In Georgian, the idiomatic expression “sitting in the gutter” is semantically perceived as an extreme form of ignorance, the same as “sitting at the ball”. This circumstance can be explained in several ways. On the one hand, for our distant ancestors, the “pitcher”, the same as the pitcher, represented one of the fundamental, archetypal objects of the chthonic world, i.e. our “lower underworld”, and the creature found in it was detached from worldly events, which caused its ignorance. This is confirmed by numerous archeological and historical examples – our distant ancestors used to bury criminals under the surface of the earth in funnel-shaped dungeons, thus keeping them away from worldly events and other types of information.
On the other hand, if we consider the Greek origin of the word “churi”, the unborn baby sitting in the vagina is also far away from the current events of our world, and his knowledge and the information available to him are unworldly. But this creature, which is still in the prenatal state, is already alive and has an extremely active influence on the invisible and still unknown world – in every culture on earth, the main concern of the society was to protect and raise the next generation, and to do this without pregnant women – mothers-to-be, is, of course, impossible. would be
The great Greek philosopher Diogenes spent a large part of his life in a cistern, and it was his voluntary choice. It’s true that the ancient Greeks called our vessels “pithos” and even gave them a different shape from the Georgian pitchers, but neither the vessel nor the semantics of “sitting in the vessel” should have been foreign to Diogenes, who was engaged in entertaining the public. After all, he was born in the city of Sinop, located on the southern coast of the Black Sea, and these places were separated from Lazet, which is located in the neighborhood (it is possible that it was even part of Lazet at that time). For the ancestors of the Lazes living in the 5th century BC, the origin of the word “Churi” from “Churti” should have been as clear as it was for the experts of Megruli living in the 21st century who looked into the matter. It should be added to the above considerations that in the mentioned era, people did not pay attention to ethnic origin and practically the entire Greek-speaking population living in Asia Minor was referred to as Greek. The vessel in the picture to the left of this text also testifies to this – this historical pitcher was not taken in any village of Kakheti, but in Diogenes’ hometown of Sinop.
According to the legend, in his youth, when Diogenes came to the city of Delphos, he received the answer to the question posed to the local Pythia: “What craft should I pursue in the future?” After some time, the young man, surprised by these vague words, moved to Athens, where he joined the Cynic school of the local philosopher, Antisthenes, and settled in Pithos, the same house, to establish his new position.
It is not surprising that ordinary residents of Athens mocked the philosopher, called him crazy; According to the legend, the local hooligans even smashed his clay house. O sancta simplicitas! (O-oh, pure naivety!) – addressed in a similar situation, 18 centuries later from these events, another thinker, the Czech Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake by the Inquisition, addressed an old woman who brought her share of fiche to her autodafe.
The citizens of Athens did not realize that by breaking the Pithos they could not shake either Diogenes’ faith or his divine decree. The philosopher settled in the chthonic pitcher by his own will would not only get rid of the outside world and its profane knowledge, but by settling in the “churt” semantically connected with “chur” he would prepare for his future event in the world of “Middle Sknell”, truth, aka “Sophia”. On the other hand, the baby in the mother’s womb is willing to live in a heavenly environment, but after birth, he must settle down in the hell of this world. With this in mind, it is not surprising that Diogenes was in no hurry to abandon his pithos and replace it with a house common to everyone else.
Our festival is “named” and it is connected not only to Tbilisi, but also to the philosopher Diogenes, who was born in Sinop, and visually, the movie tape rising from the pitcher became his symbol, which can be perceived as a ladder at the same time. Taking into account all of the above, the concept of the festival and the criteria for selecting and evaluating films can be formulated as Pythia’s appeal to Diogenes:
1) “Reassess values”,
2) “Avoid the world, but dwell not in hell, but in heaven”,
3) “Prepare the world to receive new, unseen miracles.”
