The Museum evolved from the Museum of the Caucasian Department of the Russian Imperial Geographic Society, founded on May 10, 1852 and converted into the Caucasian Museum on the initiative of the German explorer Gustav Radde in 1865. After Georgia regained independence from Russia (1918), the museum was renamed into the Museum of Georgia in 1919. Noe Kipiani was the first director of the museum. A bulk of its collection was evacuated by the Government of Georgia to Europe following the Bolshevik takeover of the country in 1921, and was returned to Soviet Georgia through the efforts of the Georgian émigré scholar Ekvtime Takaishvili in 1945. In 1947, the Museum was named after the late Georgian historian Simon Janashia. The Museum suffered significantly during the years of post-Soviet turmoil in Georgia early in the 1990s. It was first damaged in fighting during the military coup in 1991-2 and then part of its collection was destroyed by a fire. In 2004, the Janashia Museum was integrated with other leading Georgian museums under a joint management system of the Georgian National Museum.