GIORGI GOTSIRIDZE, NINO GAMBASHIDZE LITURGIC NATURE OF THE GEORGIAN TRADITIONAL FEASTS, EXULTATIONS AND FESTIVE HYMNS

There is nothing original in saying that music is an integral and indispensable part of traditional Georgian feasts. Drinking songs and entertainment together with the verbal aspects of eloquence build up a table communication system. The roots of Georgian feasts go back to the ancient beliefs and images, at the same time defining the essence of musical accompaniment. The phenomenon of Georgian repasts has attracted attention of a great number of researchers who attempted to study it from various angles. It has also become the subject of research for sociologists, writers, psychologists and others. We are not going to dwell upon a great number of mutually exclusive and curious opinions existing about the Georgian feast. We find it only expedient to mention that quite a number of existing views are formed as a result of observing the transformed, altered and distorted traditions of the modern Georgian feast, which has nothing to do with its past true nature and in a lot of cases, to put it mildly, cannot be treated seriously,. The deity, the object of worship was the centre around which the community and the social milieu was united and at the culminating moment of common worshi