Shio Aragvispireli

Who was Shio Aragvispireli?

Shio Aragvispireli was a penname of Shio Dedabrishvili Georgian: შიო დედაბრიშვილი; December 14, 1867 – January 2, 1926, a Georgian writer popular for his stories of protest against social inequality, the reality of oppressed peasants and underlings and decadent lords, and the struggle between individual happiness and social dogmas.

He was born into a priest’s family near Dusheti, and enrolled in the Tbilisi theological seminary in 1883. In 1887, he was excluded from the seminary for his rebellious ideas, but restored again in 1889. From 1890 to 1895 he studied at the Warsaw veterinary college, where he engaged in a student underground society. He was arrested by the Imperial Russian police for having formed the League for Georgia’s Freedom in Warsaw. He then worked as a veterinary inspector in the Tbilisi slaughterhouse, until he was sacked as a "whistle-blower" in a scandal about contaminated pork. Aragvispireli brought his personal working experience into a series of short stories from 1895 and quickly won popularity. One of his best stories, It's Earth appeared in 1901.