Medieval Georgian Projection of Religious Historiography of Late Antiquity

Abstract The article analyses the historical concepts of the medieval Georgian history by Leonti Mroveli, as the projection of religious historiography in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Introductions to two redactions of The Georgian Chronicles have been considered. It has been shown that both versions have the same aim: to reconstruct the ethnic origin of the Georgians (our kin) from the onset of the world history and to legitimate our kin as an immediate partaker in the initial (Biblical) history. For this purpose, Leonti Mroveli uses diamerisms, a scheme of universal history (Διαμερισμὸς τῆς γῆς) employed in religious historiography from the 1st century AD. Fragments of diamerisms found in medieval Georgian historical narratives reveal that Georgian historiographers were familiar with them via Greek, Syriac, Ethiopian and Armenian versions and successfully used them to highlight the unity between the universal and their national (local) histories – the life of our kin.