Legacy

David IV as Georgia’s supreme national hero and one of its most beloved saints: the continuous veneration and the feast; the Order of David the Builder (established 1992), once Georgia’s highest state honor; Gelati as a UNESCO World Heritage site and a living center of pilgrimage; and the pervasive presence of Aghmashenebeli — in monuments, place-names, and national memory — as the icon of Georgian greatness beside his great-granddaughter Queen Tamar.

Tradition: Georgian Orthodox

The Enduring Cult

David’s memory has never lapsed. Venerated as a saint from soon after his death (see His Repose and Canonization), he has been continuously honored by the Georgian Orthodox Church and people through nine centuries — the medieval Golden Age that looked back to him as founder, the long centuries of Mongol, Persian, Ottoman, and Russian domination that looked back to him as the lost ideal of Georgian greatness, and the modern independent republic that has made him a central figure of national identity (Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation, 1994, ch. 4; Rayfield, Edge of Empires, 2012). His feast on 26 January (8 February N.S.) and the commemoration of Didgori (Didgoroba) are living observances, and his gate-tomb at Gelati is a principal object of Georgian pilgrimage (OCA, “Blessed David IV,” oca.org; and see The Monastery of Gelati).

The Name Aghmashenebeli

David is known to Georgians simply as Aghmashenebeli (აღმაშენებელი) — “the Builder” or “the Restorer” — an epithet so completely his that it functions almost as a name. It is borne by streets and avenues (Aghmashenebeli Avenue is one of the great thoroughfares of Tbilisi), by a district of the capital, by schools and a university, by monuments and statues across the country, and by the national imagination as the shorthand for the king who made Georgia great (Rayfield, Edge of Empires, 2012, on David’s place in national memory; en.wikipedia.org, “David IV,” on the epithet and its ubiquity). Few figures in any nation’s history are so thoroughly woven into the fabric of national life; in Georgia, David the Builder and Queen Tamar are the two supreme icons of the nation’s golden past, and both are saints of its Church.

The Order of David the Builder

The modern Georgian state has made David’s name its highest civic honor. The Order of David the Builder (originally the Order of David Aghmashenebeli) was established in 1992, in the first years of restored Georgian independence, and until 2004 — before the introduction of the Order of the National Hero and St. George’s Order of Victory — it was the highest state award of Georgia, conferred by the President for outstanding contributions to the country’s independence, revival, unity, and development (en.wikipedia.org, “Order of David the Builder,” on its establishment in 1992 and its status as the country’s highest award until 2004). That the new republic reached for David’s name to crown its honors-system is itself a measure of his standing: the founder of the medieval kingdom made the patron of the reborn one.

Gelati: Monument, Heritage Site, Pilgrimage

The physical center of David’s legacy is Gelati (see The Monastery of Gelati). His greatest foundation is at once a working monastery, the burial-place where he lies at the gate, a masterpiece of medieval Georgian architecture and monumental art, and — since its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994 — an internationally recognized monument of world civilization (en.wikipedia.org, “Gelati Monastery,” on the 1994 UNESCO inscription; and see The Monastery of Gelati). It is among the most visited heritage and pilgrimage sites in Georgia, drawing both the faithful who come to venerate the holy king and the visitors who come to see the great church and its mosaic. In Gelati the several strands of David’s legacy — the saint, the builder, the founder of the Golden Age, the national hero — are gathered into a single place (Rayfield, Edge of Empires, 2012; en.wikipedia.org, “Gelati Monastery”).

Didgori in National Memory

The victory of Didgori (see The Battle of Didgori (1121)) is a second great site of memory. Commemorated as Didgoroba, it is celebrated as the supreme moment of Georgian arms and Christian deliverance, and it is marked at the battlefield, where a monument commemorates the dzlevay sakvirveli, the “miraculous victory” (Mikaberidze, “Miraculous Victory: Battle of Didgori, 1121”; and the Georgian national commemoration). Didgori has become, in modern Georgian memory, a symbol of national resilience — the small nation’s improbable triumph over overwhelming odds — and its meaning has been readily transferred to later moments of national struggle.

The Saint and the Nation

David’s legacy is inseparably ecclesial and national, and the two reinforce each other. He is venerated as a saint because he saved and built Christian Georgia; he is honored as a national hero as a holy king. This fusion is characteristic of the Georgian, as of much Orthodox, understanding of the nation’s history as a sacred history — the Georgian people as a Christian people whose kings and defenders are its saints (Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation, 1994, on the sacralization of Georgian national history; and see the sibling collections St. Nina of Georgia and St. Ketevan of Georgia). The strength of this fusion is the depth and continuity of David’s memory; its risk — that national feeling may idealize the historical king past recognition — is the subject of the Assessment that follows.

See Also

References

  • Suny, Ronald Grigor. The Making of the Georgian Nation. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. (David in national memory; the sacralization of Georgian history.)
  • Rayfield, Donald. Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia. London: Reaktion Books, 2012. (David’s place in national life; Gelati.)
  • Mikaberidze, Alexander. “Miraculous Victory: Battle of Didgori, 1121.” (Didgori in memory; the monument.)
  • “Order of David the Builder.” Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_David_the_Builder. (Established 1992; Georgia’s highest award until 2004.)
  • “Gelati Monastery.” Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelati_Monastery. (The 1994 UNESCO World Heritage inscription.)
  • “David IV.” Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_IV. (The epithet Aghmashenebeli and its ubiquity.)
  • “Blessed David IV of Georgia.” Orthodox Church in America, oca.org/saints/lives/2019/01/26/100326-blessed-david-iv-king-of-georgia. (The feast and the veneration.)