Lecture: Nana Gaprindashvili, Karlo Kacharava: Neologism as a Form of Thought

Tbilisi Public Art Fund is pleased to present a lecture by Doctor of Philology, Professor Nana Gaprindashvili ‘Karlo Kacharava: Neologism as a Form of Thought.’ The lecture is dedicated to one of the most significant features of Karlo Kacharava’s poetic language — his authorial neologisms, which have not yet become the subject of specialized scholarly research.

The lecture demonstrates that, in Kacharava’s work, the neologism becomes a form of thinking, feeling, and perceiving the world. It emerges precisely where ready-made linguistic structures are no longer capable of containing the author’s inner experience, the trauma of the era, and spiritual-intellectual tension.

The main part of the lecture focuses on the typological and semantic analysis of Kacharava’s neologisms. It examines both compositional neologisms and lexical units that transcend traditional word-formation models, as well as instances of semantic neologization.

Special attention is given to how Kacharava’s authorial neologisms reflect both his individual idiolect and the cultural-historical experience of the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods.

The aim of the lecture is to demonstrate that Kacharava’s neologisms constitute a key element of his poetic universe: they expand the field of meaning, create new semantic spaces, and actively engage the reader in the process of interpretation.

Thus, in Kacharava’s poetic language, the neologism is not merely a new word, but a distinctive model for shaping thought, expressing experience, and understanding the world — one of the fundamental forms of poetic thinking.

Free Attendance

Doctor of Philology, Professor Nana Gaprindashvili was born in 1958. In 1980, she graduated from the Faculty of Philology at Tbilisi State University. She was awarded the degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences in 1985, the degree of Doctor of Philological Sciences in 1993, and the title of Professor in 2000.

From 1995 to 1997, she served as an Associate Professor at the Department of Translation and Literary Relations at Tbilisi State University, and from 1997 to 2006 as a Professor at the same department. Between 2007 and 2015, she was Head of the Research and Development Service at the Faculty of Humanities. Since 2012, she has been a Professor at the Faculty of Humanities at Tbilisi State University. From 2016 to 2024, she served as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. In 2013–2014, she was a member of the Accreditation Council for Educational Programs, and from 2010 to 2015, a member of the Academic Council of Tbilisi State University.

Her research interests include comparative literature, rhetoric, translation studies, and the history of modern Georgian literature, including the study of Karlo Kacharava’s poetic legacy. She is the author of approximately 100 scholarly works.