Thread: Army yatagan?
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Old 18th April 2006, 04:43 AM   #9
ariel
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According to Miller (" Caucasiske Wappen") many, if not most, swordmakers in Georgia were Armenians. The most famous ones, Khachatur, Papov (Popov) and Purunsuzov were all ethnic Armenians and their blades represent the top of swordmaking.
The most famous one, Geurk Elizarov (Elizarashvili), who made swords for the Russian Tsars and whose blades were immortalized by the great 19th century Russian poet Lermontov, was a master with no equals: his swords are unsurpassable in beauty! Assadullah and Masamune have nothing on him. He is an enigma: the name is Jewish. Many Georgian Jews in Israel carry a last name composed of a Biblical name (Eliezer or Elazar, in this case) and ending in -shvili (one of the Caucasian equivalents of -son, -ov, -in, -ski in Russian, Mc- in Scotland and O'- in Ireland). The great orthopedic surgeon Gavril Ilizarov (occasionally spelled Elizarov) was a "Mountain Jew".http://www.ilizarov.org.uk/biog.htm Were they related? It would be an important academic project to research the biography of Geurk Elizarov, because there is very little known about him as a person: like many great masters, he left behind his creations that speak for him and not much more.

Geurk's sons were the teachers of the Zlatoust Russian swordmakers Schaff and Boyarschinov and, thus, responsible for the great tradition of Zlatoust parade Damascus weapons.
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