Sulla ricezione di Giacomo Leopardi in Georgia

In Georgia (Caucasus), the reception of the Italian poet and thinker Giacomo Leopardi began in the mid-19th century through Russian translations of individual compositions, selected based on the political situation and the needs of the time. In a first phase, the Russian periodical press, and, by extension, the Georgian one, paid significant attention to Italy’s unique condition – politically fragmented and subject to foreign domination. In this specific context, Leopardi emerged as a symbol of the poet singing about the country’s misfortunes and the fight for national liberation. After an ideologically conditioned pause in the first Soviet period, when the poet’s lyrical inspiration did not align with socialist realism, interest in Leopardi and his works considerably increased during the second half of the 20th century. New translations and critical materials were published in various Georgian magazines. In this new phase, corresponding to the period of Georgia’s independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Leopardi became integrated into world literature and was presented and translated as such.