The early 17th-century head of the house, Begtabeg, was a notable copyist who created one of the best manuscripts of the medieval Georgian epic The Knight in the Panther's Skin by Shota Rustaveli (Manuscript H-54, Georgian National Center of Manuscripts).
The Georgian female poet Tamar Eristavi proposed, in 1988, a romantic though unreliable and otherwise unproved hypothesis identifying the famous Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli with Prince Demna who was allegedly in love with his cousin, Princess Tamar; survived the repressions and wrote his poem The Knight in the Panther's Skin (dedicated to Tamar) in exile under the assumed identity of Rustaveli.
Shota Rustaveli (1172 – 1216), a Georgian poet of the 12th century
Shota Rustaveli | Rustaveli Avenue | Shota Malashkhia | Shota Arveladze | Rustaveli | Shota Yasuda | Shōta Sometani | Shota | Rustaveli Theatre |
Shota Rustaveli, The Knight in the Panther's Skin first printed (originally written in the 13th century)
At the same time, Svanidze continued his scholarship; he founded and the Journal of Ancient History, studied the Alarodian languages, and translated in Russian the medieval Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli.
He was a well-known translator also: he translated The Knight in the Panther's Skin of Shota Rustaveli, Visramiani and other outstanding literary works in Russian.