Ioseb Iremashvili
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Ioseb Iremashvili ( ka, იოსებ ირემაშვილი, , , 1878–1944) was a Georgian politician and author. A boyhood friend, and later political adversary, of
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
, he is primarily known for his book ''Stalin und die Tragödie Georgiens'' ("Stalin and the Tragedy of Georgia',
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, 1932), the first
memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...
of Stalin's childhood.


Biography

Both Stalin and Iremashvili grew up in
Gori, Georgia Gori ( ka, გორი ) is a city in eastern Georgia (country), Georgia, which serves as the mkhare, regional Capital (political), capital of Shida Kartli. It is located at the confluence of two rivers, the Mtkvari and the Liakhvi River, Liakh ...
(then part of the
Tiflis Governorate Tiflis Governorate was a province ('' guberniya'') of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire with its administrative centre in Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi). In 1897, it constituted in area and had a population of 1,051,032 inhabitants. ...
,
Imperial Russia Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * ...
), where they attended a local church school. Later, they studied together at Tiflis Theological Seminary. A member of the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...
, Iremashvili was involved in the revolutionary activities in
Transcaucasia The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and West Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Armenia, ...
and joined the
Menshevik The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...
faction which quickly became a dominant political force in Georgia. After 1917, he worked as a teacher at
Tiflis Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი, ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), ( ka, ტფილისი, tr ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia ( ...
and was elected to the Constituent Assembly of Georgia in 1919. In February 1921, the Soviet Russian Red Army invaded Georgia and put an end to its three-year independence. Iremashvili, like several other Georgian Mensheviks, was placed in the Metekhi prison, but was then released through the efforts of his sister who negotiated with Stalin during his visit to Tiflis in July 1921. In October 1921, sixty-two arrested Mensheviks, including Iremashvili, were deported to
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
where he was granted a
political asylum The right of asylum, sometimes called right of political asylum (''asylum'' ), is a juridical concept, under which people persecuted by their own rulers might be protected by another sovereignty, sovereign authority, such as a second country or ...
. Having settled in Berlin, he engaged in Georgian émigré activities aimed at enlisting
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’s support to the Georgian independence cause.


Memoirs

In 1932, he published, in German, his memoirs, ''Stalin und die Tragödie Georgiens'' ("Stalin and the Tragedy of Georgia"). Published in emigration and immune to Soviet censure, the book, although hostile to Stalin, is considered the only independent contemporary account of Stalin's youth and his early years in Georgia, and has proven a vital source for Stalin biographers. In his memoirs, Iremashvili relates many details of the Gori life of Soso (Stalin's childhood name), with particular emphasis of his brutal treatment at the hands of his father, Vissarion Dzhugashvili. The primary deduction made by Iremashvili based upon his account was followed by several psychobiographers, most notably by Gustav Bychowski and Daniel Rancour-Lafferiere, which consider beatings the key psychological determination of the future dictator.Suny, Ronald Grigor (Spring, 1991), Beyond Psychohistory: The Young Stalin in Georgia. ''
Slavic Review The ''Slavic Review'' is a major peer-reviewed academic journal publishing scholarly studies, book and film reviews, and review essays in all disciplines concerned with "Eastern Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, past and present". ...
'', Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 48-58.
Iremashvili also reports that the young Stalin voluntarily terminated his studies at the Seminary, and was not expelled for his revolutionary activity as stated in the Soviet leader's official biography. In addition, he claims that Soso's parents were ethnic
Ossetians The Ossetians ( or ; ),Merriam-Webster (2021), s.v"Ossete" also known as Ossetes ( ), Ossets ( ), and Alans ( ), are an Iranian peoples, Iranian ethnic group who are indigenous to Ossetia, a region situated across the northern and southern side ...
, thus explaining Stalin's particularly hard-line policy towards independent Georgia and his excessive harshness in suppressing anti-Soviet opposition in the
Georgian SSR The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Georgia, the Georgian SSR, or simply Georgia, was one of the republics of the Soviet Union from its second occupation (by the Red Army) in 1921 to its independence in 1991. Cotermin ...
in the 1920s.


References

*Rumyantsev, Vyacheslav (ed., 2004)
Иремашвили Иосиф
''Хронос''. Retrieved on April 23, 2007.


External links


''Stalin und die Tragödie Georgiens'' von Dr. Joseph Iremaschwili
(An excerpt from Iremashvili's memoirs). {{DEFAULTSORT:Iremashvili, Ioseb 1878 births 1944 deaths Politicians from Georgia (country) Memoirists from Georgia (country) German-language writers Mensheviks People from Gori, Georgia Personal staff of Joseph Stalin Soviet writers Georgian exiles