Details: Category: Miscellaneous; Published: 14 April 2019

My wife, Zaira Khiba, and I were asked at the end of 2017 to translate into English a story by the late writer Daur Zantaria (1953-2001), namely 'Endzhy Hanym: Out of Step with Her Destiny'. We were told that we could use either the original Abkhaz version or the author's own translation into Russian. We chose the Abkhaz original. Our translation was planned to be published in Abkhazia in the summer of 2018, but lack of funds prevented the realisation of that plan. Therefore, the translation along with our Preface now appears on this website in the hope that it will appeal to anyone interested in Abkhazian literature and/or history (especially Abkhazia's 19th-century relationship with Tsarist Russia.

Preface

Though the author of this story, the late Daur Zantaria, did not state precisely when the events described in it took place, it is clear from references within the text that the year(s) concerned must have been around 1839-40; at appropriate places footnotes are inserted to give historical dates. Part of the chronology presented by historians O. Bghazhba and S. Lak(’)oba in their 2007 ‘History of Abkhazia’ (in Russian) is adapted below to help readers understand something of the developments affecting Abkhazia during that period. For more information on Abkhazian history in the 19th century see Stanislav Lak’oba’s article ‘History: 18th century-1917’ (pp. 67-88 in George Hewitt’s edited ‘The Abkhazians: a Handbook’, Curzon Press, 1999).

[Preface] The full text in PDF can be downloaded by clicking here