ABSTRACT
The first truly popular writer in Georgia to win a reading public among the newly literate classes of the expanding cities and to depend entirely on the market’s approval for his income was Aleksandre Qazbegi (ალექსანდრე ყაზბეგი, 1848–93). He was born to the wealthy feudal lord of Khevi (around Mount Kazbek) General Mikeil Qazbegi-Chopikashvili (ყაზბეგი-ჩოფიკაშვილი), The influence of his nurse aroused his creative interests; the death of his father plunged him into poverty. A student of agriculture in Moscow, he led a dissipated youth, distinguished only for his solo sword-dancing. Venereal disease, poverty, and Tolstoy’s radical ideas drove him to extraordinary actions: he returned home in 1870 and spent seven years as a transhumant shepherd in the Caucasus. Few sheep could have had such an aristocratic shepherd. Undoubtedly, Qazbegi was obnoxious and often obtuse in his behaviour and ideas: his fellow shepherds and their dogs disliked him for teasing them with a bear on a chain and were puzzled by his nights spent writing by candlelight surrounded by fascinated sheep. Qazbegi recorded this period in an assertive pseudo-ethnographical essay, Memoirs of a Former Shepherd (ნამწყემსარის მოგონებანი, 1882–3). He insisted that the native peoples — Circassians, Chechens, Georgians — of the high Caucasus had the secrets of the good life. Ruined once more by trading in recruits for the Russian army, disliked by his kith and kin, Qazbegi sold his sheep and descended to Tbilisi as a writer. His passion for the theatre produced a score of plays adapted from French and Russian sources, but only his dancing was applauded. The publication of his ethnographical study The Khevi People and their Way of Life (ნამწყემსარის მოგონებანი, 1880) was a breakthrough. Using several pseudonyms, the most appropriate being Mechkhubare, ‘troublemaker’, Qazbegi tried out other genres.
