Oliver and Marjory Wardrop are well-known in Georgia for being scholars dedicated to popularizing Georgian culture and literature. They were active in Georgia from the end of the 19th century.
Sir Oliver Wardrop was a British diplomat, he was appointed as the United Kingdom's first Chief Commissioner of Transcaucasia in Georgia in 1919 and served at this role up until 1921. Before that, he traveled to Georgia and wrote his study - The Kingdom of Georgia, published in 1888. After mastering the Georgian language, he published a series of books on Georgia, including his translation of Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani's The Book of Wisdom and Lies.
Marjory Wardrop, a sister of Oliver, was also heavily involved in the translation of Georgian literature. She translated and published Georgian Folk Tales, The Hermit by Ilia Chavchavadze and The Life of St. Nino among other important writings. She also made the first English prose translation of The Knight in the Panther's Skin, a medieval Georgian epic poem by Shota Rustaveli.
In honor of the Wardrop siblings, there’s a square named after them behind the Parliament building in Georgia, completed with a bronze monument of the siblings, sculpted by Jumber Jikia.
The Georgian Messenger published an excerpt from Oliver Wardrop’s The Kingdom of Georgia in their 6th issue (March 30, 1919). We offer the excerpt to our readers.
GEORGIA
At the very outset, it is necessary to remove from the mind of the reader an opinion which is almost universally held in Europe and which is perhaps the chief cause of that apathy with which politicians look upon the Caucasus. It is generally believed even by some of those who have been in the country, that Transcaucasia is inhabited by a vast number of tribes more or less wild, having nothing in common but the doubtful benefits of the Russian rule. Nothing could be more misleading. Students of ethnography may amuse themselves by making elaborate investigations into the origin and characteristics of the Khevsurs, the Swans, the Pshavs, the Ossets, it is sufficient for us to know that all these peoples are politically at least Georgians and have fought under the Kartvelian kings since the days of William the Conqueror.
The numerous local appellations given to the Georgians mean no more than Yorkshiermen, Cornishmen or Aberdonian do to us. If I succeed in impressing upon my readers the fact that there is a politically homogeneous region stretching from the steps of Mugan to the Black Sea, my labor will not have been fruitless.
It is a significant fact that the pure Georgian language is now far more generally spoken than it has been for many centuries and that the dialects are rapidly disappearing. This is due in a great measure to the growth of a taste for literature which is fostered by the newspapers and other periodical publications. There are besides many schools, where the language is taught. And society exists in Tiflis for the dissemination of the national literature among the peasants.
All this has helped to produce a national feeling stronger than any that has existed since the fatal partition of the kingdom in the fifteenth century. The jealousies between Kartlian, Kakhetian and Imeretian have been forgiven and forgotten and when Georgia's voice is again heard in Asia, she will speak with that authority which belongs only to a united patriotic people. (emphasis in original).
In order to understand the state of political feeling in Georgia during the present century, it is necessary to remember what her previous history has been. During a long period stretching back to ages of which we have only fragmentary records, the country had ever been at war; often conquered still more often conquering, never crushed, the brave little state maintained its existence for a thousand years alone in the very midst of those fierce fanatics whose fame made all allied Europe quake. At length rent by civil war and ravaged by the infidel it wisely resolved to throw itself into the hands of a Christian power able and willing to protect and avenge. After availing themselves of Russia's help, it was but natural that the Georgians should seek the repose of which they were so much in need, though they were ready to fight against the common foe.
Harsh measures on the part of Russia whose policy in Transcaucasia has been becoming more irritating ever since the removal of Prince Vorontzoff in 1854 and culminating last year in the enforcement of military service, have undoubtedly had some effect of this kind but unless there had been a simultaneous progress in the intellectual and social development of the Georgian nation this overbearing legislation might have been sullenly submitted to without complaint. There can be little doubt of the fact that the excessive precautions taken by the Russian police with a view to put down political agitation of any kind have produced the very thing they are intended to prevent.
A country squire in talking to me one day about a little market town near his home said: “they have posted a gendarme there; until he came, nobody ever bothered about politics, now there is nothing else talked of”.
During my stay in Tiflis, last summer, a rumor was rife to the effect that a large number of young noblemen were about to be exiled in view of the visit of the Czar, who was expected to arrive at his new palace near Telav. The fact that this report was believed by the parties interested, is a powerful testimony to the arbitrary character of the proceedings to the Russian Police.
