Grigol Robakidze – "Megi – A Georgian Girl"

Abstract

The novel "Megi – A Georgian Girl" by the emigrant writer Grigol Robakidze was first created in Russian and subsequently translated into German. The original title of the work was "Medea's Plaits"; however, when the novel was published in German in Tübingen in 1932, it was given the title "Megi – A Georgian Girl". The novel's characters (Megi, a Mingrelian girl; Tsitsino, her mother; Meniki, Megi's nanny; Utu, their servant; Astamuri, Megi's beloved; Buchu, Megi's childhood friend; Jvebe, Astamuri's close friend) draw parallels with the famous myth of the Argonauts. It can be said that the work is a kind of reinterpretation of the story of Colchian Medea, as the author transfers the myth's plot into the contemporary world and uniquely interprets its content. Upon reading the work, one immediately realizes that the figure of Colchian Medea is evident in Grigol Robakidze's Megi ("She was the heir of the Colchian woman"). Megi, like Medea, suffers from the tribulations of life. The author dedicates a significant part of the novel to a detailed description of Colchis and the Colchians, where one encounters witches, sorceresses, and enchantresses, wise counselors and folk healers (Jara doctors), fortune-tellers, wood spirits (Ochopintre), and werewolves (Maktsi) at every turn.