ბესიკის საფლავის ძიების ისტორიიდან

Abstract

The renowned Georgian poet Besarion Gabashvili (1750-1791), better known as Besiki, travelled to Russia in 1787 on a diplomatic mission on behalf of King David of Imereti, son of Giorgi. During this mission, he met Field Marshal Grigori Potemkin and resided at Potemkin’s camp, initially in Chisinau and later in Iași, where he passed away in 1791.
For a long time, not only the location of Besiki’s death and burial but even the exact date of his passing remained a matter of controversy.
On March 27, 1949, Niko Berdzenishvili discovered Besiki’s tombstone. However, the grave itself no longer existed, as the old cemetery had been closed. While the discovery of the tombstone was significant, uncertainty remained regarding whether Besiki’s remains had been relocated or left in their original resting place.
Giorgi Leonidze, who visited Romania multiple times, was particularly interested in the location of Besiki’s grave. In 1958, Vakhtang Beridze, who accompanied him on one of these trips, wrote: “Finally, we visited the place where Besiki is buried. The old church has been demolished, and in its place, now stands a marketplace, with stalls set up near Besiki’s supposed resting site. It is believed that, like others buried there, Besiki’s remains were moved elsewhere – but no one knows for certain”.
Interestingly, as early as 1885, Zakaria Chichinadze was already aware of the inscription on Besiki’s tombstone. In a book published that year, he provided an almost exact rendition of the inscription. It is likely that someone who had seen Besiki’s grave firsthand relayed this information to him. However, the identity of this individual and the circumstances under which they visited Iași remain unknown.
In early 1989, Givi Mepisashvili, Chairman of the Kutaisi Writers’ Union, published an appeal titled “Let Besiki Rest in His Homeland”. This was accompanied by a letter sent to him in 1967 by Sergo Kavtaradze, the Soviet Ambassador to Romania from 1945 to 1952. In the letter, Kavtaradze wrote: “As far as I remember, Besiki was buried by his brother. I preserved his tombstone in Iași. The grave itself was never searched for. In my opinion, it would not have been difficult to find, as the churchyard was quite small. During my time, it had already become a marketplace. I reported this in detail to Moscow and Georgia, but my appeals found no response from the so-called ‘patriots’ of that time. I could have arranged for the transfer of Besiki’s remains and tombstone to Georgia… but my voice remained unheard”.
When Mepisashvili proposed reburying Besiki in Georgia, the only known information about his burial site was that it had been located somewhere in Iași. However, a particularly intriguing piece of evidence emerged that complicated the matter.
In 1929, the Georgian émigré newspaper “Tetri Giorgi” published an article by Mikheil Dadiani, a Georgian cadet and later an officer in the Polish army. In this article, Dadiani recounted that after leaving Georgia in 1921, he found himself in Romania, specifically in Bucharest, where he claimed to have discovered Besiki’s grave in one of the city’s cemeteries: “Besiki’s grave is in a terrible state. What was undoubtedly once a beautiful monument has been reduced to a mere trace, so eroded that only a few words in Latin are still visible – among them ‘Giorgio’ and ‘Gaba,’ which must be part of Besiki’s surname. Perhaps this grave was forgotten because we never had certainty about Besiki’s burial site. Many believed he was buried in Iași, possibly confusing him with another prominent Georgian figure. Now that we know exactly where his grave is, we are obliged to take care of it”.
However, Dadiani did not specify which cemetery in Bucharest he had visited, making verification of his claim impossible. Moreover, it is conceivable that he misread the inscription, mistakenly interpreting the letters “Gaba” as a reference to Besiki.
While it is theoretically possible that someone transferred Besiki’s remains from Iași to Bucharest, the question remains – who would have undertaken such an arduous task? Why would they leave behind the tombstone, a valuable marble slab? Perhaps because moving it would have been too difficult? And why reinter him in Bucharest rather than in another cemetery in Iasi?
There are no definitive answers. One can only speculate. However, I am inclined to believe that Dadiani misidentified another person’s grave as Besiki’s.
Given that the poet had no  relatives in the area, it is plausible that when the cemetery in Iași was dismantled, his remains were either left in situ or reburied in a nearby location.