Anastasia Eristavi-Khoshtaria

Who was Anastasia Eristavi-Khoshtaria?

Anastasia Eristavi-Khoshtaria was a Georgian woman novelist.

She was born into an aristocratic family in Gori, Georgia, then part of Imperial Russia. Eristavi-Khoshtaria began as a teacher in her birthplace, Gori, where she founded a free school for peasant children and later established a women’s organization Mandilosani. She debuted in 1885 when her translation of an Ossetic legend ბესო was published. In the 1890s she was encouraged by the popular Georgian writer Akaki Tsereteli to move to Tbilisi to continue her work on original writings. Her first novels, მოლიპულ გზაზე and ბედის ტრიალი, enjoyed recognizable success. Being the first Georgian female writer who set her work from a feminine view and direct it at educated adults, Eristavi-Khoshtaria’s novels and stories follow one pattern: they trace the career of a Georgian noblewoman, thrown into turmoil of the collapse of the old economic and moral orders in the mid-19th century, defending her ideals of free work and truthful love against a corrupt background and clay-footed heroes.