조지아의 대표 문학작품이며 세계기록유산을 국립중앙도서관에서 만나다
Georgia's renowned literary work with an epic heroic story,… the Knight in the Panther's skin,... meets the Korean fans at a special photo exhibition.
And our Won Jung-hwan reports on what the book has to tell us.
A special exhibition has opened in Korea, shedding the spotlight on a superb achievement in Georgian literature.
Held at the National Library of Korea until September 28th, the Knight in the Panther's Skin, written about 9 centuries ago,… meets the Korean audience for the first time through 40 pieces of high-quality pictures of the ancient manuscript.
The 600 pages-long book has been translated into at least 50 languages, including Korean.
That feat was accomplished by Professor Cho Ju-kwan, who spent 10 years researching and translating the text through crosschecks of the English and Japanese versions.
"It was funny how every country translated the title quite differently. For example in Japanese and English, they translated it into panther,... but in Russian it was tiger. I needed to find out. So I met with some Georgian experts,... and decided to use tiger in the end."
The professor also pointed out that its narrative structure that speaks of friendship, courage and love involving two Indian and two Arabic soldiers,... is very similar to the popular Korean TV drama "Descendants of the Sun".
And besides literature,... there seems to be other cultural similarities between Korea and Georgia.
"Georgian and Korean history book page looks like each other a lot. Because we are both one of the oldest nations in the planet, we are both survivors, we are fighting for our territory, integrity, sovereignty until today. And peace is the very important issue as well."
And the ambassador also mentioned the upcoming Chuseok holiday,… highlighting the similarities between the two nations.
"We have in Georgia the same tradition. We are not calling, Chuseok, it's not reflecting about the harvest, but the tradition itself is the same. We are going to remember our ancestors to the cemeteries, making food special for that day, bringing to cemeteries drinking there and remembering, and also it is very important in a family wise. Because family gathers and we are going together. And I think that this is the values what we are sharing between each other."
"Although it's just a month-long exhibition of an ancient book from Georgia,.. the organizers hope it could lead to more tangible cultural exchanges between the two countries in the future. Won Junghwan, Arirang News."
