Levan Gotua’s Drama “Shota Rustaveli” in the Context of Modernist Aesthetics

Abstract

The creative works of the prominent 20th-century writer Levan Gotua reflect the author's stance on the processes taking place within the Soviet sphere. His novels, short stories, and dramas capture the significant social and spiritual transformations characteristic of his era. Among Gotua's artistic output, his dramaturgy remains the least explored. In this article, we aim to analyze L. Gotua’s play “Shota Rustaveli” from a de-ideologized perspective, highlighting its literary and aesthetic values and revealing the writer's subjective attitude toward the issues addressed in the play. Discussing this play from a modern perspective will allow us to determine its place in the writer's work and in the history of twentieth-century Georgian dramaturgy in general. Unlike his other plays, in “ Shota Rustaveli”, the writer employs unique artistic techniques such as the inner monologue, text within a text, and the concept of theatre within the theatre, which brings the drama closer to modernist artistic practices. “Shota Rustaveli” demonstrates the construction of an independent artistic reality, the duplication of theatrical space—essentially, a play within a play—resulting in a form of self-reflection in terms of structure.