Vaja-Pshavela (Georgian: ვაჟა-ფშაველა, IPA: [vaʒa pʰʃavɛla]; sometimes spelled as Vazha-Pshavela; July 26, 1861-July 10, 1915) is the pen-name of the Georgian poet and writer Luka P. Razikashvili (Georgian: ლუკა რაზიკაშვილი, IPA: [lukʼa razikʼaʃvili]), a classic of the new Georgian literature.

Vaja-Pshavela was born in a small village Chargali (Pshavi mountainous province in Eastern Georgia) in a family of clergyman. He graduated from the Pedagogical Seminary in Gori 1882, where he became close to Georgian populists (narodniki). Then 1883 entered Law Department of St. Petersburg University (Russia) as a non-credit student, but returned to Georgia in 1884 due to financial restraints. Worked as a teacher of Georgian language. He was also a famous representative of a National-Liberation movement of Georgia.

Vaja-Pshavela started his literature activities in mid-1880s. In his works, he portrayed everyday life and psychology of his contemporary Pshavs. Vaja-Pshavela is the author of many world-class literary works - 36 epics, about 400 poems ("Aluda Ketelauri", "Bakhtrioni", "Gogotur and Apshina", "Host and Guest", "Snake eater", "Eteri", "Mindia", etc.), plays, and stories, as well as ethnographic, journalistic, and critic articles. He pictured the highlanders' life almost exactly ethnographically and still recreated an entire world of mythological concepts. In his poetry, the poet addressed the heroic past of his people and appealed to the struggle against external and internal enemies (poems A Wounded Snow Leopard (1890), A Letter of a Pshav Soldier to His Mother (1915), etc.).