06 — Rustaveli and the Knight
The literary immortalization of Tamar: Shota Rustaveli’s The Knight in the Panther’s Skin (Vepkhistqaosani), the masterpiece of medieval Georgian literature, composed in her reign and dedicated to the queen; and the broader process by which Tamar became the idealized sovereign of Georgian poetry and folklore.
Tradition: Georgian Orthodox
No sovereign in Georgian history is so bound to a poem. Rustaveli’s epic, dedicated to Tamar and taking her as its exalted, unnamed subject, fixed her at the imaginative center of the whole national literature; and the legend of the poet’s own devotion to the queen became one of the enduring stories of Georgian culture. This section treats the poem and its dedication, the legend of Rustaveli’s love (both-sides, as a legend and not a documented fact), and the wider transformation of the historical Tamar into the idealized queen of poetry and folk memory — the necessary bridge to the source-critical reckoning of Section 07.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| shota-rustaveli-and-the-panther-skin.md | Shota Rustaveli and The Knight in the Panther’s Skin (Vepkhistqaosani), dedicated to Tamar; the queen as its exalted subject; the legend of Rustaveli’s devotion, treated as legend. |
| tamar-in-poetry-and-legend.md | How Tamar became the idealized queen of Georgian literature and folklore — the making of a legend. |
See Also
- The Golden Age of Georgian Culture — the literary flowering Rustaveli crowns
- The Queen and the Legend — separating the historical sovereign from the folkloric one