Vol. 14 (2020): XIV International Symposium Contemporary Issues of Literary Studies : The Silk Road Countries` Folklore
Contemporary Mythology and Literary Fairy-tales

Urban Myth in Georgian Modernist Literature

Lili Metreveli
Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature

Published 2020-10-20

Keywords

  • Urban Myth,
  • Modernism

Abstract

Urban problems turned out to be particularly significant for the modernist literary discourse and based on its ideological-esthetic principles created original model of the urban paradigm and vice versa, some researchers associate the process of formation of the esthetic principles of modernism with development of the urban culture.

Generally, Georgian critics attributed appearing of the urban discourse in Georgian cultural space with transformation of Tbilisi into the multicultural epicenter, foreground of intercultural dialogue of the SouthEastern Europe and Caucasus region. In Georgianმ literature one of the first modernist authors in whose art the urban narrative appeared were Vasil Barnov, Writer at the turn of the centuries, and Georgian immigrant writer Grigol Robakidze. Like the European thinkers Georgian modernist writers see the city as a desacralized, dehumanized topos, though the central problem of urban paradigm appeared in Georgian modernist literature following the European modernist literature –subject’s spiritual crisis in the urban dehumanized space – was dealt with differently from the western philosophical and esthetic discourse, in absolutely original manner.