Orbeliani, Grigol Zurabovich

Born Oct. 2 (14), 1804, in Tbilisi; died there Mar. 21 (Apr. 2), 1883. Georgian poet.

The son of an aristocrat, Orbeliani studied at the Tbilisi Boarding School for the Nobility and at an artillery school. For his participation in a conspiracy of Georgian noblemen in 1832, he was arrested and served a sentence that ended in 1838. He fought in the war against the mountaineers in Dagestan. From 1857 he held high administrative positions.

Orbeliani began writing in 1827. He was one of the outstanding Georgian romantic poets. An intense desire to serve his beloved motherland permeates such poems as “A Toast to Your Health,” “To Iarali,” and “The Visage of Queen Tamara.” Orbeliani wrote of love, beauty, and nature. His best poems, characterized by sonorousness and noble simplicity, include “To My Sister Efemiia,” “Evening of Parting,” and “Remembrance.” He translated poetry by A. S. Pushkin, M. Iu. Lermontov, and I. A. Krylov into Georgian, and he left a voluminous Correspondence (vols. 1–2, 1937).