KARTVELOLOGY

In a broad sense, Kartvelology embraces study of Georgian culture, history and all fields of the humanities: linguistics, literary criticism, art, archaeology, folklore, ethnography, source study.   

Georgia, Sakartvelo, successor to ancient Colchis and Iberia, lies at the boundary of Europe and Asia, east of the Black Sea, in the southwestern part of the Caucasus.    

The Kingdom of Kartli – referred to in Classical sources as Iberia – emerged at the turn of the 4th-3rd cent. B.C., approximately on the territory of modern Georgia. The recorded history of the country dates from that time.   

The Kingdom of Georgia lost its independence at the beginning of the 19th century. Since 1991 the country has acquired independence and been recognized by all the states of the world as the Republic of Georgia. Today too it continues to serve as a geographical, economic and cultural bridge between East and West. 

Scholarly study of Kartvelian problems commenced in Europe in the 17th century. The French scholar Marie Brosset, the German scholar Arthur Leist, the English brother and sister Wardrops, and others laid the foundation for this activity, contributing to the West\'s broader familiarity with Kartvelology. Today, too, foreign Kartvelologists make a significant contribution to the study of Kartvelian problems and form a circle of staunch friends of our nation, supporting Georgia both in hard and joyous times.   

Over the last decades the interest of the humanities in the key points of Kartvelology has been increasing, viz. in the problems of Georgian ethnogenesis, medieval Georgia in the context of cultural and political relations with Western and Eastern countries; the originality of the Georgian parent language and its relation to the families of Indo-European and Semitic languages; Georgian mythos and the Georgian-Caucasian world in Classical mythology; direct or typological relations of the rich Georgian literary culture to Byzantine and Eastern literature, to the European Renaissance thought, and Modern European and Russian literature, etc.   

Get interested in Kartvelology!

It will give you an access to an intriguing world unknown to European civilization.

The Fund for Kartvelian (Georgian) Studies

The Fund for Kartvelian (Georgian) Studies, based on private donations by Georgians and foreigners and on grants, forms the basis for the activity of the Centre for Kartvelian(Georgian)  Studies. 

The Centre for Kartvelian Studies exists at Tbilisi State University as an independent cultural-educational unit. The Centre aims at promoting Georgian culture and scholarship in the international arena and establishing Kartvelology as an international discipline. It coordinates research and assists foreign students and scholars interested in various Kartvelian fields. This is the only Centre for Kartvelian Studies in the world. The 10th anniversary of its foundation was marked in the autumn of 2002. The basic forms of work of the Centre are:   

• to provide foreign students interested in various Kartvelian problems with consultation; 
• to arrange a Summer School for foreign students in the Georgian language and Kartvelian Scholarship;    
• to hold international symposia in Kartvelian Studies, to edit and print materials; 
• to publish an informative periodical in English and Georgian in Kartvelian Studies and supply it to foreign Kartvelologists; 
• to popularize Kartvelology at foreign scholarly centres and works of foreign Kartvelologists in Georgia;  
• to prepare and carry out scholarly projects in various Kartvelian fields through establishing relations with international scholarly centres; 
• to award prizes to foreign Kartvelologists;
• Publication of significant Kartvelological monographs and collected papers in Georgian and in English.   

The Centre was founded and is directed by Professor Elguja Khintibidze.

The broad public interested in Georgian culture and scholarship, and rallied to the Fund and Centre for Kartvelian Studies, thanks everybody for his/her contribution – however small – to the development of Kartvelian Studies.

Elguja KHINTIBIDZE

Birthday: 7, June 1937

Birthplace: Georgia

Position: President of the Fund for Kartvelian Studies. Full Professor of TSU, Head of the Institute of Georgian Literature at Tbilisi State University.

Former Position: Dean of the Faculty of Philology of TSU (1976-1986); Pro-rector for scientific research of TSU (1986-1993).

Academic Background: Doctor of Philology, Professor, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of Georgia

Membership in Professional and Social Organizations: Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale – S.I.E.P.M. (Belgique).

Honorary Member of the Research Board of Advisors of the American Biographical Institute (USA).

Honours Participant of International Congresses and Symposia and deliverer of lectures at the Universities of: Madrid, Basco, Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, Helsinki, Turku, Ottawa, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Jena, Erfurt, Massachusetts at Amherst, Georgetown, Western Michigan, Columbia, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Rome, Pisa, Ravenna, Venice, Palermo.

Awards: International Order of Merit – IOM (Cambridge), Ivane Javakhishvili Prize (Tbilisi), Georgia’s Order of Merit (Tbilisi)

Main Publications: Author of over 200 scholarly studies (more than 40 published in Europe, outside of Georgia) of which the principal monographs are:

1. Georgian-Byzantine Literary Contacts (Georgian ed.-s Tbilisi 1970, 1982; Rus. ed. Tb. 1989; English ed. Amsterdam 1996).
2. Georgian Recensions of Basil the Great’s Asceticon (Georgian ed. Tb. 1968).
3. Concerning the Relationship of the Georgian and Greek Versions of Barlaam and Ioasaph (English ed. Paris 1976).
4. World Outlook Problems in Rustaveli’s Poem The Man in the Panther’s Skin (Georg. ed. Tbilisi 1975)
5. Georgian Literary School on Mt. Athos (Rus. ed. Tb. 1982)
6. Medieval and Renaissance Trends in Rustaveli’s Poem (Georgian ed. Tbilisi 1993).
7. The Designations of the Georgians and their Etymology (Georgian and English ed. Tbilisi 1998).
8. Georgian Literature in European Scholarship. Edited by Elguja Khintibidze (English ed., Amsterdam 2001; Georgian ed. Tbilisi 2003).
9. Love of The Man in the Panther’s Skin (Georgian ed. Tbilisi 2005)
10. The Man in Panther-skin in England in the Age of Shakespeare (Georgian and English ed. Tbilisi 2008)
11. The World View of Rustaveli’s The Man in the Panther’s Skin (Georg. ed. Tbilisi 2009).

Address: TSU, 13, Chavchavadze Ave., 0179, Tbilisi, Georgia,
Tel.: (995 32) 290833
Fax: (995 32) 252501
E-mail: khintibidze@yahoo.com