“A Man Was Going down the Road” by Otar Chiladze – Literature of Small Country on Annexation

Abstract

The classical receptions presented in national literatures appear to be one of the most vivid expressions of the complex interrelationship that exists between world and local literatures.

The paper studies the interpretation of the Argonauts myth by O. Chiladze in order to show how the writer using mythological allusions reflects on the challenges of the modern world, namely, on annexation of small countries by empires. The arrival of Phryxus and the Argonauts’ campaign to Colchis is nothing else for the writer but the plan of the Cretan emperor Minos to conquer Colchis being drawn in a manner that evokes direct parallels with the classical intervention schemes.