For the genre analysis of Nikoloz Gulaberisdze’s works

Abstract

Nikoloz Gulaberisdze's work - " Reading the column alive, the a Robe of the Lord and the Catholic Church" - simultaneously reveals the specific characteristics of several branches of theological literature, namely: hagiographic, homiletic, polemical, historical, philosophical, hymnographic genres. Therefore, it should be considered as polygenre works, for which it is necessary to discuss the composition of the works. The first publisher of the works, Mikhail-Gobron Sabinin, considered it a synaxarium  (Sabinin, 1882). According to Korneli Kekelidze, the work is of the hagiographic genre, but it also contains philosophical discussions and follows the traces of the works of the historical genre. He compared "Reading" to Leonti Mroveli's writings about the conversion of Georgians and paid special attention to the miraculous episodes (Kekelidze, 1960: 318-319). The scientist did not specify that the essay is polygenre, but his reasoning provides the basis for expressing this opinion. About the composition of Nikoloz Gulaberisdze's works, Ivane Javakhishvili said that it is in two parts: the first one contains historical information about the royal robe and the Christianization of Georgians by St. by Nino, and in the second - it depicts the robe of the Lord, Svetitskhovli and St. Nino's old and new miracles; At the end, "Gikharoden" injection was added. From his reasoning, it can be seen that the work is considered a work imbued with historical and philosophical issues, which also suggests the polygenre nature of the works (Javakhishvili, 1977: 396-409). Nikoloz Gulaberisdze had a predecessor in terms of composition and genre of his works in the form of Iovane Sabanisdze, whose opinion about the polygenre nature of his works was expressed by K. Kekelidze, while Laura Grigolashvili substantiated it in essence and distinguished the beginnings of several genres confirmed in the writings: epistolary, homiletic, exegetical, panegyrics (Grigolashvili, 2018: 81-96). It should be noted that G. Kuchukhidze's monographic work, a doctoral dissertation, in which the writings of Iovane Sabanisdze are discussed in relation to virtually all theological fields. The report discusses the genre and compositional diversity of Nikoloz Gulaberisdze's works. We considered the title of the work itself to be noteworthy: " Reading the column alive, the a Robe of the Lord and the Catholic Church", which is characteristic of homiletic works. That is why it is called "Question". It depicts the polemics of Christian religion and paganism, it mixes story-history, the same story-history and story-miracle, the same God's will-miracle, the reflection of which has one goal: to show the spiritual transformation of the Georgian nation and its spiritual mission. The story-history, story-history is imagined in a philosophical aspect, and the story, the reflection of the news of the conversion of Georgians by the Lord Robe and Saint Nino, along with the religious one, also implies an aesthetic vision, ends with