The American Writer Richard Halliburton on Khevsureti

Abstract

Interest in the history, culture, and traditions of Georgia on the part of representatives of the Western world was already manifesting itself quite actively even at a time when our country was incorporated within the Soviet empire. A clear manifestation of this interest is the fact that, in that period, Georgia was visited by more than one well-known and influential figure. Among these, we wish here to focus attention on the significant episodes connected with the presence in our country of the American writer and journalist Richard Halliburton (1900–1939). He traveled through Georgia at the beginning of the 1930s, before the active onset of Stalin’s repressions. It was precisely the impressions gained during this visit that the American writer recounted in his book Seven League Boots, published in London in 1935. It is also worth noting that this work belongs to that not especially numerous group of foreign-language publications that provide us with extremely valuable information concerning the way of life of the inhabitants of one of our country’s distinctive regions – Khevsureti.