The Sasanian World through Georgian Eyes: Caucasia and the Iranian Commonwealth in Late Antique Georgian Literature [Paperback]

Rapp's writing is a pleasure to read...I expect that most readers will find themselves happily turning page to page as they follow the course Rapp has laid out... The book merits immediate attention from Kartvelologists, Armenologists, and Iranologists. More generally, historians of Late Antiquity east of Byzantium, especially at the time of the waning of Sasanian power, will find much of interest... SEHEPUNKTEStephen H. Rapp Jr is Associate Professor of History at Sam Houston State University, Texas, USA.Preface; Introduction: Contexts. Part I Hagiographical Texts: The Vitae of Susanik and Evstat'i; The Nino Cycle. Part II Historiographical Texts: K'art'lis c'xovreba and the historiographical Mok'c'evay k'art'lisay; The Life of the Kings; The Life of the Successors of Mirian; The Life of Vaxtang Gorgasali; Ps.-Juanser's continuation. Epilogue: Hambavi mep'et'a and Sasanian Caucasia; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.Georgian literary sources for Late Antiquity are commonly held to be later productions devoid of historical value. As a result, scholarship outside the Republic of Georgia has privileged Graeco-Roman and even Armenian narratives. However, when investigated within the dual contexts of a regional literary canon and the active participation of Caucasias diverse peoples in the Iranian Commonwealth, early Georgian texts emerge as a rich repository of late antique attitudes and outlooks. Georgian hagiographical and historiographical compositions open a unique window onto a northern part of the Sasanian world that, while sharing striking affinities with the Iranian heartland, was home to vibrant, cosmopolitan cultures that developed along their own trajectories. In these sources, precise and accurate information about the core of the Sasanian Empire-and before it, Parthia and Achaemenid Persia-is sparse; yet the thorough structuring of wider Caucasian society along Iranian and especially hybrid Iranic lines is altogether evident. Scrutiny of these texts revealӬ