ნიკოლოზ ბარათაშვილი და დასავლური რომანტიზმი (პოეტურ და ფილოსოფიურ აზრთა გადაკვეთანი)

ანოტაცია

Outwardly, 19th-century Georgia was cut off from Europe, creating the impression that:

Russia fed on the scraps of European socio-literary thought, while Georgia – with its monarchy abolished and transformed into southern Russian governorates – fed on the scraps of those scraps.

However, thanks to deep internal processes:

The 1832 conspiracy would prove to be the blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh of that series of romantic uprisings that followed one another across Europe.

And Georgian Romanticism, as a literary movement, would emerge as a direct offshoot of the Western Romantic spirit, an essential link in a unified romantic chain.

This would be most vividly and tangibly manifested in the work of Nikoloz Baratashvili, the pinnacle of Georgian romantic thought, as seen in his poetic and epistolary legacy.

That is why this seemingly small work, yet monumental in its internal scope, reveals the characteristics that were typical of European romantics.

And therefore, the essay would highlight the intersections of the Georgian creator's poetic and philosophical thought with:

Novalis, Giacomo Leopardi, Lord Byron.

In the West, Romanticism emerged through opposition and open conflict with Classicism. In Georgia, however, it had to assert itself by breaking free from Eastern aesthetic sensibilities and influences.

Against the broader backdrop of Georgian Romantic literature, Nikoloz Baratashvili had to distinguish himself as a writer fundamentally turned inward – toward the depths of his inner world. For this reason, he was inevitably drawn to Romanticism, even if the prevailing spirit of the time had taken a different direction.

A core principle of Romantic theory and the art of living asserts that the individual and the universe, life and history, require polarity – a dynamic tension between opposing forces through which energy flows. Since history wavers between the positive pole of the ideal and the negative pole of a reality that consistently falls short of it, the attempt to reconcile the real with the ideal has never ceased – nor could it – through any final resolution or synthesis.

Within this framework, the darker aspects of existence – illness, madness, death – must be acknowledged as a necessary counterbalance. For the art of living implies precisely this: that creators must not shy away from confronting them.

Romantic writers moved between these polarities, and Baratashvili, by translating this movement into poetic language, became an integral part of the European Romantic current. Like his spiritual counterparts in the West, he was not to see polarity as a threat to life, but rather as its essential condition.

From this perspective, it becomes irrelevant to ask which of the opposing views expressed in his works – including The Fate of Kartli – more accurately reflects the author’s true stance. Both perspectives are equally valid; otherwise, the necessity of polarity would be undermined, and the distinct nature of Romantic thought would vanish.

Special consideration should be given to the relationship between Nikoloz Baratashvili and Lord Byron, particularly in light of the unusual figure of Napoleon Bonaparte as a hero of the Romantic era.

Romantic writers often looked with undisguised admiration – even envy – at those who did not write novels on paper as they did, but instead lived them in real life. These individuals "wrote" their stories through their very existence, inscribing meaning into the fabric of everyday reality.

Romanticism set before itself fantastical and often implausible goals – so improbable that others would dismiss them as delusions, even mock them. Yet time and again, what once seemed unreachable would be realized.

Such fulfillment was made possible through the unrelenting will and determination of the individual – qualities that deeply fascinated Romantic creators. They would turn these exceptional figures into the heroes of their lyrical and epic works, imagining them as monumental embodiments of the human spirit.

One such Romantic, monumental hero was Napoleon Bonaparte, whose greatness was acknowledged even by Lord Byron – despite the fact that, to Byron’s native England, Napoleon appeared chiefly as a conqueror. Byron famously likened himself to Napoleon within the realm of poetic creation, calling himself “the grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.”

Nikoloz Baratashvili’s poem “Napoleon”, presented as an inner monologue of

the French emperor, stands out for its originality. The poet envisioned Napoleon as a perpetually dissatisfied soul, tormented by intense inner and outer conflicts. He became a symbolic figure – an embodiment of humanity’s “vessel never to be filled”, tormented by spiritual unrest and a will so boundless it even envied fate itself. As Baratashvili writes:

”Who knows – perhaps even fate, grown weary of his soul,
shall crown another beneath the shadow of his name.”

The line the poet places in Napoleon’s mouth powerfully encapsulates Romantic maximalism:

“Let even the grave be cramped for me –
should fate bestow my crown on one like me.”

This declaration reflects a desire to accomplish such unprecedented deeds that no future generation could hope to repeat them.

It is emphasized that:

Nikoloz Baratashvili did not intuitively show a mysterious resemblance to his Western counterparts; rather, he had Solomon Dodashvili as a guide to that artistic and philosophical world. Dodashvili was one of the founders of Georgian Europeanism, the ideologist of the 1832 uprising, and an excellent connoisseur of Western philosophical movements.

Solomon Dodashvili was recognized as one of the Russian Empire’s leading authorities on German philosophy – particularly the works of Immanuel Kant. The parallels between Kantian thought and Baratashvili’s poetic worldview likely arose from the poet’s exposure to these ideas, most probably introduced to him through Dodashvili.

Two phenomena famously filled Kant with awe: The starry heavens above us and the moral law within us.

Both found poetic expression in Baratashvili’s verse – cosmic wonder in “Dusk Upon Mtatsminda”, and moral reflection in “Meditations by the Mtkvari”.

In the former, the aesthetic vision echoes Kant’s conception of the sublime and the limits of human reason when confronted with the infinite. The latter engages with timeless questions of human existence and purpose. While this poem has often been linked to Ecclesiastes, on a broader scale it reflects a Faustian theme – an eternal striving to define meaning and value within the human condition.

A key conduit between Baratashvili’s aesthetic worldview and Kantian ethics appears to be Nikolai Karamzin’s “Letters of a Russian Traveler”. This work, a stylized account of his European journey, became a kind of encyclopedic window into Western life. Dodashvili held “Letters” in the highest regard, ranking Karamzin alongside Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Cicero.

And understandably so: in this elegant, accessible prose, the profound ideas of the sage of Königsberg – Kant – were rendered approachable to a broader audience, including those who would later immerse themselves in the complexities of his original texts.

These philosophical ideas – whether absorbed through spiritual affinity or deliberate engagement – found vivid poetic expression in the works of Nikoloz Baratashvili, enriching Georgian Romanticism with a deep ethical and intellectual resonance.