Ori Sitqva (Two Essays): Akaki by Iv. Gomarteli, and Ilia da Akaki by Kita Abashidze. Society of Lovers of Georgian Culture, 1915. In Georgian.

ორი სიტყვა : აკაკი / ივ. გომართელი ; ილია და აკაკი / კიტა აბაშიძე ; ქართულ კულტურის მოყვარულთა საზოგადოება, № 3. გამოცემა პირველი.
თბილისი : სტამბა "სორაპანი", 1915. 24 გვერდი ; 22 სანტიმეტრი.
ნაბეჭდი გარეკანი.
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Ori Sitqva (Two Essays): "Akaki" by Iv. Gomarteli, and "Ilia da Akaki" (Ilia and Akaki) by Kita Abashidze. Society of Lovers of Georgian Culture, series no. 3. First edition.
Tbilisi: "Sorapani" Press, 1915. 24 pp. ; 22 cm.
Original paper wrappers.
Binding good: creasing to the front wrapper and rust staining at the edges from the original metal staples. Text block good: leaves clean and complete, minor rust spotting near the staples.

This slim commemorative pamphlet, issued as No. 3 in the series of the Society of Lovers of Georgian Culture, preserves two memorial addresses delivered on 25 March 1915 at a morning gathering held by the Society in honor of Akaki Tsereteli (1840-1915), the celebrated Georgian poet and public figure who had died on 26 January/8 February of that year and was buried in the Mtatsminda Pantheon in Tbilisi. The first essay, "Akaki," is by Ivane Gomarteli (1875-1938), a physician, publicist, and political figure who served as a deputy to the First State Duma of the Russian Empire and later to the Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. The second, "Ilia da Akaki" (Ilia and Akaki), pairs Tsereteli with his great contemporary Ilia Chavchavadze (1837-1907) and is by Kita Abashidze (1870-1917), the leading Georgian literary historian and critic of his generation, author of the landmark "Etudes on Nineteenth-Century Georgian Literature," and a writer personally invited onto the staff of the newspaper "Iveria" by Chavchavadze himself in 1896. Abashidze's essay, written by a critic who had worked directly under Chavchavadze, carries particular authority in situating the two founding figures of the modern Georgian national literary revival alongside one another within weeks of Tsereteli's death. As an ephemeral occasional publication tied to a single commemorative event and presumably issued in a small run, complete surviving copies are scarce. The pamphlet is of interest to collectors of Georgian literary history, of materials relating to Ilia Chavchavadze and Akaki Tsereteli, and of the publishing activity of Georgian cultural societies in the final years of the Russian Empire.