Vazha-Pshavela (Georgian: ვაჟა-ფშაველა), simply referred to as Vazha (Georgian: ვაჟა) (26 July 1861 – 10 July 1915) is the pen name of the Georgian poet and writer Luka Razikashvili (Georgian: ლუკა რაზიკაშვილი), noted Georgian patriot and author of the highest calibre in the field of Georgian literature.
Vazha-Pshavela was born into a family of clergymen in the little village of Chargali, situated in the mountainous Pshavi province of Eastern Sakartvelo. He graduated from the Pedagogical Seminary in Gori 1882, where he associated closely with Georgian populists (Russian term narodniki). He then entered the faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University (Russia) in 1883, as a non-credit student, but returned to Georgia in 1884 due to financial constraints. Here he found employment as a teacher of the Georgian language. He also attained prominence as a famous representative of the National-Liberation movement of Georgia.
Vazha-Pshavela embarked on his literary career in the mid-1880s. In his works, he portrayed the everyday life and psychology of his contemporary Pshavs. Vazha-Pshavela is the author of many world-class literary works – 36 epics, about 400 poems ("Aluda Ketelauri", "Bakhtrioni", "Gogotur and Apshina", "Host and Guest", "Snake eater", "Eteri", "Mindia", etc.), plays, and stories, as well as literary criticism, journalism and scholarly articles of ethnographic interest. Even in his fiction he evokes the life of the Georgian highlander with a near-ethnographic precision and depicts an entire world of mythological concepts. In his poetry, the poet addresses the heroic past of his people and extols the struggle against enemies both external and internal. (poems A Wounded Snow Leopard (1890), A Letter of a Pshav Soldier to His Mother (1915), etc.).
In the best of his epic compositions, Vazha-Pshavela deals powerfully with the problems raised by the interaction of the individual with society, of humankind with the natural world and of human love with love of country. The conflict between an individual and a temi (community) is depicted in the epics Aluda Ketelauri (1888, Russian translation, 1939) and Guest and Host (1893, Russian translation 1935). The principal characters in both works come to question and ultimately to disregard outdated laws upheld by their respective communities,in their personal journey toward a greater humanity that transcends the merely parochial.
The poet's overarching theme is that of a strong-willed people, its dignity, and its zeal for freedom. The same themes are touched upon in the play The Rejected One (1894). Vazha-Pshavela idealizes the Pshavs' time-honoured rituals, their purity, and their 'non-degeneracy' comparing and contrasting these with the values of what he considers 'false civilization'.
The wise man Mindia in the epic Snake-Eater (1901, Russian translation 1934) dies because he cannot reconcile his ideals with the needs of his family and those of society. The catalytic plot device of Mindia's consumption of serpent's flesh in an attempt at suicide – which results instead in his obtaining of occult knowledge, constitutes a literary employment of the central, folk tale motif present in The White Snake (Brothers Grimm) which epitomizes tale type 673 in the Aarne-Thompson classification system.
The mountaineer poet Vazha-Pshavela is indeed, as Donald Rayfield writes, "qualitatively of a greater magnitude than any other Georgian writer".
The five epic poems of Vazha-Pshavela ('Aluda Ketelauri' (1888), ' Bakhtrioni' (1892), 'Host and Guest' (1893), 'The Avenger of the Blood' (1897) and 'Snake Eater' (1901)) are composed on the principle of the Golden ratio, and thus invite comparison with the works of Ancient and Renaissance authors similarly inspired.
In 1961, a museum and memorial was built in Chargali to honor Vazha-Pshavela, its most famous son.
- Aluda Ketelauri, 1888
- Bakhtrioni, 1892
- Host and Guest, 1893
- The avenger of the blood, 1897
- The Snake-eater, 1901
- A feast, 1886
- The ogre's wedding, 1886
- A goldfinger's will, 1891
- A night in the highland, 1890
- The story of the roebuck, 1883
- An old beech, 1889
- The mountain's height, 1895
- The scene in the mountain, 1889
- Hunted of the homeland (drama), 1894
- The forest comedy, 1911
- Vedreba (The encounter), romantic drama, adapted from the Vazha-Pshavela poems "Aluda Ketelauri" and "Host and Guest", (this movie was awarded the Grand Prix at the 17th San Remo international Festival of Author Films, 1974), the film director Tengiz Abuladze – 1967
- Mokvetili, romantic drama, adapted from the Vazha-Pshavela play Hunted of the homeland, the film director Giorgi (Gia) Mataradze – 1992