Shalva Dadiani

Who was Shalva Dadiani?

Shalva Dadiani was a Georgian novelist, playwright, and a theatre actor.

Born in Zestaponi, western Georgia, into the family of a writer and translator Prince Nikoloz Dadiani, a member of the Dadiani noble family. His first collection of poems appeared in 1892, followed by a series of short stories published in the magazine Iveria in the late 1890s. Dadiani began his theatrical career in 1893 and quickly became a close collaborator of Lado Aleksi-Meskhishvili at the Kutaisi Theatre. In 1908, he formed Modzravi Dasi, a peripatetic theatre of revolutionary propaganda, which toured in various cities of Georgia, as well as Baku and Novorossiysk, and staged, among others, Maxim Gorky’s The Last, a play censored by the Russian authorities. Dadiani, as a playwright, emerged during the revolutionary turmoil of 1905-7, heavily influenced by the works of Gorky. At the same time, Dadiani engaged in historical prose in the patriotic traditions of Vasil Barnovi, and authored the memorable George the Rus, dedicated to Yuri Bogolyubsky, the dishonored and ousted 12th-century Rus’ consort of Georgia. After the establishment of Soviet rule in Georgia, Dadiani’s works were either tacitly hostile to the new regime, or remained apolitical. However, Dadiani never let his narrative ingenuity to endanger his future by oppositionist writings, and his later novels and plays glorified Soviet premier Joseph Stalin.