The BGS Rustaveli Day and Annual General Meeting will be held at 6pm on the 27th November 2018 at at the Royal Asiatic Society. 

Introduction by David Gigauri (British Georgian Society)

The British-Georgian actress Miki Iveria – the story of Princess Gayane Mickeladze
A talk by her nephew Dr. Henry Sanford.

The presentation will consist of extracts & photos from the memoirs of Gayane Mickeladze, a British-Georgian actress who came to England after the death in Menton of her father, Prince Iverico Mickeladze. Her family were hunted by the Bolsheviks, but escaped against all odds. Betrayed by a trusted Chinese servant, then rescued by a Jewish family, she was present at some of the pivotal moments in the history of the 20th century. When a child, Gayane was in the middle of the bombardment of Feodosia by German warships, attached to the Turkish navy, that brought Turkey into the first world war. Her Father’s encounter with Rasputin is extraordinary. Was football at her home the first to be played in the Russian Empire? Her account of the voyage on the SS Saratoff and ensuing boarding by Georgians and fight at sea is perhaps an unrecorded event. Her Father, who had been the youngest judge in the Empire, teamed up with a Circassian brigand to run arms to General Wrangel’s army in the Crimea. In England he met Churchill at the Central Asian Society having been entrusted with a plan to prise Georgia away from the USSR by making it a British Protectorate. Princess Gayane’s passion was acting and Maltese dogs. Under a stage name Miki Iveria, her career in theatre encompassed several decades and dozens of supporting roles in the UK. Iveria made her screen debut in The Adventures of Tartu and went on to play in over 30 films.

Medieval Georgian Romance The Man in a Panther-Skin & Shakespeare’s Late Plays
Book presentation by Prof. Elguja Khintibidze.

Prof Khintibidze, Head of the Institute of the History of Georgian Literature at Tbilisi State University, will present his new book, translated into English in 2018. It’s an amazing story and a brilliant piece of academic research which aims to establish, for the first time, a fascinating connection between Elizabethan theatre and the great Georgian national 12th century epic. Based on the most rigorous textual analysis, he shows how remarkable similarities in theme, setting, plot, action and character – way beyond any mere coincidence of archetypes – demonstrate the clear influence of the Georgian epic upon both Shakespeare and Beaumont & Fletcher, particularly in Cymbeline, A King and No King and Philaster.

The event will be followed by Georgian wine & canapes by Tamada Restaurant.