medieval epic The Knight in the Panther's Skin. Cultural legacy Although Orbeliani's earliest writings are in prose dating to 1824, his prose pieces have fallen into oblivion. Most of his poetry is noted for patriotic motifs and extravagant praise of wine and women. Like his contemporary Georgian romanticists, Orbeliani's lyrics are pervaded with laments over the lost past and the fall of the Georgian monarchy. What distinguishes him, however, is his love for the street poetry and the ashug minstrelsy to which he himself added with such lyrics as Mukhambazi (მუხამბაზი). Orbaliani's poetry prior to the collapse of the 1832 conspiracy is remarkably bellicose and optimistic, while post-1832 lyrics are more elegiac, infused with sentimental patriotic feelings about the irretrievable glory of the past. His best and longest works is an ode A Toast, or A Night Feast after War near Yerevan (სადღეგრძელო, ანუ ომის შემდგომ ღამე ლხინი, ერევნის სიახლოვეს) whose original version was composed on the occasion of the battle of Yerevan during the Russo-Persian War in 1827, not without influence of the Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky. It was further reworked and expanded until it acquired its final shape as late as 1879. A nostalgic memory of military glory, the poem begins by honoring all those who have fallen in defense of their homeland, then the poet travels through history, celebrating all Georgia's tribes, kings, heroes, and martyrs. Finally, an elegiac mood replaces the exaltation, as the poet returns from his fantasy and memoirs to see just himself and one other link to that past still living. Orbeliani's mutual relations with the new generation of Georgian intellectuals were ambiguous. This new movement, dubbed as "the sons", spearheaded by Ilia Chavchavadze and Akaki Tsereteli, was critical of "fathers", old Georgian nobility who had pledged their allegiance to the Tsar. Orbeliani was praised by Chavchavadze as presiding over "the strength and wealth of our verse," but his 1871 jubilee was met by the younger generation in cold silence. In the 1860s, Orbeliani tried to stand aside from the quarrels between "the sons and the fathers", but he could not refrain from attacking the new generation in a caustic rhymed response published in 1874. This did not prevent him, however, from being alone in acclaiming the melodramatic prose of one of the "sons", Alexander Kazbegi, in 1881. Grigol Orbeliani died in Tiflis at the age of 79. He is buried at the