Ivane Machabeli

Translator of Shakespeare, publicist

1854–1898

Ivane Machabeli was a publicist of the national revival generation and editor of Droeba; with Ilia Chavchavadze he translated King Lear, and then, alone, Shakespeare's great tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Richard III.

His translations are still held to be a benchmark of literary Georgian. In 1898 Machabeli left his home and vanished without trace, and his fate remains one of the mysteries of Georgian history.