Prince Vakhushti on the First Sign of the Whole Georgia – “Georgian by Faith”

Abstract

“Description of Kingdom of Georgia”by Prince Vakhusti, – the work, which was was completed on 20 October 1745 in Moscow, describes the geography of Georgia, its regions and peoples, and narrates the history of Georgia from its origin to the first half of the 18th century.

The essay shows, what is the Prince’s Vakhushti’s idea of national identity and also the signs
of this identity. Such signs, by Vakhushti, are three, but later he talks also on two other signs.
First of these signs is the “Georgian by faith”. Vakhushti finds the answer to the question as
what gives a person or society the feeling of one’s nationality.

The work by the historian consider the issue of relationship between the nationality and the
religiosity. Vakhusti’s answer is that the nationality first of all is formed by one’s confession, by belonging to the one or another religion.

The essay shows the meaning of word “sjuli” in different periods of Georgian literature and historiography and meaning of this word in context of Vakhusthi’s “Description”.