Tsurtaveli, I. The Martyrdom of Shushanik (Mart'vilobay Shushanik'isi). Georgian and Armenian texts edited, with a study, variants, lexicon and indices, by Ilia Abuladze. First edition of the Abuladze critical edition, 1938.

ცურტაველი, იაკობ. მარტჳლობაჲ შუშანიკისი / ქართული და სომხური ტექსტები გამოსცა, გამოკვლევა, ვარიანტები, ლექსიკონი და საძიებლები დაურთო ილია აბულაძემ ; პასუხისმგებელი რედაქტორი პროფესორი კორნელი კეკელიძე. პირველი გამოცემა.
ტფილისი : სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტის გამომცემლობა, 1938. VIII, 063, 120 გვერდი ; 25 სმ.
სერია: ადრინდელი ქართული ფეოდალური ლიტერატურა ; II. მაგარი ყდა. ტირაჟი 2 100 ც.
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Tsurtaveli, Iakob. The Martyrdom of Shushanik / Georgian and Armenian texts edited, with an introductory study, variant readings, lexicon and indices, by Ilia Abuladze ; responsible editor Professor Korneli Kekelidze. First edition.
Tbilisi : State University Publishing House, 1938. VIII, 063, 120 pp. ; 25 cm.
Series: Early Georgian Feudal Literature, II. Publisher's hardcover. Print run of 2,100 copies.
Condition good: boards with some darker staining and rubbing, edges and spine ends worn; block firm; light moisture staining to upper margins of several leaves, not affecting text; small ink number on title page.

The founding monument of Georgian literature in its first scholarly critical edition. Composed between 476 and 483 by Iakob Tsurtaveli (Jacob of Tsurtavi), confessor to the queen and eyewitness to the events he records, the Martyrdom of Shushanik is the oldest surviving work of original Georgian literature. It narrates the imprisonment and death of Shushanik, daughter of the Armenian commander Vardan Mamikonian, at the hands of her husband Varsken, pitiakhsh of southern Kartli, who had renounced Christianity for Zoroastrianism to secure Sasanian favour. Venerated by both the Georgian and Armenian Churches, the text survives in Georgian and Armenian recensions whose priority has long been debated. This volume was edited by Ilia Abuladze (1901-1968), the leading Georgian Armenologist of his generation, who in 1937 identified the Caucasian Albanian alphabet in a Matenadaran manuscript. It presents the long and short Georgian and Armenian versions from eight manuscripts, with a 63-page study, variant readings, a lexicon, indices, and Abuladze's own Georgian translation of the long Armenian recension. His study was expanded specifically to answer Paul Peeters' 1935 Analecta Bollandiana article contesting the primacy of the Georgian text. The edition remained the standard reference until Abuladze's 1963 corpus edition, was reprinted in 1978 for the 1,500th anniversary, and is still cited by page in current scholarship. It was issued in 2,100 copies at the height of the Great Terror, a Christian martyr text presented under the neutral series heading "Early Georgian Feudal Literature". The first edition is now scarce outside Georgian institutional libraries and of strong interest to collectors of Kartvelology, Armenian studies and Eastern Christian hagiography.