Of course, Rustaveli is nevertheless the foster father and godfather of Merani, yet the genuine father of this meta-literary image is certainly Baratashvili. The main issue in our culture - surmounting the Homeland, rushing ahead somewhere far away without a homeland (heeding “no trail, nor spoor”) and radical transcending from one’s own context - has been linked to Merani since Baratashvili. This is what Vazha Pshavela did, using his mountains (this is the reason, why they did not like his language, albeit the language was not an issue there), and the whole poetry of Galaktion Tabidze is nothing but going and rushing beyond the Homeland (“I have no other homeland / and this snow is my homeland”; “I have failed to find my Homeland on old routes / and I did not remember whether I had ever had it or just recalled it”). It is quite paradoxical that after Baratashvili, the figures of Rustaveli and Guramishvili are viewed in a different manner. The legendary exile of the former and the real one of the latter should now be considered within the context of Baratashvili’s Merani being lost without a trace. Even philosopher Merab Mamardashvili can be placed in this cultural model. He expressed his “Georgian legend” in other languages (Russian and French) and his death in an airport of Moscow could also be viewed in the same context. However, let us start everything from the beginning: It is known that Plato and Aristotle introduced the notion of fiction or, more precisely, creation (Greek poiesis). According to Aristotle, creation is imitation (Greek mimesis), and imitation implies fiction. Aristotle said that “mimesis [invention] is composition of narratives”. It was the notion of mimesis that determined the European literary tradition. Georgia is one of the most ancient Christian civilisations. The conversion of Georgia took place in the 4th century. A full translation of the Bible in Georgian was made in the 5th-9th centuries. Georgian became the language of liturgy back in the 5th century. In spite of this, the concept of fictionality was introduced in Georgian culture from Persian literature (13th-14th centuries). The notions of literary genres and poetics also came from Persian literature. Of course, it is worth noting that literary reflection and practice started in Persian literature under the influence of Arabic literature, and the conceptualisation of literature in Arabia was due to the influence of Greek culture, specifically Aristotle. The main paradox of Medieval Georgian culture is that the religious canon and the literary canon were both of heterogeneous origin. In other words, before the 18th century, the religious canon in Georgian culture was Christian and the literary canon was Muslim (Arabic-Persian).
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