{{Short description|Georgian writer}} {{for|the street in Tbilisi|Alexander Kazbegi Avenue}} {{Infobox writer | honorific_prefix = | name = Aleksandre Kazbegi | image = ალექსანდრე ყაზბეგი7.jpg | imagesize = 250px | caption = Alexander Kazbegi. Photo by A. Roinashvili, 1880s. | birth_date = {{Birth date|1848|1|20|df=y}} | birth_place = Stepantsminda, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire | death_date = {{Death date and age|1890|12|22|1848|1|20|df=y}} | death_place = Tiflis, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire | resting_place = Mtatsminda Pantheon, Tbilisi | occupation = Writer, novelist, journalist | movement = Romanticism, Realism | signature = }} '''Alexander Kazbegi''' ({{lang-ka|ალექსანდრე ყაზბეგი}}; 20 January 1848 – 22 December 1893) was a Georgian writer, best known for his 1883 novel ''The Patricide''.
== Biography == thumb|Kazbegi as an actor Kazbegi was born in Stepantsminda<ref>{{Cite web|title=Alexander Kazbegi|url=https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Alexander+Kazbegi|access-date=2020-07-19|website=TheFreeDictionary.com|archive-date=2020-07-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200713054012/https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Alexander+Kazbegi|url-status=live}}</ref> the great grandson of Kazibek Chopikashvili, a local feudal magnate who was in charge of collecting tolls on the Georgian Military Highway. Alexander Kazbegi studied in Tbilisi, Saint Petersburg and Moscow, but on returning home, decided to become a shepherd to experience the lives of the local people. He later worked as a journalist, and then became a novelist and playwright. In his later life, he suffered from insanity. After his death in Tbilisi, his coffin was carried across the Jvari Pass to his hometown of Kazbegi (now renamed Stepantsminda), which also preserves his childhood home as a museum in his honor.
His most famous work, the novel ''The Patricide'', is about a heroic Caucasian bandit named Koba, who, much like Robin Hood, is a defender of the poor. Koba has nothing but contempt for authority, a proclivity towards violence, and a firm belief in vengeance. Kazbegi's work was a major inspiration to Ioseb Jughashvili, later known as Joseph Stalin, who used ''Koba'' as a revolutionary pseudonym.
== Museum == The World Bank is supporting restoration of the Alexander Kazbegi Museum.<ref>[http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/267451563937986135/pdf/Environmental-and-Social-Review-Restoration-of-Stepantsminda-Museum-Kazbegi-Municipality-Subproject-Phase-2.pdf Restoration of Stepantsminda Museum (Kazbegi Municipality)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104220854/https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/267451563937986135/pdf/Environmental-and-Social-Review-Restoration-of-Stepantsminda-Museum-Kazbegi-Municipality-Subproject-Phase-2.pdf |date=2021-11-04 }} World Bank</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}} * The Prose of the Mountains: Tales of the Caucasus, translated by Rebecca Ruth Gould (Budapest: Central European University Press, CEUP Classics series, 2015). {{ISBN| 978-6155053528}} * Bullock, Allen. ''Hitler and Stalin:Parallel Lives.'' Vintage Books. 1993. {{ISBN|0-679-72994-1}} * Rebecca Ruth Gould, “[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2548054 Aleksandre Qazbegi’s Mountaineer Prosaics: The Anticolonial Vernacular on Georgian-Chechen Borderlands],” Ab Imperio: Studies of New Imperial History in the Post-Soviet Space 15.1 (2014): 361-390. * Rosen, Roger. ''Georgia: A Sovereign Country of the Caucasus.'' Odyssey Publications: Hong Kong, 1999. {{ISBN|962-217-748-4}} {{Commons category}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kazbegi, Alexander}} Category:1848 births Category:1893 deaths Category:Novelists from the Russian Empire Category:Novelists from Georgia (country) Category:Male writers from Georgia (country) Category:Male novelists Category:19th-century novelists Category:People from Mtskheta-Mtianeti Category:19th-century male writers
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