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Sjani
Compositional Peculiarities of Amirani’s Myth
Dalila Bedianidze_2008Abstract
Published in the journal Sjani, vol. 9 (2008), pp. 173–174.The author's English summary from the article:
Amirani’s myth is an ancient Georgian legend. There exist a number of its variations. The Svan version of the myth represents Amirani’s story most precisely and clearly. According to Svan version of Amirani’s myth its compositional details are the following: Love story of Amirani’s parents 1. Amirani’s birth 2. Placing Amirani’s cradle on the bank of the river and his baptizing 3. Amirani in his father’s house 4. Amirani returns his father’s eye/ first heroism 5. Amirani’s meeting with one-eyed Ogre (Devi) 6. Amirani’s and his brothers struggle with Ogres (Devis) 7. Amirani defeats Ogre (Devi) 8. Amirani’s battle with dragons; swallowing of Amirani by Black Dragon 9.
Amirani’s coming out from dragon’s belly 10. Searching for Qamari 11. Amirani and hero Ambri 12. Kidnapping Qamari, a maiden unseen by the sun 13. Struggle with Qamari’s father and death of Amirani’s brothers 14. Amirani’s suicide; Qamari restores him and his brothers to life 15. Amirani – oath breaker 16. Amirani challenging the God 17. Amirani’s chaining 18. Some of the compositional details of Amirani’s myth have something in common with elements depicting adventures of mythic heroes of other countries. For example, there are similarities in comparison with Greek myth: Prometheus’, Heracles’, Theseus’, Peirithous’ myths. Hero’s birth and his struggle with different evil creatures should be singled out among them.
Compare Heracles – struggling with snakes and Amirani – with dragons, hero’s challenging with God or Gods and his punishment, in some cases chaining, in some cases placing under mountain / see Armenian myth – Mheri, in some cases chaining on the chair / see Theseus and Peirithous The heroes of Greek myth are finally liberated. Amirani frees himself too, but we come across this detail not in Georgian myth, but in Georgian folk epic “Source of Pomegranates”, recorded by Elene Virsaladze. Dominik Irtenkauf (Deutschland)
Published in the journal Sjani, vol. 9 (2008), pp. 173–174. Open the paper