page_title: Ilia Chavchavadze
section_title: Political life
hierarchical_section_title: Ilia Chavchavadze / Political life
caption_attribution_description: Newspaper "Iveria", 1889 Georgia Pre-1921 image, unknown author, very old image paken in 1889 in Tiflis
context_page_description: Prince Ilia Chavchavadze was a Georgian writer, political figure, poet, and publisher who spearheaded the revival of the Georgian national movement in the second half of the 19th century, during the Russian rule of Georgia. He is Georgia's "most universally revered hero."
  Inspired by the contemporary liberal movements in Europe, as a writer and a public figure, 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, Letters of a Traveler and Is a man a human?!. He was editor-in-chief of the periodicals Sakartvelos Moambe and Iveria, and authored numerous articles for journals. He was a devoted protector of the Georgian language and culture from Russification. He is considered the main contributor of Georgian cultural nationalism. The three main ethnic markers of Georgian identity, according to Chavchavadze, consisted of territory, language, and religion. Despite this, his nationalism was secular.
  Chavchavadze was fatally wounded in Tsitsamuri, outside Mtskheta, by a gang of assassins.
context_section_description: 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.'"
caption: Newspaper "Iveria" (Iberia) founded and edited by Chavchavadze during his political career. The newspaper focused on the national liberation movement of Georgia in the late 1800s.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2006:11:02 13:08:47", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2698", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "354", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "508"}