award Committee chairman at the Council of Ministers of Georgia.
In the 1990s of the last century, at the time of our country’s next hardship, Grigol Abashidze’s poetry gained a tragic intonation, which clearly appeared in his small but great collection, “Val.”
“Your land and water is like a dwarf, your body is flat,” the poet addressed his homeland and said there: “I am not happy neither at night nor dawn.”…
A few months before his death, the poet wrote a poem – “The absence of non-existence,” to which Murman Lebanidze gave a wonderful essay with the eloquent title: “Masterpiece at the age of forty.”
Grigol Abashidze is buried in the Didube Pantheon of writers and social activists. His bust adorns the square in front of the National Library of Georgia is named after Ilia Chavchavadze.
