Publisher's Synopsis
Korneli Kekelidze (born on April 30, 1879 - died on June 7, 1962) was an outstanding Georgian scientist and cofounder of Tbilisi State University and the Georgian National Academy of Sciences. He is famous for his fundamental works on Georgian and Byzantine philology, the liturgy of the Orthodox Church and historiography. It is noteworthy that thanks to him, the world became acquainted with these monuments of Christian literature, the Geek origins of which are lost and preserved only in Georgian translations. This book presents the second part of his fundamental work, the History of Old Georgian Literature. It presents the genre review of original Georgian works and translations in ecclesiastical literature. The genre review of Georgian Ecclesiastical literature proves that when speaking about old Georgian spiritual literature, we deal with the richest treasure of world significance which has yet to be presented and appropriately reviewed. The author's observations, which used parallels with foreign literature, particularly Byzantine literature, clearly display the merit of our old literature and the level of the Georgian nation's cultural and historical creativity and potential. The Eastern branch of the Christianity tree which includes Georgian Christianity and ecclesiastical literature is not thoroughly known worldwide. The present edition will partially fill the existing gap and significantly assist those studying Eastern Christian culture and literature as well as nonspecialist, interested readers.
