06 — The Source

The flagship of the collection: Jakob Tsurtaveli’s Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik — written between 476 and 483 by the martyr’s own confessor, the oldest surviving original work of Georgian literature. Its authorship and dating arguments; its manuscripts (the tenth-century Parkhali codex at their head); the Armenian recension and the century-old debate over the versions’ relationship (Peeters, Abuladze, Kekelidze, Muradyan); and the translations by which it can be read today.

Tradition: Georgian Orthodox (shared pre-division veneration with the Armenian Apostolic Church)

Contents

File Description
the-martyrdom-of-shushanik.md The work itself: author, occasion, and audience; the dating arguments for 476–483; its literary character; its standing as the first monument of Georgian literature; what a confessor-eyewitness account is and is not
manuscripts-recensions-translations.md The textual history: the Parkhali Mravaltavi (10th c.) and the manuscript tradition; the Armenian recension and the priority debate with the scholarship named; editions (Abuladze 1938) and translations (Lang 1956/1976; Maksoudian 1997)

Summary

Everything in this collection ultimately rests on one short text, and the text deserves — and here receives — the full source-critical treatment. The Martyrdom announces its author as Jakob, priest and confessor of the queen, a participant in the events (Jakob Tsurtaveli, Martyrdom, trans. Lang, 1976; Loosley Leeming, Medieval Worlds 10, 2019, 64: it “purports to have been written by Shushanik’s chaplain Iakob Tsurtavi, as an eye witness account”); it is dated between her death (475/476) and Varsken’s execution (482/483), of which it knows nothing (Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia, 2010, 42–44); and it is, by scholarly consensus, the oldest surviving original work of Georgian literature. The first file makes the case and its qualifications; the second traces the manuscripts, the Armenian recension, and the disputed textual genealogy.

See Also