Besiki

ბესიკი Besiki
Born	1750 Tbilisi, Kingdom of Kartli
Died	25 January 1791 Iași, Romania
Occupation	poet, thinker, diplomat
Nationality	Georgian
Period	Reign of King Heraclius II
Genre	poetry
Literary movement	Romanticism

Besarion Zakarias dze Gabashvili (Georgian: ბესარიონ ზაქარიას ძე გაბაშვილი), commonly known by his penname Besiki (Georgian: ბესიკი) (1750 – 25 January 1791) was a Georgian poet, politician and diplomat, known as an author of exquisite love songs and heroic odes as well as for his political and amorous adventures.

Besiki was born and raised in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital. He came of a noble family, which claimed descent from the ancient city of Gibeon (Georgian: Gabaoni) in Palestine. The poet himself frequently used the surname Gabaoni, a variant of Gabashvili.

Besiki's father, Zakaria, was a Georgian Orthodox priest and a confessor of King Teimuraz II. Zakaria was excommunicated and banished in 1764, but Besiki was allowed by King Erekle II to stay at the royal court where he received his education and began his career of a minstrel, his early style being influenced by Persian poetry and his older contemporary, the polyglot Tbilisite Armenian poet Sayat-Nova. Despite his younger age, Besiki gained many enemies at the court due largely to his satires and, most importantly, his insulting attacks on Catholicos Anton I. Rumors in Georgia have also linked Besiki with Erekle’s sister Ana, who was about 28 years older, mainly on the grounds of his love poem დედოფალს ანაზედ ("On Queen Ana"). In 1777, he was accused of impiety by Catholicos Anton, who named him as the Antichrist and denounced him to the King. As a result of this conflict, Besiki was banned from Tbilisi and had to move to the Kingdom of Imereti (western Georgia), where he was welcomed and appointed a chancellor by Solomon I. Later, he was involved in the brief war for the throne of Imereti after Solomon’s death and served as a diplomat under the next Imeretian king, Solomon II. Again, Besiki found himself implicated in the court’s intrigues. His troubadour affection to Solomon II’s younger wife, Ana, née Orbeliani, might well have been the reason for his being sent by the king on dangerous missions, the last of which to Imperial Russia, was intended to secure Russian protection for Imereti during the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792). For three years, he accompanied the Russian Field Marshal Potyomkin in the campaign against the Ottoman Empire, and suddenly died at Iaşi, Moldavia (25 January 1791), where he was buried.

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