The Tsar's Photographer in the Caucasus

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The following photographs were taken in the wider Caucasus region by Sergei Mikhailovitch Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944), a former chemist-turned-photographer who had been commissioned by Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, to document the many notable places and peoples which made up the vast Russian empire. The photographs are part of the Prokudin-Gorskii photographic archive, which is the responsibility of the Library of Congress in Washington.

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Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (Murom, Russia, 1863 - Paris,1944)

Two Songs by Sandro Kavsadze

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[Please note: This post should be entitled "Three Songs by Sandro Kavsadze". I recently added a third song, "gutnuri" - a ploughing song from eastern Georgia - but I cannot rename the entire post for fear of making many different links redundant.]

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Sandro Kavsadze was one of Georgia's greatest singers. Born in 1874 in the village of Khovle (in the Kaspi district of Western Georgia), he was first taught to sing by his father, Grigoli Kavsadze, a priest. Later, Sandro continued to study song at the seminary in the town of Gori. His teacher there, Simon Goglichidze, was a renowned singer himself, and within a few years Kavsadze had become an expert, and had been designated Goglichidze's deputy and substitute. (A certain Iosep Djugashvili, later known as "Koba" and "Stalin", also studied in the seminary in Gori, and was a contemporary of Sandro's.)
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In 1893, after finishing his clerical studies, Kavsadze formed his own choir and performed concerts for charity; he also formed choirs in Tbilisi (in 1896) and Poti (in 1897). In 1911, Sandro left his group under the direction of his brother Mikheil, and moved to western Georgia. He formed several choirs there, in Satchkere, Tkibuli, Chiatura, Zestaponi, and Kutaisi, and Kavsadze also taught Georgian folk music in schools and high-schools. In all, he spent twenty years in the region of Imereti, where he made an enormous contribution to the revival of traditional music and folklore.
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Almost twenty years later, in 1930, Sandro was given the (rather Soviet) title of "Artistic Figure of Merit", and the thirtieth jubilee of his work was celebrated. In 1935 he was asked to move to Georgia's capital Tbilisi, where he was commissioned to set up and prepare an Eastern Georgian Folkloric Ensemble for the "Decade of Georgian Culture", an art and folklore festival which was to be held in Moscow.
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In 1937, Kavsadze and his ensemble travelled to Moscow, where they performed to great acclaim, winning an award. After the festival, a meeting was held in the Kremlin between the Politburo and all the festival's participants; this meeting gave rise to the following anecdote:
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The story has it that the festival's participants – singers, dancers, artistic directors, etc. – were gathered in the Kremlin's Georgievsk Hall, where they were nervously awaiting Stalin's arrival. At last, the Man Himself entered the room – A "hurrah!" resounded, but Stalin lifted up his hand to bid those gathered be silent. He looked around the room at length, clearly searching for someone. Everyone became anxious: Whom was he looking for?? What should they do?! At last, Stalin asked in a low voice "if Sandro was there." Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and the crowd parted to form a passage: at one end, Stalin; at the other, Sandro. It was of course protocol that the person meeting Stalin should walk up to him, but Sandro didn't move – a clear slight to the Great Man. They stared at each other for a few seconds, surrounded by the stunned crowd. Stalin then took the first step, followed by Sandro, and they met in the middle of the room, and embraced each other. "You have not changed," said Stalin, giving Sandro a pat on the back. Sandro remained silent, and patted Stalin on the back. "Indeed, you have not changed," repeated Stalin, patting Sandro on the back again. They conversed in low voices, Stalin asking Sandro if there was anything He could do for him? "Give me your pipe," said Sandro – The pipe has been a Kavsadze family heirloom ever since.

After Moscow, Sandro and his ensemble were bidden to travel onwards to Leningrad (formerly St. Petersburg, and now St. Petersburg again). However, shortly after the festival, Sandro (by then 63 years old) fell ill, and was hospitalized in the Kremlin. Lying in the hospital, Sandro received a letter. On the envelope was written "To Comrade Alexandre Kavsadze, from Stalin." The letter read: "Greetings to Sandro! ["sandros gaumardjos!" in Georgian] I happened to learn from Egnatashvili that you are in the Kremlin hospital. This is bad news, but the doctors tell me that you will get better soon. If you need anything, please let me know, for I am ready to help you in any manner. May you live for a thousand years! Your Soso, 1937."
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Too ill to continue touring, Sandro remained in Moscow, and the Ensemble continued under the direction of his son, Davit Kavsadze (1907-1952). Having arrived in Leningrad, they repeated their success, and for his achievements Sandro was awarded an Order and was named "Honoured Artist of the Georgian [Soviet Socialist] Republic".
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Sandro returned to Tbilisi shortly afterwards, where he died on 12 June 1939. He was buried in the city's Vake cemetery, in Georgia's Pantheon.
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In 1986, the Russian "Melodiya" label re-issued 16 old recordings of Sandro Kavsadze and his Ensemble ("Sandro Kavsadze – Georgian Songs from the Archive", Melodiya M30―46085―86). I believe this record has itself been re-issued as a CD.
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Most of the songs on this record were recorded by Sandro and his Ensemble in Moscow in 1937, but the quality of several of Sandro's 1909 (London Gramophone Company?) recordings (of which there are four on this record) remains unsurpassed to this day, most particularly his solo renderings of an "Urmuli" – a Kakhetian cart-driver's song – and of "Mtao, gadmishvi" ("Let me pass, O Mountain"). The two are considered to be masterpieces.

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"mtao, gadmishvi", "Let me pass, O Mountain!"

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"urmuli" - this would have been sung by a carter on his way from Kakheti to Aghzevan (in Armenia) to buy salt. "Pull, ox, pull. Soon it will be day..."
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gaswie, xaro, gaswie,

sacaa gaTendebao...

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aRzevans wavals marilze,

aRzevans waval marilze,

marils movitan brolsao,

aRzevans waval marilze,

marils movitan brolsao,

jer dedas gadavexvevi,

jer dedas gadavexvevi,

merme Svilsa da colsao ...

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RmerTo, mec gadmamxedevi,

RmerTo, mec gadmamxedevi

erTxel wyalobis TvaliTao da...

RmerTo mec gadmamxedevi

erTxel wyalobis TvaliTa...

Torem [...]

col-Svilis codva-braliTa

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Harahali, harahalo! [a stylistic device – the Georgian equivalent of Alpine yodelling, perhaps; the meaning is unclear]

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Pull, ox, pull!

It will soon be day.

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Harahali, harahalo!

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I will go to fetch salt from Aghzevan [(?); somewhere in Armenia];

I will go to fetch salt from Aghzevan;

I will bring back rock-salt.

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I will go to fetch salt from Aghzevan;

I will bring back rock-salt.

First I will embrace my mother;

First I will embrace my mother,

Then my child and my wife.

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Harahali, harahalo!

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Lord, look upon me, too;

Lord, look upon me, too,

Once, with your benevolent gaze.

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Lord, look upon me, too,

Once, with your benevolent gaze.

Otherwise [...]

My family’s misfortune.

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Harahali, harahalo!

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"gutnuri", "Ploughing Song" from eastern Georgia
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muSa var da...

musha var da…

I am a worker, and…

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...kidec vici

…kidets vitsi

…therefore I know

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muSis gulSi Tu rac aris

mushis gulshi tu rats aris

what lies in the worker's heart.

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is uremSi gabmulia

is uremshi gabmulia

He is harnessed to the cart,

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qedmodrekiT rogorc xari

kedmodrekit rogorts khari

bowed like an ox.

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mis garujul Tma da tansa

mis garudjul tma da tansa

His tanned hair and body

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mudam asxams oflis Rvari

mudam askhams oplis ghvari

Are always dripping with sweat.

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Sromobs muSa Tan RiRinebs agondeba macxovari

shromobs musha tan ghighinebs agondeba matskhovari

The worker is toiling and singing and remembering Christ at the same time;

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agondeba da mxnevdeba

agondeba da mkhnevdeba

He is remembering [Christ], and this encourages him,

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da iseva Sromas nagrZobs

da iseva shromas nagrdzobs

And he continues to toil.

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agondeba da mxnevdeba

agondeba da mkhnevdeba

He is remembering [Christ], and this encourages him,

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da iseva Sromas nagrZobs

da iseva shromas nagrdzobs

And he continues to toil.

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da vinc uSromlada ylapavs

da vints ushromlada qlapavs

And those who eat without working,

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imaT mtrada mainc ar grZobs

imat mtrada maints ar grdzobs

He still doesn’t consider them his enemies

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muSa var da kidec vici

musha var da kidets vitsi

I am a worker and therefore I know

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muSis gulSi Tu rac aris

mushis gulshi tu rats aris

What lies in a worker's heart.

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is uRelSi gabmulia

is ughemshi gabmulia

He is bound to the yoke,

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qedmodrekiT rogorc xari

kedmodrekit rogorts khari

Bowed like an ox.

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The two songs were perhaps recorded in Tbilisi in 1909 by Franz Hampe, a sound engineer working for the Caucasus office of the London Gramophone Company. The LGC had an overseas office in Tbilisi from 1901 to 1918, and during this period succeeded in recording hundreds of songs from even the most remote regions of the Caucasus mountains.

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A CD entitled "Before the Revolution: A 1909 Recording Expedition in the Caucasus and Central Asia by the Gramophone Company", released by the Topic record label in 2002 and entirely compiled from material recorded by Franz Hampe and his colleagues at the London Gramophone Company, is available for purchase on the usual websites.

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The Caucasian recordings which feature on this CD are in many different languages: Ossetian, Chechen, Ingush, Kabard, Kumyk, Armenian, Georgian, and Azeri. The two Armenian songs are particularly outstanding. The CD is otherwise noteworthy for its numerous recordings of Sart melodies; the Sarts in question were a turkicized Iranian people living in the urban centres of Turkestan and the Ferghana valley. The answers.com entry on the Sarts is quite good, and there are some stunning photographs of Sarts in the Prokudin-Gorskii photography archive, such as this one:

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For more information on Mr Hampe and the exploits of the London Gramophone Company in the Caucasus and Central Asia, an excellent article by Will Prentice on the subject was published in the 23rd edition of Playback, the bulletin of the British Library's National Sound Archive.

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Books on the Bats

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Here are some books on the Tsova Tush/Bats, courtesy of Prof. George Hewitt, Professor of Caucasian Languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he is also the Head of the Department of the Languages and Cultures of [the] Near and Middle East.
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The Cover
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Frontispiece
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and Chapters of A. Shavkhelishvili's History and Ethnography of the Tsova Tush/Bats. (Tbilisi 2001)
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Followed by a List of Songs and Poems to be found in a book by J. Longishvili (he of "shatilis asulo" fame; Tbilisi 2001)
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And finally, a Batsbur-Georgian-Russian Dictionary, compiled by the Kadagidze Brothers. (Tbilisi 1984)
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Old Photographs of Batsbis in Tsovata

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These three photographs seem to have been sold as some sort of souvenir, perhaps of “A Visit to Tsovata”. The prints were framed with cardboard, and were almost certainly destined to be hung on walls. (The photographs may also have been taken as part of an ethnographic expedition, and have found their way onto people’s walls at a later date.)
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The photographs [web_mikeladze_]”01” and “46” were clearly taken in succession, as they share the same background, and the bearded figure standing in “01” is seated in “47”. Equally, the woman standing on the left in “01” can be seen standing on the right in “46”.
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To judge from the clothes and the apparent condition of the people photographed, the predominance of wood and stone (local slate) to the exclusion of any other building material, and the steep slope which can be seen in picture “01”, these photographs were most likely taken in situ in a Batsbi village – perhaps in Tsaro or Indurta.
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These clues, in addition to certain technical aspects of the photographs themselves (they are most likely long exposures on glass plates i.e. were taken with an old field-camera), point to a date somewhere in the late nineteenth century, perhaps in the 1880s or 1890s.

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The Batsbi Way of Death

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These three photographs seem to have been taken as records of Death, and the presence of a dead body in two of them is quite startling!
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Nothing is known about [web_mikeladze_]”30” beyond the fact that the photograph is clearly a particularly early one (1880s-1890s), but the picture – in common with photograph “44” – is an interesting illustration of the fact that one of the attributes of a Batsbi man in death seems to be the presence of a horse (his horse?) in the photograph. Robert Chenciner's book on Daghestan (1997) relates that the saddled horse present at a man's funeral or memorial is a remnant of Scythian horse burials! A race would be held, the winning horse being the one most suitable to carry the deceased man's spirit to Paradise...

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(The horse is on the far right, its neck and part of its head visible against the carpet. See also this previous post.)

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More is known about the scene in photograph “25”, as it has a detailed inscription on the back – The dead man is Ikako Utchilauri, murdered by Alexi Tsikhelishvili because he refused to lend the latter the princely sum of 3 rubles. The mourners are Ikako Utchilauri’s relatives and – somewhat surprisingly, perhaps! – relatives of Alexi Tsikhelishvili’s.

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The third photograph – “44” – is also an image taken following a Batsbi man’s death, but has an intriguing difference: the absence of a body. Either this photograph was taken to commemorate the death – at the end of a customary period of mourning, for example – or the man’s body was never found or could not be retrieved for burial. Present are the man’s mother, wife, two children, another man – perhaps the brother of the deceased, or that of his wife – and the man’s horse, saddled and ready to go, but the protagonist himself is missing, and is represented by an outfit of clothes, including knitted socks and gloves, which has been lain out upon a “nabadi” felt. (Note also that the left arm of the coat, where the hand would be, has been placed atop the knife.)

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Judging from the lie of the land in the background, and from the abundance of wood and clearing, this photograph was almost certainly taken in the Kakhetian lowlands, where the Batsbis had to cut down trees to clear the land and to use the wood for their new homes.
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Batsbur Language Consonant and Vowel Systems

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These tables were shamefully stolen from this page and this page of the University of Frankfurt's Titus Website. (You might like to use the IPA chart (PDF) as a reference. There are also sound recordings on this website.)

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