--- Mark Bennett <mab at straussandasher.com> wrote:
> __________________________________
>
> Man, I hope so . . .
>
The only person who could tell you would be a fluent speaker of Georgian. ;) Service himself writes "Nobody would claim that this in translation is high art; but in the Georgian original it has a linguistic purity recognised by all. The themes of nature and nation commended themselves to readers. The educationist Yasob Gogebashvili, who had contacts with revolutionaries in Tbilisi, valued the poem so highly that he included it in the later edition of his school textbook, Mother Tongue (deda ena).
"There was a nationalist edge to Joseph's poems even though he restrained himself in order to avoid annoying the Tbilisi censor. His images were those of many writers in the oppressed countries of Europe and Asia of that time: mountain, sky, eagle, motherland, songs, dreams and the solitary traveller. The closest he came to disclosing his political orientation was in an untitled work dedicated to 'the poet and singer of peasant labour, Count Rapael Eristav'. For Joseph, Eristavi had identified himself with the plight of the poor toilers of the Georgian countryside.
"Not for nothing have the people glorified you, You will cross the threshold of the ages -- Oh that my country might rise."
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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