ინტერტექსტუალობა გურამ რჩეულიშვილის შემოქმედებაში
Intertextuality in Guram Rcheulishvili’s Fiction

Summary/Abstract: Guram Rcheulishvili began his literary activity in the second half of 1950-ies, so called “The Khrushchev Thaw”. Restrictions on foreign literary translations were slightly liberalized and Georgian citizens got a chance to read their contemporary European and American authors. In his works Rcheulishvili expresses personal impressions about different authors and their literary pieces and speaking about literature he feels no boundaries between “the native” and “the foreign”. Rcheulishvili considers that Oedipus, Don Quixote, Mr. Pickwick, Prince Myshkin, Childe Harold, Faust, Mephistopheles etc. make a large gallery of literary heroes, created in different national and cultural environments but each of them are very close to Georgian character, intellect and emotions. Contemplating the texts Rcheulishvili often discovers similarity between foreign literary characters and his acquaintances as well as between the plots of the literary works and the reality around him. E. g. Alexei Vronsky from Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” reminds him of his contemporary “classy fellows” and the protagonist of “The Old Man and the Sea” – of his grandmother – Sasha, who was as viable and purposeful as the character of the American short-story. Some of Rcheulishvili’s stories are based on the association of his own biographical facts with a plot or heroes of an already existing literary work. This is the case with the story written after the author’s and his friends’ quarrel with some Abkhazian boys. One of the friends’ name – “Moor” reminded him of Moor Aben Hamet from Chateaubriand’s story “The Adventures of the last Abencerrage”. As a result the biographical fact, which was turned into a plot of a story, underwent radical changes and the title was also taken from the French author. Rcheulishvili declares that he began writing miniatures under the influence of Japanese poetry. He considers that using some forms specific for foreign literature, if they suit your style, is quite normal but the inner side of the work should be originally developed. One of the author’s untitled prosaic texts is associated with Francois Mauriac’s story “The Monkey”. Rcheulishvili’s work is about a woman who considers her husband and their little boy inferior to her. The feeling makes her aggressive and her husband – unhappy. The plot is not as dramatic as Mauriac’s one but the association between the texts is underlined by the passage in which the woman is reading the story by the French author.

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