Abuladze, Ilia. Collected Works (Shromebi). Vols. I-III (of 4). 1975-1982. In Georgian.

აბულაძე, ილია (ვლადიმერის ძე, 1901-1968). შრომები / საქართველოს სსრ მეცნიერებათა აკადემია, კ. კეკელიძის სახელობის ხელნაწერთა ინსტიტუტი.
ტ. I: თბილისი : გამომცემლობა „მეცნიერება", 1975. 228 გვერდი. ტირაჟი 1 200 ც.
ტ. II: თბილისი : გამომცემლობა „მეცნიერება", 1976. 287 გვერდი. ტირაჟი 1 200 ც.
ტ. III: თბილისი : გამომცემლობა „მეცნიერება", 1982. 195 გვერდი. ტირაჟი 1 000 ც.
ყველა ტომი 26 სმ. მაგარი ყდა. მე-4 ტომი ნაკლულია.
***
Abuladze, Ilia (Vladimirovich, 1901-1968). Collected Works (Shromebi) / K. Kekelidze Institute of Manuscripts of the Georgian SSR Academy of Sciences. 3 vols. (of 4 projected).
Vol. I: Tbilisi : Metsniereba, 1975. 228 pp. Print run of 1,200 copies.
Vol. II: Tbilisi : Metsniereba, 1976. 287 pp. Print run of 1,200 copies.
Vol. III: Tbilisi : Metsniereba, 1982. 195 pp. Print run of 1,000 copies.
All volumes 26 cm. Hardcover (three matching volumes in gray, red, and blue-green cloth respectively). Vol. IV lacking.
Condition: good.

Ilia Vladimirovich Abuladze (1901-1968) was the founding figure of Georgian manuscript studies and one of the most distinguished Georgian philologists, Armenologists, and paleographers of the twentieth century. Born in western Georgia and graduating from Tbilisi State University in 1927, he spent his entire career at the intersection of Old Georgian philology, Armenian studies, and Caucasian manuscript heritage. In 1937 he achieved one of the most celebrated discoveries in Caucasian studies when he identified the long-lost alphabet of the Caucasian Albanians in a thirteenth-century Armenian codex at the Matenadaran in Yerevan (MS No. 7117), a discovery that opened an entirely new field of Caucasian epigraphy and palaeography. In 1958 he founded and became the first director of the Institute of Manuscripts of the Georgian Academy of Sciences - the institution now known as the Korneli Kekelidze Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts, which today houses the world's largest collection of Old Georgian manuscripts. He directed the Institute until his death in 1968, and the building of its permanent home (1965) was realized under his leadership. Among his major scholarly contributions are the critical editions of all major Old Georgian hagiographical works in the foundational series Works of Old Georgian Hagiographical Literature; studies of Armeno-Georgian literary and cultural relations; work on the Georgian version of Balavariani (the Buddhist-derived tale of Barlaam and Ioasaph transmitted into Christian Europe through Georgian), based on the unique manuscript at the Greek Patriarchate in Jerusalem; and a lexicon of Old Georgian. The posthumous Collected Works, issued by the Metsniereba Publishing House of the Georgian SSR Academy of Sciences between 1975 and 1982 in vanishingly small print runs of 1,000-1,200 copies each, gather Abuladze's most important journal articles, critical studies, and textual editions, many of which had been scattered across institutional publications inaccessible outside specialist Soviet Georgian libraries. Three volumes of the four projected are present in this set. The set is of primary importance to collectors and scholars working in Old Georgian philology, Caucasian manuscript studies, Armenian-Georgian relations, and the history of Caucasian epigraphy.