Abstract

“Modern Art is a genuine offspring of the city… the city created new images, here the foundation was laid for the literary school, known as Symbolism…The poet’s consciousness was burdened by the gray iron city and it poured out into a new unknown song”  (Tabidze 2011: 121-122), - writes Georgian Symbolist Titsian Tabidze in his program article Tsisperi Qantsebit (With Blue Horns). Indeed, in the Symbolist aesthetics the city-megalopolis, as a micro model of the material world, is formed as one of the basic concepts.  

Modern Art is a genuine offspring of the city… the city created new images, here the foundation was laid for the literary school, known as Symbolism…The poet's consciousness was burdened by the gray iron city and it poured out into a new unknown song‖ (Tabidze 2011: 121122), - writes Georgian Symbolist Titsian Tabidze in his program article Tsisperi Qantsebit (With Blue Horns). Indeed, in the Symbolist aesthetics the city-megalopolis, as a micro model of the material world, is formed as one of the basic concepts. Within the topic under study we discuss the work of Charles Baudelaire and the poets of the Georgian Symbolist school Tsisperqantselebi (The Blue Horns), as, on the one hand, in the French and, on the other one, in the Georgian literary area the conceptualization of the city - Paris, Tbilisi - as an aesthetic phenomenon, its poetization was for the first time associated exactly with their names. In our view, in order to study the given issue, it is significant to compare the French and the Georgian contexts, the more so as Georgian Symbolism was not a contemporary phenomenon of French Symbolism; in addition, the socio-political as well as the cultural backgrounds of the two countries were also totally different.The French Revolution of 1789 became a starting point of anew age and a model of subsequent revolutions not only inFrance but also in the entire Western area. The utopian idea ofsocial ―Liberty, Equality and Fraternity‖ was met with greatenthusiasm in the society, although the interpretation ofpolitical turbulence, revolutions and the ―Great Terror‖ wasnot and could not have been homogeneous. The hopes soonchanged to disappointment. From the end of the 18th c. to thefoundation of the Third Republic (1870) the governmentsystem of France changed a number of times. Industrializationand scientific progress facilitated extension of the city.Theambitious project of Napoleon III and Baron Haussmannconcerning the renovation of Paris - ―construction‖ of a newcity - was implemented.

The political situation was totally different in Georgia fromthat in France. The country, which from 1802 found itselfwithin the Russian Empire, in the 1910s (1918-1921) obtainedindependence for a few years, but from 1921 was forced tobecome one of the members of the Soviet Republic.The cultural contexts of the two countries were also different.

If in the 19th-c. French literature the tendencies ofRomanticism and Realism (with certain variations) co-existedand it was distinguished by paradoxes, striving towardscontinuous formal novelties, the beginning of the 20th c. wasthe period of stagnation of Georgian culture. Although in thework of individual authors (A.Abasheli, S.Shanshiashvili,G.Tabidze, and others) aesthetic features of modernism,tendencies of new art were observable, on the whole, literaturewas predominated by epigonism1. Against this background, in1916, the first Symbolist literary group Tsisperi Qantsebi (TheBlue Horns) came into being in the Georgian literary area. Theorder uniting young poets set as the primary objective torestore the artificially broken connection of Georgian literaturewith the Western area. Desiring to re-conceptualize thenational identity and to modernize Georgian literature,Tsisperqantselebi rested on the worldview and aestheticprinciples of French Symbolism.

In these two different socio-political and culturalenvironments, the cultural atmosphere and scale of influenceof the city (Paris, Tbilisi), naturally, was not homogeneouseither. Unlike Paris of the 19th c., which was perceived as theworld capital, ―A beacon of artistic freedom, a particularlyfertile climate for artistic experimentation‖ ​ , Tbilisi of the beginning of the 20th c. had the status of acultural periphery. Georgian Symbolists undertook the task ofrejecting this idea and declared Tbilisi as a Mecca of art.―After Georgia the most sacred country is Paris. People,glorify this wrathful city of ours, where buffooned withselfforgetful inspiration our drunkard brethren – Verlaine andBaudelaire, Mallarmé, confidant of words, and ArthurRimbaud, damned poet, drunk with pride‖, - wrote PaoloIashvili in the Foreword (Pirveltqma) ​ .

For French Symbolists the national worldview, civilresponsibility was alien (Balakian 1977: 10). They watchedthe renovation of Paris from the position of observers, whereasTsisperqantselebi themselves were co-participants of thecreation of new reality, cultural atmosphere. ―We wishGeorgia to turn into an infinite, dreaming city, in which thenoise of animated streets will replace the emerald of floweringvalleys‖ ​ . Georgian Symbolists establishedclose contacts with representatives of various spheres ofculture, immigrated from the Russian Empire (ZigmundValishevski, Sergey Sudeikin, Vasili Kamenski, AlekseiKruchenykh, Igor Terentiev, and others) and facilitated theiractivities in Tbilisi (arranging literary evenings, establishingtheir own publications).2 It was an outcome of the civil andcreative efforts of Tsisperqantselebi that ―Tbilisi in fact turnedinto a new cultural centre – on the one hand, it overcame thestatus of a cultural periphery and provided shelter to Russianartists who had fled from the Bolshevik Revolution and theCivil War; on the other one, generally, in the context of theWestern culture, it created an extremely interesting precedentof an active, multicultural, multiethnic Modernist andAvantgarde cultural area‖ ​ .

American literary critic Pamela Genova singles out three maincharacteristics of the Modernist city life: a) cafes, whichreplaced salons of the Romantic period; b) linguistic masks –boom of pseudonyms; c) provoking of scandals andmystifications (Genova 20002: 76). Indeed, artistic cafes areassociated with the Modernist city and they are an inalienablepart of the urban cultural life. ―Montmartre with its cafes andthe Latin Quarter represented the stage on which bohemiacreates a legend…The theory of Symbolism came into beingin Paris cafes‖ ​ , - writesV.Gaprindashvili in his essay Bohemia. Like in Paris, artisticcafes also appeared in Tbilisi of the 1910s,3 which played atremendous role in the socio-cultural life of the city. Artists ofdifferent nationalities, different branches of art and differentaesthetic positions gathered in Tbilisi artistic cafes.

The city-megalopolis, area of everyday life - accelerated bythe industrialization process and rhythm of life, ―city diseases‖(cholera, syphilis), bohemia, neurotic society – acquires in theSymbolist poetry an aesthetic value and is formed as one ofthe main concepts. The aestheticization of the urban themewas considerably determined by the socio-political, culturaland worldview crisis – alienation of an individual from reality,the city, as a micromodel of the material world. The city isinterpreted as the ―artificial‖ area in which the emotionalrelations between human beings are broken. It created theillusory idea of the society as a unit with an integral socialstructure. In fact, in the unified and depersonalized society anindividual is lonely, estranged and split. As Burton Pikeobserves, in the Modernist literature individual and crowd arecompletely differentiated, ―The figure of the alienated andisolated middle-class individual, frequently an artist, has itsroots in the literature of the late eighteenth century and theRomantic period. And a crowd of people as an2 See Ir.Kenchoshvili, Tbilisi (1918-1920) – MulticulturalCity. Typology of Georgian Modernism. Tbilisi: Meridiani,2016.3 Brotherly Consolation, Tail of Pheasansts, Fantastic Tavern,Boat of the Argonauts, Kimerioni, see G.Lomidze, TiflisAvant-garde.Typology of Georgian Modernism. Tbilisi:Meridiani, 2016.4520undifferentiated mass, acting as a depersonalized collectivecharacter. These two types are directly opposed: a withdrawns,sensitive, but devitalized individual confronts a passionatemob which has power but no insight‖ ​ . In this―artificial‖ area a paradoxical attitude emerges – the peoplearound and the city are simultaneously familiar and strange. Alonely person is trying to determine oneself and establish therelationship with others and the city. ―An individual ishelpless before the outer world, because he is unable to knowit, and also before his inner world, as he cannot control it.

Both the microcosmos and the macrocosmos are threateninghim with flooding‖ (Tsipuria 1990: 182).***The second edition (1861) of the volume of lyric poems LesFleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) by Charles Baudelaireincluded in addition a new cycle Tableaux Parisiens (ParisianScenes), exactly this event may be regarded as the startingpoint of appearance of the urbanist theme in French poetry.

Similar to German philosopher, critic and essayist WalterBenjamin (Benjamin 2005: 31), Thum Reinhard in his workThe City (Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verhaeren) considersBaudelaire as the first urbanist poet ​ .

Although the megalopolis – Paris is often reflected in the workof Charles Baudelaire’s contemporaries – Victor Hugo,Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert and others, it isconceptualized as objective reality, area of everyday life. Thecity in their texts to a certain extent participates in the processof formation of an individual, but mostly it represents theobjective background. Along with Charles Baudelaire, ThumReinhard names as the ―city poets‖ Arthur Rimbaud and EmilVerhaeren. ―Although they were deeply indebted to theRomantic tradition, these three poets were able to discover andexplore a previously neglected lyric dimension, and thus bringto light a new view of reality and of aesthetics‖ ​ . The ―city poets‖ by means of introducing into theirwork the urbanist stream, on the one hand, rejected theaesthetic canon of their immediate precursors – Romanticistsand Parnassians, who regarded urbanist reality as anunsuitable theme for lyric poetry and who separated poetryfrom the current context, and, on the other one, detachedthemselves from the Realistic tradition of conceptualization ofthe city. For the ―city poets‖ the city-Paris represents not aneutral, objective dimension, but a living, autonomousorganism. The above-mentioned authors in their work describethe city from an untraditional viewpoint, as their attitudetowards reality is determined by a different, Symbolistaesthetics. Of the French ―city poets‖, the work of CharlesBaudelaire is especially interesting for us, as urbanistperception emerges and the city acquires an aesthetic value forthe first time exactly in his poetry.4 In Greek mythology, the wife of Hector, hero of the TrojanWar. The symbol of a faithful and ideal wife.4521 The International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Invention, vol. 5, Issue 03, March , 2018the renovation Paris lost the spiritual heritage. ―Renovation ofParis causes the splitting of the poet from the environment‖ ​ .

Le Cygne (The Swan), a poem from Tableaux Parisiens, isnotable for the acute feeling caused by absence of thehomeland in the homeland (Paris). The image of the swanappears as a symbol of the poet, as the ideal of beauty in thedefective world. Its shelter is conceptualized in ―Thelandscape of the former city, repository for symbols andsource of associations, was the mirror, the ―allegorie‖ of thepoet’s consciousness‖ ​ . Old Paris isphysically ―destructed‖ and its perception is possible onlymetaphysically. Baudelaire overcomes the temporaldistanceand summons from the mythological worldAndromache4, as only she is capable of feeling empathy in thepoet’s tragedy, caused by the loss of the spiritual shelter.―Andromache, I think of you! — That little stream,

That mirror, poor and sad, which glittered long ago With the vast majesty of your widow's grieving, That false Simois swollen by your tears, Suddenly made fruitful my teeming memory, As I walked across the new Carrousel.

— Old Paris is no more (the form of a city Changes more quickly, alas! Than the human heart)‖. (Baudelaire, Le Cygne (The Swan), Trans.James McGowan)

In the poem Les Petites Vieilles (The Little Old Women),former actresses should be interpreted as symbolic images.They represent the image of the contemporary society,rejecting the valuable and the glorious past.―Thus you trudge along, stoical, uncomplaining, Amid the confusion of cities full of life, Mothers with bleeding hearts, courtesans, saints, Whose names in years gone by were on everyone's lips.‖

(Baudelaire, Les Petites Vieilles (Little Old Women), Trans.James McGowan)For Baudelaire Paris turned into the proscenium of collision ofthe old and the new, the tradition and the modern period. ―Hesaw two times, or things at once… He sees, in other words,both worlds simultaneously – the Paris before Haussmann, andthe Paris during and after its redevelopment; France before therevolution of 1848, and France in the increasingly triumphantcapitalist culture that followed; … He also sees his life asdoubled…Moreover, his double vision is not limited to time:he also sees two realms at once (the ideal and the concrete) ‖ ​ .

Paris for Baudelaire was associated with ugliness, acceleratedrhythm of life, death, disease and decay; with the area wherevalues are lost; with noise, which is ―an allegory of the city‖ ​ . Despite such an interpretation of the cityphenomenon, despite the poet’s constant attempt to escapefrom the urban nightmare in the artificially created world, heis suffering from the feeling of his attachment to the city. Hisattitude towards Paris is ambivalent. On the one hand, itattracts him as the source of creative inspiration, and, on theother one, he hates it as the unacceptable form of existence.In the first poem of Tableaux Parisiens – Paysage(Landscape) Baudelaire juxtaposes eternal spring –transformed reality, transcendental world to eternal winter –objective reality, whereas he himself appears as the creator ofan alternative area, mythical Paris. The poem ―describes, onethe one hand, Paris, which exists, and, on the other one, Paris,which has never existed and will never exist‖ ​ .―I shall see the springtimes, the summers, the autumns;And when winter comes with its monotonous snow,I shall close all the shutters and draw all the drapesSo I can build at night my fairy palaces.‖(Baudelaire, Paysage (Landscape), Trans. James McGowan)If in the poem Paysage (Landscape) the opposed pair iswinter-summer, in the poems Le Crépuscule du soir (Twilight)and Le Crépuscule du matin (Dawn), the binary opposition iscreated by the opposition of night and day. Night symbolizesthe irrational principle, and day – the rational one. At nighthuman beings get free from the tyranny of objective reality,this is an opportunity of transition into the world of dreams,but at daybreak, suffering with all its horrors awakes andhuman beings return to the captivity of reality. ―The demons,who move through the dark streets, symbolize the timelessdrives and instincts which flout personal volition informed byreason. They embody the irrational forces within all humanbeings, forces whose existence the complacent, rationalisticconsciousness of daylight wishes to deny‖ ​ .―It was the hour when amid poverty and coldThe pains of women in labor grow more cruel;The cock's crow in the distance tore the foggy airLike a sob stifled by a bloody froth‖.(Baudelaire, Le Crépuscule du matin (Dawn),Trans. JamesMcGowan )Baudelaire sees a way out from painful reality - urban chaosin creation of an alternative world by means of art (Le Soleil(The Sun)), as well as in indulging in reminiscence (La Clochefêlée (The Flawed Bell)), alcoholic intoxication and love.However, it proves impossible for him to get rid of theclutches of reality completely and for a long time.

The poems of the Tableaux Parisiens cycle focus attention onthe existence of a marginal person and his relation towards―others‖. Baudelaire’s work is imbued with sympathy to theoppressed strata of the society. Courtesans, criminals, cripples,beggars, etc. are sublimed in his poetry. As Ross Chambersobserves, Baudelaire’s sympathy towards outsiders is causedby two factors: ―On the one hand they form part of the city’satmosphere, personifying its noisy life in their fringeexistence, while on the other they appear to have acquired awisdom from their exposed existence that indoor dwellers – ametaphor for the bourgeoisie – are unaware of‖ ​ . Although Baudelaire’s sympathy and empathy to themarginal strata of the society is clear, he perceives himself inisolation from everyone. The acute feeling of solitude neverleaves the poet.―I go alone to try my fanciful fencing‖(Baudelaire, Le Soleil (The Sun) Trans.James McGowan)Or:―- O city!

While about us you sing, laugh, and bellow,In love with pleasure to the point of cruelty, See! I drag along also! but, more dazed than they,I say: "What do they seek in Heaven, all those blind?‖

(Baudelaire, Les Aveugles (The Blind ), Trans. JamesMcGowan)Russian linguist and philologist V.N.Toporov singles out twoantagonistic forms of the idea of the city: the city - damned,depraved, fallen, being on the brink of a precipice, awaitingthe divine punishment, and the new city, a counterpart of theheavenly city on earth. The image of the former is Babylon,and that of the latter – Heavenly Jerusalem. In the context ofBabylon and Jerusalem, these two different cities, the conceptsof the city-maiden and the city-whore are singled out ​ . It is interesting that Gr.Robakidze, themaestro of Tsisperqantselebi, whom they regarded as theirleader and introducer of Modernism into Georgia, in his novelThe Snake’s Skin compares Tbilisi to a maiden: ―Is she thecherished queen? She has had many suitors. The Byzantines,the Romans, the Turks... the Arabs, the Kipchaks, theMongols, the Russians. She has surrendered to nobody. Hasshe remained unmarried?!.. Her womanhood has remainedunblossomed… Who is she waiting for?! She remembersnumerous false suitors ​ . As regardsBaudelaire, in his work Paris can be conceptualized as thecity-whore. As Walter Benjamin notes: ―His poetry is nohymn to the homeland; rather the gaze of the allegorist, as itfalls on the city… The Paris of his poems is a sunken city, andmore submarine than subterranean‖ (Benjamin 2006: 40-41).Thus, for the first time the megalopolis - Paris acquires theconceptual meaning in Baudelaire’s poetry and is interpretedas the area which is related with an individual’s chaotic,disharmonious existence, disrupted relations and lost ideals.The poet is distanced from objective reality and forms analternative, indefinite temporal-spatial world.

Introducing of the concept of the city into the Georgianliterary area became associated with the name ofTsisperqantselebi, group of young poets, having moved fromKutaisi.5Tsisperqantselebi played a significant role in theprocess of transformation of Tbilisi into a multicultural centre,―Mecca of art‖, however, when conceptualizing the city as anaesthetic phenomenon, they shared the position of the FrenchSymbolist school. As in Charles Baudelaire’s work, in thework of Tsisperqantselebi too - implying their Symbolistperiod texts - the city is associated with the fall, depravity and,in general, disharmony.

In K. Nadiradze’s poem ―Malicious city‖ Tbilisi is viewed as atopos, settled by sinful and ugly images. In this case too, likeBaudelaire’s Le Crépuscule du soir (Twilight), night is relatedwith transformation of human beings, manifestation of theirinstincts and overcoming of reality.

Paolo Iashvili’s poem Pheasants in the City is regarded as oneof the first urbanist texts in Georgian poetry.6 In the poem anapocalyptic vision of the city is represented with tragicacuteness. According to G.Asatiani, the city, being afire withhallucinations, appears to the poet ―as a mystic fire in which,together with the helpless beautiful birds, the holy of holies ofthe poet’s illusions were burned forever, and this bloodyslaughter attracted the poet’s inspiration, like drunken people‖(Asatiani 2004: 392).

The feeling of loneliness in chaos is familiar for the poetry ofTsisperqantselebi as well (―I know, I have lots of friends, butwho is really with me? ‖ (Tabidze To mother from Tbilisi),however, the feeling of spiritual orphanage is not revealed intheir texts as acutely as in the work of Galaktion Tabidze, thepoet standing separately from the Tsisperqantselebi order, aswell as in the texts of French Symbolists.

In Tsisperqantselebi’s work, the village appears as theantithesis of the city horror, i.e. a micromodel of the materialworld. The city chaos, noise, dirt are opposed by the villageorder, quiet, purity. ―In fact, Tsisperqantselebi were exactlythose tender-hearted children, brought up on the idylls of thepast century, who were thrown by the new age to the streets ofthe great city, and who were vainly attempting to hide inmotley paper masks their fear and dread of this unknownreality‖ (Asatiani 2004: 392). In their texts a nostalgic feelingfor the village idyll is observable. The village is not a separatetopos, but a symbolic image-idea, associated with the hearth,childhood, traditions and values, which are devaluated in themodern city.

The village is conceptualized as an alternative area of theurban space in the poem by Paolo Iashvili Letter to theMother. The contrastive juxtaposition of the binary opposedpair village/city outlines the horrible image of the city moreacutely.7 In the poem the personality of the lyric character issplit, opposition of the city and the village clearly expresses5 See L.Avaliani,The Blue Order - Innovation, Tradition. Inthe collection: Versification V(Sixth Scientific Session onVersification Devoted to Tsisperqantselebi) Tbilisi: PublishingHouse of Institute of Literature, 2012.6 See Appendix #17 See Appendix #2***deconstruction of his inner world, he is no longer able toidentify himself with the village, but is also estranged from thenew environment. The poem clearly reveals the worldviewcrisis of the Modernist period – when man lost the spiritualsupport and also failed to replace it with new values.―Choosing of the urban form of life by a human being is aquite conscious step. This fatal decision is one more exampleof the opposition of man’s inner vocation and outward action.In Tsisperqantselebi’s work the symbolic act of deserting thevillage is tantamount to leaving the Paradise, disrupting ofharmony. Once he had mutually agreed inner and outwardworld, but now he deserted the idyllic abode, and togetherwith it, no longer has peace of mind‖ (Tsipuria 1990: 181).The same mood imbues the poem To the Village byV.Gaprindashvili8. Tbilisi is conceptualized as the prison, ironcity, and the village as the longed-for hearth, real homeland.The striving towards the village is explained by the desire toreturn to the origin and it appears to the poet as the onlypossible way to restore lost integrity, to regain peace of mind.From the viewpoint of the homesickness, nostalgia forchildhood, an interesting parallel can be drawn with a poemfrom Charles Baudelaire’s Tableaux Parisiens– Je n'ai pasoublié, voisine de la ville (I Have Not Forgotten Our WhiteCottage): ―I have not forgotten our white cottage, Small butpeaceful, near the city‖. The poet recalls his house, in whichhe spent a short period with his mother and which was foreverimprinted on his memory as a sad memory.

The striving of Symbolists to escape from the Europeancivilization-the city did not imply rejection of only thematerial world. They wished to create an alternative reality,―the other world‖. The idea of the city originates when man isexiled from the Paradise and he attempts to search for and tocreate a ―new paradise‖. The process of searching for a ―newparadise‖ is associated with the fall, suffering and, in a certainsense, God-forsakenness. With the emergence of the city, manmoves to a new form of existence‖ ​ . If forCharles Baudelaire the antithesis of the material world – Paris– is the other world, for Arthur Rimbaud morass is associatedwith the Western civilization (Le Bateau ivre (The DrunkenBoat)), whereas he conceptualizes the lost paradise in the East.In the work of Georgian Symbolists the city is opposed, on theone hand, by the village, and on the other one, – by the mythoscity – Chaldea.9―As in reality man failed to find consolation, as in the materialworld he could not discover a place to rest, he overstepped thelimits of this world and created a new country, new world,new life‖ ​ . As a new world, an alternativefor objective reality in the work of Titsian Tabidze, one of themain theoreticians and poets of Tsisperqantselebi, is viewedthe mythic city – Chaldea. ―Today begins the fundamentalchange of Georgian thought, the past, shadowed by centuries,returns to life and traditions of the state of Georgia revive, theenslaved spirit returns to its old nest. To the extent that thenational awareness has raised, we are approaching the past andthe Georgian idea is assuming shape…Renaissance above allimplies restoration of the past‖ ​ ,writes T.Tabidze in the article With Blue Horns. The desire tomodernize Georgian culture led the poet to the idea ofsearching for its own roots – Chaldea, sources of civilization.The Chaldeans, who were known as wizards, magi,astrologers, created one of the ancient civilizations. There is aversion concerning the kinship of the Chaldeans and the OldKartvelian tribes. In this regard, especially interesting is theviewpoint of Grigol Robakidze, maestro of Tsisperqantselebi.―Historians name as the initial homeland of the GeorgiansAncient Chaldea…2700-3000 years ago on the coast of VaniLake a powerful Chaldean kingdom was established. One ofits kings, Argishti, carved on the rocky sides of the lakeinscriptions resembling cuneiform inscriptions, which to datehave proved impossible to be deciphered by anyone. It isassumed that they can be deciphered by means of Svan. In thetribal consciousness of the Svans the ancient word ―Chalde‖has survived to the present day. At one side of River Enguri,on a slope, there is a rocky bay, a small village, having thesame name‖ ​ .

Romanian scholar Mircea Eliade interprets the city – theWorld Centre – as the area where the Heaven, Earth andUnderworld are merged. ―The Centre is the place that is sacredabove all…the path leading to the Centre is a ―difficult path‖… these difficulties are for those who are on their way toselfknowledge, who are moving to the ―Centre‖ of their essence‖ 3 . In this viewpoint, Chaldea is the Centre,and the poet is moving to the ―Centre‖ of his own essence.Chaldea corresponds to Biblical Jerusalem; it is thecitymaiden. Creation of the myth of Chaldea was a cosmogonicact, which repeats the ritual of creation of the universe andaims to transform chaos into cosmos. Chaldea is the ―primarysource‖ of mythic Georgia. Grigol Robakidze in his essayDemon and Mythos writes: ―Eastern man is in fact entirelyengrossed in himself, Western – is only strivingsomewhere…In the East they ask ―Where from?‖ and turntorpid in unhurried waiting. In the West they ask: ―Where?‖and restlessly grumble with impatience‖ ​ . Under the Western civilization, the city life withrationalism and progressive ideas should be conceptualized,whereas the East implies mythos existence. Georgia, as ―afragment of the East‖ (Robakidze), is attempting to determineits essence by means of returning to mythos – by means ofcreating the mythos city Chaldea.

In Titsian Tabidze’s poetry Chaldea does not represented as areal place of everyday life, defined by a specific chronotope.Chaldea, ―praised in former times‖ and ―ashes at present‖,appears as an image-symbol of Georgia, where only thepresence of the magi ancestors is felt. The poet ―interprets itnot historically, but metaphysically‖ ​ .By returning to mythos, he tries to restore the disruptedrelations with the past and can see that ―the path leading toSidon will shine, / in the white desert the altar will open‖. Inthe ―damned and poisonous garden‖ – the real world, wherethe poet is suffering from solitude, the mythic city – Chaldea –appears as the only dimension of creative freedom andharmonious existence.10Thus, in Georgian Symbolist poetry the concept of the city isinevitably related to ―the Georgian idea‖ (Titsian Tabidze) –re-conceptualization of the Georgian identity. The city, whichis associated with disharmony, chaos, devaluation of eternalvalues, in the work of Tsisperqantselebi is opposed, one ofone hand, by the village (home, system of values, related withthe tradition and religion), and, on the other one, by Chaldeathe mythic city – the form of metaphysical existence ofGeorgia. Unlike French Symbolists, who considered the themeof the homeland only in the ironic aspect, in the work ofTsisperqantselebi the homeland, tradition and religion areshaped into a valuable triad model.

References:[1] Asatiani 2004: Asatiani, G. Paolo Iashvili.AnniversaryArchival Publication in two books. Book 2 (Translations,Memoirs on Paolo Iashvili), Tbilisi: Sezani, 2004, p.387401 (in Georgian).[2] Balakian 1977: Balakian, A. The Symbolist Movement. ACrtitical Appraisal. New York: New York UniversityPress, 1977 (in English).[3] Baudelaire 1961: Baudelaire, Ch. Les Fleurs duMal (in

French)[4] http ://gallica.bnf.fr/ark :/12148/bpt6k70860g ?rk=21459;2[5] Baudelaire 2008: Baudelaire, Ch. The Flowers of Evil.

Translated from French by James McGowan. OxfordUniversity Press, 2008 (in English).[6] Benjamin 2006: Benjamin W. The Writing of ModernLife. Essays on Charles Baudelaire. The Belknap Press ofHarvard University Press, 2006 (in English).10 See Appendix #44524