Dr Elene Gogiashvili from Tbilisi State University presented the attached slides in the section Folktales Characters and Emotions of the 18th Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research held online on September 5-8, 2021

Her paper gives an account of the Georgian folk tales describing cross–periodical heroic past. Three epic heroes – Amiran, Tariel and Rostom, discussed in this article, are the most popular figures in Georgian narrative tradition, introduced through literature and subject to a number of interpretations in folklore, in line with patterns common in folk narratives. The paper examines the archival material of the three heroes’ tales, recorded in the late 19th to 20th centuries in Georgia, presenting at once Amiran, Tariel and Rostom as narrators. They tell their own adventures. Amiran is a mythological hero, chained in a cave in the mountains of the Caucasus. Tariel is a protagonist of the poem “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin” by Shota Rustaveli, Georgian writer of the twelfth century. Rostom is a Georgian, transformed name of Rostam, a character of the poem “Shahnameh” by Firdawsi, Persian writer of the eleventh century. Each of these heroes possesses their own cycle of tales in Georgian oral tradition. As notions of time and narrative changed, these figures displayed the very ideas that its audience was dealing with in the real world outside of the frame. There are put together very favourite characters for Georgians. Amiran, Tariel and Rostom – through a frame tale – affirm these new ideas while, at the same time, open a window back to the familiar world of traditional narrative.

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