Giorgi Kvinitadze

Giorgi Kvinitadze ( _ka. გიორგი კვინიტაძე; _ru. Георгий Иванович Квинитадзе, "Georgy Ivanovich Kvinitadze"; his real surname was Chikovani, ჩიქოვანი) (1874–1970) was a Georgian military commander who rose from an officer in the Imperial Russian army to commander-in-chief of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. After sovietization of Georgia, Kvinitadze went into exile to France, where he wrote his memoirs of the 1917-1921 events in Georgia.

Biography

Born into the family of a colonel of the Russian army in Dagestan, Kvinitadze entered the Tiflis (Tbilisi) Cadet Corps in 1884, and then continued his military education at St Constantine Infantry School, St Petersburg. In 1894, he enlisted in the 153rd Vladikavkaz regiment and then served in Poland. Having fought in the Japanese war (1904–1905), he graduated, in 1910, from the General Staff Academy and was enlisted in the Caucasian Military District headquarters as a captain. During the World War I, in 1916, he was promoted to colonel and appointed a chief of staff of the 4th Caucasian Riffle Division. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Kvinitadze, now major general, served as a Deputy Minister of War for the provisional Transcaucasus Commissariat and was for a short period of time commander of the Transcaucasian forces before becoming the Commander in Chief of the army of a newly independent Georgia in 1918. He resigned shortly thereafter due to his disagreement with the Menshevik leadership of the country. Later that year, however, he returned to military service in the capacity of Chief of Staff during the war with Armenia. In 1919, he commanded the Georgian troops that defeated Muslim revolutionaries in the Akhaltsikhe province, and occupied, on April 20 1919, the hitherto Turkish-held city of Artvin. He helped to establish a military school in Tiflis and served as its Commandant before being made Commander-in-Chief of Georgian army again early in May 1920, when the Bolsheviks attempted a coup d’etat. He happened still to be on the spot when the Bolsheviks assaulted the military school as a preliminary to a coup. Kvinitadze, with his cadets, put up a stout resistance and successfully defended the building. Days later, he, in the head of the Georgian army, rolled back an attempt by the Soviet Russian troops to penetrate from Azerbaijan. During the Red Army invasion of Georgia of 1921, he was reappointed the Commander-in-Chief. After Georgia’s defeat in the war in March 1921, he had to leave for France, where he died on August 7 1970. He was buried at the Georgian Cemetery of Leuville-sur-Orge. A street in Tbilisi, where the headquarters of Georgia’s Ministry of Defense are located, has been named after Kvinitadze since 2006. [ [http://www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=11&sm=3&st=615&id=150 Khvamli Street named after General Kvinitadze] (April 12 2006). Ministry of Defense of Georgia. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.] Kvinitadze fathered three daughters, of whom the youngest, Nano, married a Dutchman d’Abo; they are the parents of the French actress Maryam d'Abo.

Memoirs

Kvinitadze’s Russian-language book My Memoirs from the Years of Independence of Georgia, 1917–1921 (Мои воспоминания в годы независимости Грузии, 1917-1921) first appeared in Paris in 1985 and was published in a Georgian translation in 1998. Writing most of the memoir in 1922, a year after the loss of Georgia’s sovietization, Kvinitadze provides new details and personal observations about the troubled years of 1917-1921. In addition to being a military chronicle written by a participant of those events, Kvinitadze’s memoirs are a political commentary, directing harsh criticism at the Mensheviks, accusing them of undermining the state and alienating the Georgian people with their socialist and internationalist rhetoric, incompetence and failure to defend the country against the anticipated foreign intervention. [Hovannisian, Richard G. "Moi vospominaniia v gody nezavisimosti Gruzii, 1917-1921" by G. I. Kvinitadze. "Russian Review", Vol. 46, No. 1 (Jan., 1987), p. 99.]

Along with Zurab Avalishvili’s historical works, Kvinitadze’s memoirs are considered one of the best firsthand accounts of Georgia’s short-lived independence written abroad.Rayfield, Donald (2000), "", p. 314. Routledge, ISBN 0-7007-1163-5.]

References