The Sasanian World Through Georgian Eyes: The Iranian Commonwealth in Late Antique Georgian Literature

Description

Georgian literary sources for Late Antiquity are commonly held to be later productions devoid of historical value. As a result, scholarship outside the Republic of Georgia has privileged Graeco-Roman and even Armenian narratives. However, when investigated within the dual contexts of a regional literary canon and the active participation of Caucasiaa s diverse peoples in the Iranian Commonwealth, early Georgian texts emerge as a rich repository of late antique attitudes and outlooks. Georgian hagiographical and historiographical compositions open a unique window onto a northern part of the Sasanian world that, while sharing striking affinities with the Iranian heartland, was home to vibrant, cosmopolitan cultures that developed along their own trajectories. In these sources, precise and accurate information about the core of the Sasanian Empire-and before it, Parthia and Achaemenid Persia-is sparse; yet the thorough structuring of wider Caucasian society along Iranian and especially hybrid Iranic lines is altogether evident. Scrutiny of these texts reveals, inter alia, that the Old Georgian language is saturated with words drawn from Parthian and Middle Persian, a trait shared with Classical Armenian; that Caucasian society, like its Iranian counterpart, was dominated by powerful aristocratic houses, many of whose origins can be traced to Iran itself; and that the conception of kingship in the eastern Georgian realm of Ka arta li (Iberia), even centuries after the royal familya s Christianisation in the 320s and 330s, was closely aligned with Arsacid and especially Sasanian models. There is also a literary dimension to the Irano-Caucasian nexus, aspects of which this volume exposes for the first time. The oldest surviving specimens of Georgian historiography exhibit intriguing parallels to the lost Sasanian XwadAy-nAmag, The Book of Kings, one of the precursors to FerdowsA-a s ShAhnAma. As tangible products of the dense cross-cultural web drawing the region together, early Georgian narratives sharpen our understanding of the diversity of the Iranian Commonwealth and demonstrate the persistence of Iranian and Iranic modes well into the medieval epoch." Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 2 Title Page......Page 4 Copyright Page......Page 5 Contens......Page 6 List of Figures and Maps......Page 8 Preface and Acknowledgements......Page 12 Note on Transliteration......Page 18 Abbreviations......Page 22 Maps......Page 26 Introduction: Contexts......Page 28 PART I: HAGIOGRAPHICAL TEXTS......Page 58 1 The Vitae of Šušanik and Evstat'i......Page 60 2 The Nino Cycle......Page 132 PART II: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL TEXTS......Page 194 3 K'art'lis c'xovreba and the Historiographical Mok'c'evay k'art'lisay......Page 196 4 The Life of the Kings......Page 214 5 The Life of the Successors of Mirian......Page 288 6 The Life of Vaxtang Gorgasali......Page 298 7 Ps.-Juanšer’s Continuation......Page 358 Epilogue: Hambavi mep'et'a and Sasanian Caucasia......Page 380 Appendix I: Terminological Note......Page 404 Appendix II: Georgian Literary Sources for the Sasanian Era......Page 406 Appendix III: K'art'velian Kings and Presiding Princes until the End of the Sasanian Empire......Page 412 Appendix IV: Mihrānid Bidaxšes of Somxit'i-Gugark'......Page 416 Appendix V: Sasanian Šāhan šāhs......Page 418 Bibliography......Page 420 Index......Page 526