In Germany the publishing house Aschendorff Verlag issued the work of Georgian scholars “Medieval Georgian Literary Culture and Book Production in the Christian Middle East and Byzantium” in the series Jerusalemer Theologisches Forum (vol. 42).

The collective volume presents to readers in a coherent, diachronic manner, the literary work of Georgian ecclesiastics in the monastic centres of Palestine, Mt Sinai, Mt Athos, the Black Mountain, Constantinople, and Petritsoni (Bachkovo). It aims to show how Georgians adopted the ideas and values that were predominant in the advanced literary and cultural centres of the Christian world, and how they introduced these ideas and values into Georgian national literature, converting them into an essential part of Georgian intellectual heritage. The book also discusses the issue of relations of the Georgians with other ethnic groups – the Greeks, the Armenians and the Latins – in the multicultural and multilingual setting of the monastic centres. The book is an attempt to fill the gap that exists in the West regarding the history of medieval Georgian culture and literature. It provides international scholars with the current thinking of Georgian specialists on the history of medieval Georgian literature.

The authors are the scholars of the Korneli Kekelidze National Center for Manuscripts: Zaza Aleksidze, Darejan Kldiashvili, Thamar Otkhmezuri, Maia Raphava, Dali Chitunashvili, Tinatin Tseradze, and of Tbilisi State University: Magda Mtchedlidze and Ana Kharanauli, as well as Nikoloz Aleksidze (Free University, Georgia), Tinatin Chronz (University of Bonn, Germany), Tamar Pataridze (Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium). Editor: Thamar Otkhmezuri, translated into English by Manana Odisheli and Michael Vickers.