I would better phrase - in Tbilisi, main center of sword production, most of artisans were armenian, sword-related industries being no exception. The population was also mostly armenien, with georgians probably not accounting even for a quarter of total population. Same goes for Dzhavakheti-Mesheti, Baku, etc. At the same time there was a considerable nothern diaspora, particularly from Dagestan, which was quite prominent in sword making (for every Geurk they will praise Bazalay
). At the same time in the western Georgia, majority of sword makers were georgian, even though it was probably not as big a production center as Tbilisi.
Now to Geurk - novadays Geurk became almost an icon of the most extreme georgian nationalism. His name is surrounded with many legends, most of them talk about Tsar jailing his family and requiring Geurk to deliver the secret of true djavari steel. Geurk reveals the secret, however slightly alters the ingridients so that the obtained steel is a simple wootz (i.e. does not cut anvils into pieces). The real recipe is obviously hidden behind the third brick on the left side of some church. At the same time, real Geurk's biography is virtually unknown.
Concerning family names - diversity of languages used by tribes created great variety of endings, all basically meaning "son" - shvili, dze, iya, ani, uri, a etc. Shvili is more characteristic to eastern Georgia, and also is the most popular ending for the jews, who usually have names like _something(usually Israel, Jordan etc.)_a_shvili. At the same time it is quite possible that Geurk's family was simply founded by a jew - for example Eliashvili, while their family was founded by a jew, and they, as Bagratids, are called "jews" in georgian chronicles, nevertheless they are not jewish for jews "proper".
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Originally Posted by ariel
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. |