Aleksi Ochiauri – A Devoted Servant of Pshav-Khevsureti

Abstract

Aleksi Ochiauri belongs to that circle of scholars who, under the guidance of Giorgi Chitaia and Vera Bardavelidze, became involved from the 1930s onward in the extensive collecting activity carried out by the Ethnography Department of ENIMK (the Institute of Language, History, and Material Culture). He was an unrivaled expert on the way of life of Pshavi and Khevsureti; alongside his pedagogical work, he systematically recorded samples of the mountain communities› oral tradition together with ethnographic material. As an eyewitness and direct participant, the author described with painstaking accuracy and in great detail the traditions that were, for that period, still living practice.

Part of the immeasurably valuable material collected by Al. Ochiauri, reflecting the religious and social life of the Pshavs and Khevsurs, has been published. His unpublished manuscripts are preserved in the archive of the Ivane Javakhishvili Institute of History and Ethnology.

Al. Ochiauri›s ethnographic records are of great significance for the study of the traditional way of life of the Georgian highlanders and of their relations with neighboring Caucasian mountain peoples.