Ilia Chavchavadze
| Prince ილია ჭავჭავაძე Ilia Chavchavadze | |
|---|---|
 Ilia Chavchavadze by Alexander Roinashvili | |
| Born |
8 November 1837 Kvareli, Kakheti, Georgia |
| Died |
12 September 1907 (aged 69) Tsitsamuri, outside Mtskheta, Georgia |
| Resting place | Mtatsminda Pantheon |
| Occupation | jurist, poet, novelist, humanist, publisher, philosopher |
| Nationality | Georgian |
| Literary movement | Realism, Historical fiction |
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| Signature |
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Prince Ilia Chavchavadze (Georgian: ილია ჭავჭავაძე) (1837–1907) was a Georgian writer, poet, journalist and lawyer who spearheaded the revival of the Georgian national movement in the second half of the 19th century, during the Russian rule of Georgia. Today he is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern Georgia.
In 1987 he was canonized as Saint Ilia the Righteous (Georgian: წმინდა ილია მართალი) by the Georgian Orthodox Church. Today, Georgians revere Chavchavadze as Pater Patriae (Father of the Fatherland) of Georgia.[1]
Inspired by the contemporary liberal movements in Europe, as a writer and a public figure, Ilia Chavchavadze directed much of his efforts toward awakening national ideals in Georgians and to the creation of a stable society in his homeland.
His most important literary works were: The Hermit, The Ghost, Otaraant Widow, Kako The Robber, Happy Nation, Latters of a Traveller and Is a man a human?!. He was editor-in-chief of the Georgian periodicals Sakartvelos Moambe (1863–1877) and Iveria (1877–1905), and authored numerous articles for journals. Most of his work dealt with Georgia and Georgians. He was a devoted protector of the Georgian language and culture from Russification.
Chavchavadze was fatally wounded by a gang of assassins, led by Gigla Berbichashvili, in Tsitsamuri, outside Mtskheta. His legacy earned him the broad admiration of the Georgian people.
Life
Ancestry and early life
Ilia Chavchavadze was born in Kvareli, a village located in the Alazani Valley, in the Kakheti province of Georgia, which was part of the Russian Empire at that time. Ilia was a tavadi, the Georgian title of prince. It is thought that the noble Chavchavadze family came from the Pshav-Khevsureti region of Georgia, and, in 1726, King Constantine II granted the Chavchavadze family the rank of Prince in recognition of their knighthood and valor to the nation. This resulted in the family moving and settling in the Alazani Gorge in Kakheti. According to King Erekle II's order, Ilia's great grandfather, Bespaz Chavchavadze was knighted when he defeated twenty thousand Persian invaders in Kvareli in 1755.
Ilia was the third son of Grigol Chavchavadze and Mariam Beburishvili. Grigol, like his father and his famous ancestors, had a military background. He, along with the local militiamen protected the village from numerous Dagestani invasions. This can be seen in the architecture of the Ilia Chavchavadze museum house in Kvareli, incorporating a Medieval castle style in the two-storey castle in the yard, which was designed to protect the house during invasions.
Ilia's mother, Mariam, died on 4 May 1848, when Ilia was ten years old, and his father asked his sister, Makrine, to help bring up the children. Aunt Makrine had a significant impact on Ilia's life, because, after 1852, when Ilia's father Grigol died, she was the only remaining caretaker of the family.
Ch'avch'avadze was educated at the elementary level by the deacon of the village before he moved to Tbilisi where he attended the prestigious Academy for Nobility in 1848. However, from an early age, Ilia was influenced by his parents who were highly educated in classical literature, Georgian history and poetry. From his parents, Ilia learned the inspiring stories of Georgian heroism in classical historical novels. In his autobiography, Ilia refers to his mother, Princess Mariam Chavchavadze, who knew most Georgian novels and poems by heart and encouraged her children to study them. Ilia also described the influence of the deacon's storytelling, which gave him an artistic inspiration, later applied in his novel writing.
In 1848, after the death of Princess Chavchavadze, Ilia was sent to Tbilisi by his father to begin his secondary education. Ilia attended a private school for three years before he entered the 1st Academy of Tbilisi in 1851. Soon after, Ilia's father died and Aunt Makrine looked after the family. His secondary school years were very stressful, due to his father's death. However, the Chavchavadze family suffered another devastating blow when Ilia's brother, Constantine, was killed during the Dagestani raid on Kakheti. Ilia expressed his anguish and grief in one of his first short-poems called Sorrow of a Poor Man. In addition to his personal problems, the political situation in Georgia worsened under the harsh authority of the Russian Empire, which played a destructive role to the nation and its culture.
Student years
After graduating from the academy, Ilia decided to continue his education at the University of St. Petersburg, Russia. Before leaving for St. Petersburg, Ilia composed one of his most remarkable poems, To the Mountains of Kvareli in the village of Kardanakhi on 15 April 1857, where he expressed his lifelong admiration for the Greater Caucasus Mountains and his sorrow at leaving his homeland.
That same year, Ilia was admitted to the University of St. Petersburg. During his student years, numerous revolutions sprang up in Europe which Ilia observed with great interest. Ilia's attention focused on the events in Italy and the struggle of Giuseppe Garibaldi, whom he admired for many years. While in St.Petersburg, Ilia met Princess Catherine Chavchavadze, from whom he learned about the poetry and lyrics of the Georgian romantic Prince Nik'oloz Baratashvili. Due to the harsh climate in St Petersburg, Ilia became very ill and returned to Georgia for several months in 1859.
Ilia finally returned to Georgia after the completion of his studies in 1861. During his journey back, Ilia wrote one of his greatest masterpieces, The Travelers' Diaries, where he outlines the importance of nation-building and provides an allegorical comparison of Mt. Kazbegi and the Tergi River in the Khevi region of Georgia.
Political life
Ilia's main political and social goals were based on Georgian patriotism. He radically advocated the revival of the use of the Georgian language, the cultivation of Georgian literature, the revival of autocephalous status for the Georgian national church, and, finally, the revival of Georgian statehood, which had ended when the country became part of the Russian Empire. As the number of supporters for his ideas grew, so did opposition among the leading Social Democrats like the Menshevik Noe Zhordania; their main aims were focused on battling the Tsarist autocracy and a democratic transformation of the Russian empire. This did not include the revival of a Georgian state or of a Georgian self-identity. Ilia was viewed as bourgeois and as an old aristocrat who failed to realize the importance of the revolutionary tide.
In addition to his works described above, he was also the founder and chairman of many public, cultural and educational organizations (Society for the Spreading of Literacy Among Georgians, "The Bank of the Nobility", "The Dramatic Society", "The Historical-Ethnographical Society of Georgia", etc.). He was also a translator of British literature. His main literary works were translated and published in French, English, German, Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian and other languages. Between 1906 and 1907, he was a member of the State Council (Gosudarstvennaya Duma) in Russia. His eclectic interests also led him to be a member of, among others, the Caucasian Committee of the Geographical Society of Russia, the Society of Ethnography and Anthropology of Moscow University, the Society of Orientalists of Russia and the Anglo-Russian Literary Society (London).
Prince Chavchavadze briefly acted as a literary mentor to a young Joseph Stalin, who was then an Orthodox seminarian in Tbilisi. According to historian Simon Sebag Montefiore,"The Prince was sufficiently impressed to show the teenagers 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.'"[2]
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 Ilia Chavchavadze was murdered by a gang of six assassins who ambushed him and his wife Olga while traveling from Tbilisi to Saguramo, near Mtskheta. The assassination of Ilia Chavchavadze remains controversial today. Based on recent discoveries in archives, the plot to assassinate Ilia is believed to have been a joint operation by both the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks wings of Social Democrats, due to Ilia's condemnation of their revolutionary views, his socially conservative vision for Georgian nationalism, and his tremendous popularity among the public.
Author and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore suspects that a young Joseph Stalin may have been involved in planning the Prince's murder. 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 friend Sergo Ordzhonikidze organized or took part in the assassination. It may be that the SDs took no part in the murder at all. Stalin always praised Chavchavandze'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."[3]
During World War II, an old man confessed to having been hired by the Tsarist Okhrana to assassinate Ilia. During the Soviet period, an investigation was launched by the Soviet authorities which later concluded that the Tsarist secret police and administration had been involved in the assassination.
Either way, the Prince's murder was seen as a national tragedy which was mourned by all strata of Georgian society. Prince Ak'ak'i Tsereteli, who was suffering from serious health problems at the time, spoke at the funeral and dedicated an outstanding oration to Ilia: "Ilia's inestimable contribution to the revival of the Georgian nation is an example for future generations".[4]
Legacy
In 1987, Prince Chavchavadze was formally canonized by the Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic Church, as "Saint Ilia the Righteous."
As a result of Ilia's death, the Georgian Social Democrats, especially the Mensheviks, started to gain significant power and support among the population. Eventually, after the temporary disengagement of Russia from Transcaucasia, Georgian Mensheviks decided to revive Georgian statehood and proclaimed the independence on 26 May 1918. After the Bolshevik occupation of Georgia and integration into the Soviet Union in 1921, Ilia became for Georgian nationalists the symbol of Georgian freedom and national liberation. In 1989, during the anti-Soviet protests in Tbilisi, the poems, novels and political life of Ilia Chavchavadze became a driving force behind the Georgian struggle for independence. The idea of National revival, which Ilia preached and advocated in various Georgian societies throughout his life, gained in momentum in 1990. In 2002, Mikheil Saakashvili, a young Georgian politician who was educated in the United States, created a movement which claimed the political legacy of Ilia Chavchavadze's party, known as the United National Movement. Mikheil Saakashvili's National Movement party played a major role in the so-called Rose Revolution of 2003 which ousted President Eduard Shevardnadze.
Important publications of the works of Ilia Chavchavadze
- Georgische Dichter. Translated and compiled by Arthur Leist, Dresden-Leipzig, 1887 (Poems of Ilia Chavchavadze and other Georgian poets, in German)
- The Hermit by Prince Ilia Chavchavadze. Translated from the Georgian by Marjory Wardrop, London, 1895
See also
References
- ↑ Socialism in Georgian Colors: The European Road to Social Democracy, 1883–1917, Stephen F. Jones
- ↑ Simon Sebag Montefiore, "Young Stalin," page 57.
- ↑ Simon Sebag Montefiore, "Young Stalin," page 179.
- ↑ David Marshal Lang, History of Modern Georgia, p. 176.
Resources
- Baron de Baie: Au nord de la chaine du Caucase souvenirs d'une mission", Paris, 1899 (in French)
- Baron de Baie: Tiflis souvenirs d'une mission, Paris, 1900 (in French)
- Companjen, Françoise J., "Between Tradition and Modernity". Amsterdam 2004, pp. 167–171 (in English)
- Leist, Arthur: Das georgische Volk, Dresden, 1903 (in German)
- Lehman-Haupt, C.F. : Reisen und Forschungen, Berlin, 1910, pp. 106–111 (in German)
- 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
- Wardrop, Oliver The Kingdom of Georgia, London, 1888, pp. 150–152
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ilia Chavchavadze. |
- Sharadze, Guram (ed., 1987).Ilia Chavchavadze works, translated by Marjory and Oliver Wardrops. Tbilisi: Ganatleba, 1987. Online version at NPLG.
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