Leonidze was born in the village of Patardzeuli in the eastern Georgian province of Kakheti . He graduated from the Tbilisi Theological Seminary in 1918 and continued his studies at the Tbilisi State University . His first poems appeared in Georgian press in 1911 , and then , briefly collaborated with the Symbolist group Blue Horns . His real talent emerged in 1925 with a series of nature lyrics , responding with Romantic animation to the landscapes of Leonidze ’s native Kakheti . Throughout the Soviet period , he tried to pursue the " correct " political line ; his poetry became more historical and patriotic , the eventful history of Georgia providing him with the colorful medieval imagery which Leonidze translated into impulsive rhythms and metaphors . He quickly established himself as one of the most popular poets of Georgia , but , when the purges of the 1930s took lives of many of his fellow writers and his own brother , microbiologist Leon Leonidze , he was forced to direct his talents into panegyrics to Joseph Stalin . This was an unfinished 1936 epic dedicated to Stalin ’s childhood and youth , remarkable for its simulated verve and a total of absence of biographic details , factual or invented
purges
Great Purge
Giorgi Leonidze