lasha bugadze

Lasha Bugadze

Lasha Bugadze is one of the writers Sulakauri cooperates with since 1998. In his early 20’s Bugadze’s name was spread all over the country after the reading of his short story The First Russian at the Georgian Parliament. As it described the failure of the first sexual experience of a Georgian saint, a flood of threats were directed towards the author from the church and society. Religious leaders summoned him to the residence of the Patriarch and told him that he would be excommunicated from the Georgian Orthodox Church and rejected by the public if he did not apologize publically for his work. From time to time he received anonymous death threats. Many politicians in the Parliament demanded to activate censorship in Georgia to avoid similar publications. 

The incident greatly defined the themes of L. Bugadze’s works: censorship, Soviet inertia in the post-Soviet states, adultery, and the flaws of Georgian mentality are the main topics of the writer who sustains a constant sense of humor within the tragedy.