1. Monanieba (Repentance), 1984-1986: Original screenplay Nana Janelidze, Rezo Kvesalava, and Tengiz Abuladze; Special Jury Prize, Cannes, 1987; Gold Hugo Special Jury Prize and Silver Hugo, best actor, Chicago Film Festival, 1987; available in the United States on Cannon Video.

2. Abuladze's comments on making the film are consistent. See the following interviews: “Idti do kontsa, esli ty khudozhnik,” Sovetskaia kul'tura n.d.; “Mysl', splavlennaia so strast'iu.” Zaria vostoka 31 January 1984, 3; “Nigde i vezde, nikogda i vsegda … ,” Vechernii Tbilisi 1 January 1987, 3-4; “O proshlom dlia budshchego,” Literaturnaia gazeta 25 February 1987, 8; “Utverdit’ dobro!” Zaria vostoka 19 August 1981; “Zapretnykh tern net,” Uchitel'skaia gazeta (Moscow) 26 May 1987. For an excellent introduction to Abuladze, see Blankoff-Scarr, Goldie, “Tengiz Abulaje and the Flowering of Georgian Film Art,” Central Asian Survey 8, no. 3 (1989): 61–86 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. This incident has not been forgotten. Consider Tamaz Gamakhrelidze (a member of the national legislature and director of Tbilisi's Oriental Institute), who was quoted in the Washington Post, 8 October 1990, A-26: “They [the hijackers] were finally shot, and people remember that with real regret. The political opposition is convinced that [Eduard] Shevardnadze had his hands in blood when he was here.” Ironically, Abuladze calls Shevardnadze “a great man,” and “the extra author of Repentance. ”

4. Chkheidze's brief “protokol” to this effect is held in the Georgia Films Library, Tbilisi.

5. Nancy Condee and Vladimir Padunov were quick to point out the financial questions of perestroika in the Soviet film industry. See their early article “Spring Cleaning in Moscow's House of Cinema,” Catalogue of the 41st Edinburgh Film Festival, August 1987, 6-9.

6. N. I. Venzher, V E. Vernik, eds., “Pokanie,” A-05323, Soiuzinformkino, 20 January 1987, passim.

7. See, for example, E. Paiazatian, “Doroga k ochishcheniiu (Zametki o kinotriptikhe Tengiza Abuladze),” Kommunist [Erevan] 11 June 1987; and Vladimir Lakshin, “Unforgiving Memory,” Moscow News, 30 November 1986, 12.

8. Zorkaia, Neia, “Dorogoi, kotoraia vedet k Khramu,” Iskusstvo kino 5 (1987): 33–55 Google Scholar.

9. Viktor Bozhovich, “Ispytanie sovesti,” Vechernii Tbilisi, 28 November 1986.

10. Zorkaia, “Dorogoi,” 51.

11. Bozhovich, Viktor, “Ispytanie: O kinotrilogii T. Abuladze,” Druzhba narodov 3 (1988): 213 Google Scholar.

12. Aleksei Simonov, “Ne propoved', a ispoved',” Sovetskaia kul'tura, 21 January 1988, 4. Lev Anninskii, “V kom delo?” Sovetskaia Estoniia, 14 April 1987, 4.

13. Zorkaia, “Dorogoi,” 53,

14. See “Pokaianie,” passim, also Andrei Bitov, “The Courage of An Artist,” Moscow News 7 (1987): 13.

15. Tengiz Abuladze, Vedreba [The Prayer], Georgia Films, 1963; Natvris xe [Tree of Desire], Georgia Films, 1976.

16. See Buachidze, Tengiz, “Martovskaia tragediia 1956 goda v Tbilisi,” Literaturnaia Gruziia 7 (1988): 114 Google Scholar.

17. Vazha Pshavela [Luka Razikashvili], Tkhzylebani [Works] (Tbilisi: Sabchota mtserali, 1960): 72-73.

18. Abzianidze, Zaza, “Kommentarii k ‘Moei mol'be’ Vazha Pshavela,” Kavkasioni 4 (1986): 343–345.Google Scholar

19. Vazha Pshavela [Luka Razikashvili], Three Poems, trans. Donald Rayfield (Tbilisi: Ganatleba, 1981).

20. Georgii Leonidze, V teni rodnykh derev'ev, trans. Elisbar Ananiashvili (Tbilisi: Literature da khelovneba, 1965), 225-226.

21. Ibid., 222-223.

22. Ibid., 225-226.

23. Abuladze stresses the general nature of the portrait in all his interviews and Georgian articles do the same. Georgian critics’ acknowledgement of the “Georgianness” of Repentance is very subtle. See Latavra Dularidze, “Tengiz Abuladze: Tvorcheskii portret,” Moskovskoe obozrenie kino [Soiuzinformkino] January 1987, 1: “During the more than thirty years of life in film a sufficiently solid and clear relationship has been established between Abuladze and his viewing audience. This feeling for his audience, a lucky one for an artist, has helped the director expose his internal world with greater and greater boldness. From that his films become more profound, more probing. His films are always a part of the spiritual life of the people, an eternally live process of national culture. That makes the nationality of his films uncontestable.”

24. Particularly relevant is Abuladze's comment in an interview with Valentina Ivanova for Sovetskaia kul'tura, “Idti do kontsa”: “Evil, just like good, is an extranational category. Hitler, fascism, yes, but can you call all Germans fascists? No. Andrei Belyi said, ‘There are pigs and there are angels. This is a distinction between individuals, not between nations.’ The problem of Stalin for glasnost Georgians deserves an entire book. Stalin and his fate and reputation in Georgia have been the central theme of countless articles and it is certainly the question of Stalin that explains the turn of events of April 1989 when special Soviet troops were turned loose on a peaceful Georgian crowd whom they beat and gassed as they shouted “this one's for Georgia, this one's for Stalin.” For a discussion of these events, see Eduard Gudava, “The Tragedy of Georgia,” Glasnost, May-July 1989: 4.

25. Silver Hugo, best actor, Chicago Film Festival, 1987; best male performance, First Soviet Oscars, 1988. Repentance won two-thirds of the first-place prizes for 1987 at the Union of Cinematographers Gala in December 1988, including best art film, director, scenario, camera, art, and male lead. Gia Kancheli, who wrote the music for Repentance, took best sound for his work in Danelia's Kin-dze-dze. See Iskusstvo kino 5 (1989): 3.

26. Robakidze, Grigol, “Stalin's Horoscope,” from the novel Die gemordete Seele, trans. Kartozia, Aleksandra (Jena: Oigen Diderich, 1933)Google Scholar. The English quotation is translated by the author from a Russian manuscript translation by Sergei Okropiridze.

27. See Gigineishvili, Manana, “Sviataia sviatykh,” Literaturnaia Gruziia 8 (1988): 148–153 Google Scholar.

28. Buachidze, “Martovskaia tragediia 1956,” 111.

29. Note that the first statement about Abuladze's film in the Soviet press was “Abuladze is completing a film about three generations of a Georgian family. ”

30. Quoted from Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, The Choral Symphony (Last Movement), chorus score (Belwin Mills, n.d.): passim.

31. See Buachidze, “Martovskaia tragediia 1956,” 113 for Stalin's titles: “vdokhnovitel’ i organizator vsekh nashikh pobed,” “genii vsekh vremen i narodov,” “otets i uchitel’ narodov.” See also an interview of Guram Gegeshidze, Literaturuli sakartvelo: “When the whole country called Stalin their own father and teacher and leader of the proletariat of the world, genius of all ages and God knows what else—if anyone had said that Stalin belonged to us, to the Georgians, his tongue would have been ripped out by the roots. What do you mean, yours? This genius belongs to the whole world. ”

32. “Aluda Ketelauri” in Vazha Pshavela, Three Poems, 66-67.

33. Leonidze, V teni rodnykh derev'ev, 176

34. Ibid., 226-228.

35. Stalin was also suspended from a Georgian seminary for slapping the rector.

36. Leonidze, V teni rodnykh derev'ev, 172-173.

37. Ibid., 219-220.

38. Note here a very interesting remark by Zorkaia, “Dorogoi,” 41: “The concentric circle rings and temporal layers of the film are linked, like tissues of a living organism, permeated by common pulses of blood. ”

39. Compare to Leonidze, V teni rodnykh derev'ev, 224: “I looked at that bright, sunny blooming tree, and I couldn't believe that beautiful Marita was no longer with us! … And in truth—where does beauty come from? And where does it go when it leaves this world? Why is it lost? Why does it disappear?”

40. Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, passim.

41. Zorkaia, “Dorogoi,” 44.

42. Shakespeare, William, The Riverside Shakespeare (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), 1761 Google Scholar.

43. Vazha Pshavela, Tkhzylebani, 72-73.

44. Buachidze, “Martovskaia tragediia 1956,” 111.

45. Ibid., 111-112.