Ilia Chavchavadze

Tavadi (Prince) Ilia Chavchavadze ( ka, ილია ჭავჭავაძე; 27 October 1837 – 12 September 1907) was a Georgian journalist, publisher, writer and poet who spearheaded the revival of Georgian nationalism during the second half of the 19th century in the period of Tsarist rule. He has been called Georgia's "most universally revered hero" and the "Father of the Nation."

He was a leader of contemporary youth intellectual movement named "Tergdaleulebi" which spread modern and European liberal ideals in Georgia. Chavchavadze founded two modern newspapers: ''Sakartvelos Moambe'' and '' Iveria''.

He coined the phrase "Ena, Mamuli, Sartsmunoeba" ("Language, Homeland, Faith"), a slogan of Georgian nationalism.

During the 1905 Russian Revolution Chavchavadze was elected as a representative of the Georgian nobility to the imperial State Council.

Chavchavadze was killed in Tsitsamuri, near Mtskheta, by a gang of assassins. In 1987 he was canonized as Saint Ilia the Righteous (, ''tsminda ilia martali'') by the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Biography

Ancestry and early life

Chavchavadze was born in Qvareli, a village in Kvareli, located in the Alazani Valley, in the Kakheti province of Georgia, which was part of the Russian Empire at that time.

His mother, Mariam, died on 4 May 1848, when he was ten years old, and his father asked his sister, Makrine, to help bring up the children. After 1852, when his father Grigol died she was the only remaining caretaker of the family.

In 1848, after the death of his mother, he was sent to Tbilisi by his father to begin his secondary education.

Student years

After graduating from the academy, Chavchavadze attended University of St. Petersburg, Russia.

Political life

In the 1860s, "Tergdaleulebi", the new generation of Georgian intellectuals, educated at Russian universities and exposed to European ideas, promoted national culture against assimilation by the Imperial center. Led by Chavchavadze, their program attained more nationalist colors as the nobility declined and capitalism progressed, further stimulated by the rule of the Russian bureaucracy and economic and demographic dominance of the Armenian bourgeoisie in the capital city of Tbilisi. Chavchavadze prominently founded "The Bank of the Nobility" of Tbilisi, to keep Georgian land from being sold off by poor Georgian nobles to Armenian bourgeoisie. In his work ''Outcrying Stones'', Chavchavadze said Armenians falsified Georgian history, buying up Georgian land and appropriating Georgian churches, as well as indebting poor Georgian peasant families. Chavchavadze said in his newspaper ''Iveria'' they were "eating the bread baked by someone else or drinking that which is created by another's sweat", and "sly moneylenders and unscrupulous traders". He also created slogan "Language, Homeland, Religion", which was a motto of Georgian nationalism. Chavchavadze and his associates called for the unity of all Georgians and put national interests above class and provincial divisions. They did not envisage an outright revolt for independence, demanding autonomy within the reformed Russian Empire, with greater cultural freedom, promotion of the Georgian language, and support for Georgian educational institutions and the national church, whose independence had been suppressed by the Russian government.

Chavchavadze knew Joseph Stalin when Stalin was an Orthodox seminarian in Tbilisi. According to historian Simon Sebag Montefiore: "The Prince was sufficiently impressed to show the teenager's work to his editors. He admired Stalin's verse, choosing five poems to publish – quite an achievement. Prince Chavchavadze called Stalin the 'young man with the burning eyes.'"

Death

After serving as a member of the Upper House in the first Russian Duma, Ilia decided to return to Georgia in 1907. On 28 August 1907, while travelling with his wife Olga from Tbilisi to Saguramo, Chavchavadze was ambushed and murdered by a crew of six assassins in the small village of Tsitsamuri, near Mtskheta.

His murder was seen as a national tragedy and was mourned by all classes of Georgian society. Prince Akaki Tsereteli, who was suffering from serious health problems at the time, said at the funeral: "Ilia's inestimable contribution to the revival of the Georgian nation is an example for future generations".

The news coverage of the assassination was primarily limited to a single newspaper called Isari (ისარი).

Investigation

In 1907, the Tsarist authorities launched investigation into Chavchavadze's death and arrested four suspects: Giorgi Khizanishvili, Ivane Inashvili, Gigola Modzghvrishvili and Tedo Labauri. One suspect (Gigla Berbichashvili, the head of the crew) went into hiding in Iran, while another one (Pavle Aptsiauri) died during clashes with the police. According to investigation, during the incident Chavchavadze appealed to the crew: "Do not shoot, I am Ilia", while Gigla replied: "That's why we have to shoot you". In 1909, according to the decision of the Stolypin tribunal, the entire gang was sentenced to capital punishment. Following the October Revolution, Gigla Berbichashvili returned to Georgia in 1921 and worked in the various positions within the Soviet Georgian government. In 1936, the investigation was launched against him for participating the murder of Ilia Chavchavadze. In December 1941, he was tried in the court, which sentenced him to capital punishment in January 1942. However, this was later changed to 10 years imprisonment.

Theories

The assassination of Ilia Chavchavadze remains controversial today. The Tsarist investigation concluded that the murderers were part of Bolshevik "Red Squad", while the Soviet investigation blamed the Tsarist secret police and administration for being involved in the assassination. The unofficial versions mostly blame Bolsheviks as well as Mensheviks for orchestrating the murder. Chavchavadze had publicly and very successfully undermined the growth of both Bolshevik and Menshevik factions of the Social Democratic Labour Party.

According to Montefiore: "The Bolshevik position in Georgia was undermined by the assassination of the hugely popular Prince Ilya Chavchavadze, in August 1907. The Bolsheviks had attacked his patriarchal vision of Georgian culture and, it was widely believed, had decided to kill him. There is some evidence that Stalin's friends Sergo Ordzhonikidze and Filipp Makharadze organized or took part in the assassination. It may be that the SDs took no part in the murder at all. Stalin always praised Chavchavadze's poetry in his old age and there is no evidence that he ordered the hit, but he was very close to Sergo and he was certainly more than capable of separating literary merit from cruel necessity: politics always came first."

Legacy

In 1987 Chavchavadze was formally canonized by the Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic Church, as "Saint Ilia the Righteous."

In 1998 Stephen Kinzer wrote: "Today leftists in Georgia embrace Chavchavadze for his hatred of injustice, centrists love him for his nonviolent humanism, and right-wing nationalists have adopted his slogan ''Motherland, Language, Faith.''" Faith, in this context, exclusively means Georgian Orthodoxy.

In 2006, Ilia State University was named after Ilia Chavchavadze. Streets and avenues named after him include Tbilisi's central avenue, Ilia Chavchavadze Avenue.

Published works

* ''Georgian Poetry: Rustaveli to Galaktion: A Bilingual Anthology''. Translations by Lyn Coffin, with the assistance of Gia Jokhadze, featuring an introduction by Dodona Kiziria. Slavica, Bloomington, Indiana, 2013.
* ''Georgische Dichter''. Translated and compiled by Arthur Leist, Dresden-Leipzig, 1887 (Poems of Ilia Chavchavadze and other Georgian poets, in German)
*
The Hermit
' by Chavchavadze. Translated from the Georgian by Marjory Wardrop, London: Bernard Quaritch, 1895

See also

* Chavchavadze
* List of Georgian writers
* Ilia State University

References

Sources

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* Reisner, Oliver: ''The Tergdaleulebi: Founders of Georgian National Identity''. In: Ladislaus Löb, István Petrovics, György E. Szonyi (eds.): ''Forms of Identity: Definitions and Changes''. Attila Jozsef University, Szeged 1994, pp. 125–37
*

External links

* Sharadze, Guram (ed., 1987).''Ilia Chavchavadze works, translated by Marjory and Oliver Wardrops''. Tbilisi: Ganatleba, 1987
Online version
at NPLG.

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