Shota Rustaveli

Shota Rustaveli (wikipedia.org)

The information about Shota Rustaveli’s life and activities is hardly preserved to us . A number of historical and literary, folklore is created on the basis of the poet’s life and various works. One of the ways to identify Rustaveli’s biographical data is his poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin”. The prologue and the epilogue attests us the authorship of Rustaveli. Also the writing of the XV-XVIII centuries. The name of Rustaveli interconnects to the geographical point- Rustavi and means the resident of Rustavi or the Castle town governor, employer, bishop.

The folk legend says the poet must be from Meskheti. One thing is clear: Rustaveli lived in the period of the material and spiritual prosperity of Georgia. The king Teimuraz and the XVII-XVIII the centuries writers mention his name as Shota. The Rustaveli’s mural portrait made on the Cross monastery column in Jerusalem in the XIII century confirms the same. There is an argument about the fact that the superannuated poet went to Jerusalim, then became the friar, then died and was buried there.

"The Knight in the Panther's Skin" is one of the most important works of the world in the middle ages. From the poem we see that Shota Rustaveli was very well-educated, he knew foreign languages, knew not only the Georgian thinkers works, but ancient philosophy, oriental literature, different religions, was educated in astrology, in law and in military case.

Presumably, "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" mustn’t be the only work of Shota Rustaveli, but none of other ones have reached us.