Machabeli, Ivan Georgievich

Born Jan. 28 (Feb. 9), 1854; died June 26 (July 8), 1898. Georgian publicist and translator.

Machabeli was born in the village of Tamarasheni, in presentday Kareli Raion, the son of a nobleman. He received a comprehensive education at the University of St. Petersburg (1871-74), at the Hoppenheim Agricultural Academy (Germany), and at the Sorbonne (Paris). He returned home in 1879. From 1883 to 1885, he edited the newspaper Droeba. Machabeli’s translations of Shakespeare’s tragedies (Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra) enriched the Georgian literary language and made an important contribution to the Georgian theater. Machabeli left his home in Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi) and vanished without a trace.