17 Facts About Grigol Orbeliani

Prince Grigol Orbeliani or Jambakur-Orbeliani was a Georgian Romanticist poet and general in Imperial Russian service.

One of the most colorful figures in the 19th-century Georgian culture, Orbeliani is noted for his patriotic poetry, lamenting Georgia's lost independence and the deposition of the Royal House of Bagration.

Grigol Orbeliani was born into a prominent aristocratic family in the Georgian capital of Tiflis, three years after the Russian government deposed the Bagrationi dynasty of Georgia and annexed their kingdom.

Grigol Orbeliani's father Dimitri, a prince of the House of Orbeliani, served at the court of the last Georgian kings, while mother Khoreshan nee Andronikashvili was a granddaughter, on her mother, Princess Elene's, side, of Erekle II, the penultimate and popular king of Georgia, whose cult would later be introduced into Georgian literature by Grigol Orbeliani himself.

Grigol Orbeliani was a cousin of the two poets and generals - Alexander and Vakhtang Orbeliani.

Grigol Orbeliani received his early education at local nobility gymnasium and artillery school.

Grigol Orbeliani was placed in the Avlabar prison in Tiflis, but was released as, due to his absence from Georgia, his contribution to a planned coup was limited to an intellectual support such as translations from the Decembrist ideologues and a bellicose poem, The Weapon.

Grigol Orbeliani spent most of his military career in the Caucasus War against the rebellious mountaineers, with a brief spell in the Neva Infantry Regiment in Wilno as a punishment for his participation in the 1832 conspiracy.

Grigol Orbeliani fought off an attack by Shamil, a leader of anti-Russian insurgency in the North Caucasus, and scored a series of victories over the rebels in Tchar-Belakan in 1853, winning the rank of lieutenant general.

Grigol Orbeliani was appointed chairman of the viceroy's council in 1857 and three years later became governor-general of Tiflis, acting as a de facto viceroy in 1862.

Grigol Orbeliani was further promoted to infantry general in 1864 and received a seat in the State Council in 1866.

Grigol Orbeliani was an advocate and organiser of a new social order in the Caucasus.

In 1871, the Imperial administration organized, in Tiflis, a 50-years anniversary of Grigol Orbeliani's service, attended by the visiting Tsar Alexander II, who awarded the general an Order of St Andrew, the highest in the empire.

Grigol Orbeliani was a member of the Imperial Geographical Society and an honorary president of the Georgian Nobility Bank.

Grigol Orbeliani's best and longest works is an ode A Toast, or A Night Feast after War near Yerevan whose original version was composed on the occasion of the battle of Yerevan during the Russo-Persian War in 1827, not without influence of the Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky.

Grigol Orbeliani was praised by Chavchavadze as presiding over "the strength and wealth of our verse," but his 1871 jubilee was met by the younger generation in cold silence.

Grigol Orbeliani is buried at the Kashveti Church of St George.