The Most Famous
POLITICIANS from Georgia
This page contains a list of the greatest Georgian Politicians. The pantheon dataset contains 19,576 Politicians, 94 of which were born in Georgia. This makes Georgia the birth place of the 35th most number of Politicians behind Finland, and Afghanistan.
Top 10
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Georgian Politicians of all time. This list of famous Georgian Politicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Georgian Politicians.
1. Joseph Stalin (1879 - 1953)
With an HPI of 89.54, Joseph Stalin is the most famous Georgian Politician. His biography has been translated into 194 different languages on wikipedia.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1941 until his death. Initially governing as part of a collective leadership, Stalin consolidated power to become dictator by the 1930s; the totalitarian political system which he established is known as Stalinism. Born into a poor Georgian family in Gori, Russian Empire, Stalin attended the Tiflis Spiritual Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He edited the party's newspaper, Pravda and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction via robberies, kidnappings and protection rackets. Repeatedly arrested, he underwent several internal exiles to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution and created a one-party state under the new Communist Party in 1917, Stalin joined its governing Politburo. Serving in the Russian Civil War before overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in 1922, Stalin assumed leadership over the country following Lenin's death in 1924. Under Stalin, socialism in one country became a central tenet of the party's ideology. As a result of his Five-Year Plans, the country underwent agricultural collectivisation and rapid industrialisation, creating a centralised command economy. Severe disruptions to food production contributed to the famine of 1930–33. To eradicate those deemed "enemies of the working class", Stalin instituted the Great Purge using the Gulag system of forced labour camps. Stalin promoted Marxism–Leninism abroad through the Communist International and supported European anti-fascist movements during the 1930s, particularly in the Spanish Civil War. In 1939, his regime signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, enabling the Soviet invasion of Poland. Germany ended the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941, after which Stalin joined the Allies as one of the "Big Three". Despite huge losses, the Soviet Red Army repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. The Soviet Union, which had annexed the Baltic states and territories from Finland and Romania amid the war, established Soviet-aligned governments in Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as global superpowers and entered a period of tension known as the Cold War. Stalin presided over the country's post-war reconstruction and its first test of an atomic bomb in 1949. During these years, the country experienced another major famine and a state-sponsored antisemitic campaign which culminated in the "doctors' plot". After Stalin's death in 1953, he was eventually succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who in 1956 denounced his rule and initiated the "de-Stalinisation" of Soviet society. Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the international Marxist–Leninist movement, for whom Stalin was a champion of socialism and the working class. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Stalin has retained popularity in Russia and Georgia as a victorious wartime leader who established the Soviet Union as a major world power. Conversely, his totalitarian government has been widely condemned for overseeing mass repressions, ethnic cleansing, executions, and famines which caused the deaths of millions.
2. Attila (406 - 453)
With an HPI of 84.97, Attila is the 2nd most famous Georgian Politician. His biography has been translated into 104 different languages.
Attila ( ə-TIL-ə or AT-il-ə; fl. c. 406–453), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death, in early 453. He was also the leader of an empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Bulgars, among others, in Central and Eastern Europe. As nephews to Rugila, Attila and his elder brother Bleda succeeded him to the throne in 435, ruling jointly until the death of Bleda in 445. During his reign, Attila was one of the most feared enemies of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. He crossed the Danube twice and plundered the Balkans but was unable to take Constantinople. In 441, he led an invasion of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, the success of which emboldened him to invade the West. He also attempted to conquer Roman Gaul (modern France), crossing the Rhine in 451 and marching as far as Aurelianum (Orléans), before being stopped in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. He subsequently invaded Italy, devastating the northern provinces, but was unable to take Rome. He planned for further campaigns against the Romans but died in 453. After Attila's death, his close adviser, Ardaric of the Gepids, led a Germanic revolt against Hunnic rule, after which the Hunnic Empire quickly collapsed. Attila lived on as a character in Germanic heroic legend.
3. Darius the Great (-550 - -486)
With an HPI of 80.81, Darius the Great is the 3rd most famous Georgian Politician. His biography has been translated into 90 different languages.
Darius I (Old Persian: 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 Dārayavaʰuš; Greek: Δαρεῖος Dareios; c. 550 – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of Western Asia, parts of the Balkans (Thrace–Macedonia and Paeonia) and the Caucasus, most of the Black Sea's coastal regions, Central Asia, the Indus Valley in the far east, and portions of North Africa and Northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya), eastern Libya, and coastal Sudan. Darius ascended the throne by overthrowing the Achaemenid monarch Bardiya (or Smerdis), who he claimed was in fact an imposter named Gaumata. The new king met with rebellions throughout the empire but quelled each of them; a major event in Darius's life was his expedition to subjugate Greece and punish Athens and Eretria for their participation in the Ionian Revolt. Although his campaign ultimately resulted in failure at the Battle of Marathon, he succeeded in the re-subjugation of Thrace and expanded the Achaemenid Empire through his conquests of Macedonia, the Cyclades, and the island of Naxos. Darius organized the empire by dividing it into administrative provinces, each governed by a satrap. He organized Achaemenid coinage as a new uniform monetary system, and he made Aramaic a co-official language of the empire alongside Persian. He also put the empire in better standing by building roads and introducing standard weights and measures. Through these changes, the Achaemenid Empire became centralized and unified. Darius undertook other construction projects throughout his realm, primarily focusing on Susa, Pasargadae, Persepolis, Babylon, and Egypt. He had an inscription carved upon a cliff-face of Mount Behistun to record his conquests, which would later become important evidence of the Old Persian language. Darius is mentioned in the books of Haggai, Zechariah, Daniel, and Ezra–Nehemiah of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament).
4. Eduard Shevardnadze (1928 - 2014)
With an HPI of 72.69, Eduard Shevardnadze is the 4th most famous Georgian Politician. His biography has been translated into 84 different languages.
Eduard Ambrosis dze Shevardnadze (Georgian: ედუარდ ამბროსის ძე შევარდნაძე, romanized: Eduard Ambrosis dze Shevardnadze; 25 January 1928 – 7 July 2014) was a Soviet and Georgian politician and diplomat who governed Georgia for several non-consecutive periods from 1972 until his resignation in 2003 and also served as the final Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1985 to 1990. Shevardnadze started his political career in the late 1940s as a leading member of his local Komsomol organisation. He was later appointed its Second Secretary, then its First Secretary. His rise in the Georgian Soviet hierarchy continued until 1961 when he was demoted after he insulted a senior official. After spending two years in obscurity, Shevardnadze returned as a First Secretary of a Tbilisi city district, and was able to charge the Tbilisi First Secretary at the time with corruption. His anti-corruption work quickly garnered the interest of the Soviet government and Shevardnadze was appointed as First Deputy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR. He would later become the head of the internal affairs ministry and was able to charge First Secretary (leader of Soviet Georgia) Vasil Mzhavanadze with corruption. He served as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party (GPC) from 1972 to 1985, which made him the de facto leader of Georgia. As First Secretary, Shevardnadze started several economic reforms, which would spur economic growth in the republic—an uncommon occurrence in the Soviet Union because the country was experiencing a nationwide economic stagnation. Shevardnadze's anti-corruption campaign continued until he resigned from his office as First Secretary. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev appointed Shevardnadze to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. He served in this position, with the exception of a brief interruption between 1990 and 1991, until the fall of the Soviet Union. During this time, only Gorbachev would outrank Shevardnadze in importance in Soviet foreign policy. Shevardnadze was responsible for many key decisions in Soviet foreign policy during the Gorbachev era, and was seen by the outside world as the face of Soviet reforms such as Perestroika. In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, Shevardnadze returned to the newly independent Republic of Georgia, after being asked to lead the country by the Military Council, which had recently deposed the country's first president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia. In 1992 Shevardnadze became the leader of Georgia (as Chairman of Parliament). He was formally elected as president in 1995. Under his rule, the peace treaty was signed in Sochi, which ended military hostilities in South Ossetia, although Georgia lost effective control over large part of the territory. In August 1992 the war broke out in Abkhazia, which Georgia also lost. Shevardnadze also headed the government in the civil war in 1993 against pro-Gamsakhurdia forces, which did not recognize Shevardnadze as a legitimate leader and tried to regain power. Shevardnadze signed Georgia up to the Commonwealth of Independent States, in return receiving help from Russia to end the conflict, although Georgia also deepened its ties with the European Union and the United States. It joined the Council of Europe in 1999 and declared its intention to join NATO in 2002. Shevardnadze oversaw large-scale privatization and other political and economic changes. His rule was marked by rampant corruption and accusations of nepotism. Allegations of electoral fraud during the 2003 legislative election led to a series of public protests and demonstrations colloquially known as the Rose Revolution. Eventually, Shevardnadze agreed to resign. He later published his memoirs and lived in relative obscurity until his death in 2014.
5. Tamar of Georgia (1166 - 1213)
With an HPI of 70.99, Tamar of Georgia is the 5th most famous Georgian Politician. Her biography has been translated into 54 different languages.
Tamar the Great (Georgian: თამარ მეფე, romanized: tamar mepe, lit. 'King Tamar'; c. 1160 – 18 January 1213) reigned as the Queen of Georgia from 1184 to 1213, presiding over the apex of the Georgian Golden Age. A member of the Bagrationi dynasty, her position as the first woman to rule Georgia in her own right was emphasized by the title mepe ("king"), afforded to Tamar in the medieval Georgian sources. Tamar was proclaimed heir and co-ruler by her reigning father George III in 1178, but she faced significant opposition from the aristocracy upon her ascension to full ruling powers after George's death. Tamar was successful in neutralizing this opposition and embarked on an energetic foreign policy aided by the decline of the hostile Seljuk Turks. Relying on a powerful military elite, Tamar was able to build on the successes of her predecessors to consolidate an empire which dominated the Caucasus until its collapse under the Mongol attacks within two decades after Tamar's death. Tamar was married twice, her first union being, from 1185 to 1187, to the prince Yuri of the Grand Principality of Vladimir, whom she divorced and expelled from the country, defeating his subsequent coup attempts. For her second husband Tamar chose, in 1191, the Alan prince David Soslan, by whom she had two children, George and Rusudan, the two successive monarchs on the throne of Georgia. Tamar's reign is associated with a period of marked political and military successes and cultural achievements. This, combined with her role as a female ruler, has contributed to her status as an idealized and romanticized figure in Georgian arts and historical memory. She remains an important symbol in Georgian popular culture.
6. Zviad Gamsakhurdia (1939 - 1993)
With an HPI of 67.84, Zviad Gamsakhurdia is the 6th most famous Georgian Politician. His biography has been translated into 69 different languages.
Zviad Konstantines dze Gamsakhurdia (Georgian: ზვიად კონსტანტინეს ძე გამსახურდია; Russian: Звиа́д Константи́нович Гамсаху́рдия, romanized: Zviad Konstantinovich Gamsakhurdiya; 31 March 1939 – 31 December 1993) was a Georgian politician, human rights activist, dissident, professor of English language studies and American literature at Tbilisi State University, and writer who became the first democratically-elected President of Georgia in May 1991. A prominent exponent of Georgian nationalism and pan-Caucasianism, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was involved in Soviet dissident movement from his youth. His activities attracted attention of authorities in the Soviet Union and Gamsakhurdia was arrested and imprisoned numerous times. Gamsakhurdia co-founded the Georgian Helsinki Group, which sought to bring attention to human rights violations in the Soviet Union. He organized numerous pro-independence protests in Georgia, one of which in 1989 was suppressed by the Soviet Army, with Gamsakhurdia being arrested. Eventually, a number of underground political organizations united around Zviad Gamsakhurdia and formed the Round Table—Free Georgia coalition, which successfully challenged the ruling Communist Party of Georgia in the 1990 elections. Gamsakhurdia was elected as the President of Georgia in 1991, gaining 87% of votes in the election. Despite popular support, Gamsakhurdia found significant opposition from the urban intelligentsia and former Soviet nomenklatura, as well as from his own ranks. In early 1992 Gamsakhurdia was overthrown by warlords Tengiz Kitovani, Jaba Ioseliani and Tengiz Sigua, two of which were formerly allied with Gamsakhurdia. Gamsakhurdia was forced to flee to Chechnya, where he was greeted by Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev. His supporters continued to fight the post-coup government of Eduard Shevardnadze. In September 1993, Gamsakhurdia returned to Georgia and tried to regain power. Despite initial success, the rebellion was eventually crushed by government forces with the help of the Russian military. Gamsakhurdia was forced into hiding in Samegrelo, a Zviadist stronghold. He was found dead in early 1994 in controversial circumstances. His death remains uninvestigated to this day. After the civil war ended, the government continued to suppress Gamsakhurdia's supporters, even with brutal tactics. After Eduard Shevardnadze was overthrown during the 2003 Rose Revolution, Gamsakhurdia was rehabilitated by the President Mikheil Saakashvili. Zviad Konstantinovich Gamsakhurdia was born in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on 31 March 1939; his father, Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, was a prominent Georgian writer during the 20th century. Konstantine held nationalist views and was imprisoned in the 1920s, but evaded the Stalinist purges and became influential as a historical novelist. He and his circle of fellow writers promoted Georgian culture and ethnic particularism in the Soviet centre. Zviad was raised in an intellectual setting, which encouraged attention to traditional Georgian history and culture. At 16, Gamsakhurdia established an underground nationalist youth group. In 1956 he participated with his fellow students, including future ally Merab Kostava, in the demonstrations in Tbilisi against de-Stalinization. He and a group of friends, called the Gorgasliani, began distributing anti-communist Georgian nationalist pamphlets in December; they were caught and taken to court. He was arrested again in 1958 for distributing anti-communist literature and was confined to a mental hospital in Tbilisi, although his familial status protected him from further sanctions. After his release, he continued studying western languages and literature at Tbilisi State University, eventually graduating with a degree in philology and becoming a lecturer of English language and American literature at Tbilisi State University in 1963. He also found employment at the Institute of Literature of the Georgian Academy of Sciences, and joined the Georgian Writers' Union in 1966. As an academic, Gamsakhurdia turned his focus to promoting Georgian culture, criticizing falsification of history, and supporting the Georgian Orthodox Church. In the 1970s, Gamsakhurdia and his dissident intellectual circle began making contact with Russian dissidents and with the Western press. In mid-1974 he co-founded a Human Rights Defense Group with Kostava and others; in 1977 they established a human rights watch organization after the Helsinki Accords. He was also active in the underground network of samizdat publishers, contributing to a wide variety of underground political periodicals. In their publications, Gamsakhurdia and Kostava denounced corruption, treatment of cultural heritage, the prison system, deportation of Meskhetian Muslims, and other controversies. Although he was frequently harassed and occasionally arrested for his dissidence, for a long time Gamsakhurdia avoided serious punishment, probably as a result of his family's prestige and political connections. Despite being an insider in the Georgian Writers' Union, Gamsakhurdia was expelled from the Union on 1 April 1977 after they had received information from the prosecutor's office about his illegal dissident activities. Later that month, Gamsakhurdia was arrested along with Kostava; they were accused of anti-Soviet activities, including illegal distribution of books and periodicals. They spent a year imprisoned before both being convicted and sentenced to three years in prison and two in exile. In 1978 Gamsakhurdia was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and in 1979 he was released after publicly denouncing his dissident activism. Following his release, he returned to his literary work and organizing. Unlike Gamsakhurdia, Kostava refused to recant and remained in prison for several more years, and Gamsakhurdia's reputation suffered. Gamsakhurdia was placed under house arrest from 1982–1983 for his campaigning on Kostava's behalf. When the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev initiated his policy of glasnost, Gamsakhurdia played a key role in organizing mass pro-independence rallies held in Georgia between 1987 and 1990, in which he was joined by Merab Kostava on the latter's release in 1987. In 1988, Gamsakhurdia became one of the founders of the Society of Saint Ilia the Righteous (SSIR), a religious-political organization which became the basis for his own political movement. The following year, the brutal suppression by Soviet forces of a large peaceful demonstration held in Tbilisi on 4–9 April 1989 proved to be a pivotal event in discrediting the continuation of Soviet rule over the country. The central Soviet government responded by the significant changes in the Georgia's leadership, replacing its heads Jumber Patiashvili and Zurab Chkheidze. The new leadership chose a more conciliatory approach towards the opposition. The opposition leaders arrested during the 9 April tragedy, including Zviad Gamsakhurdia, were released from prison and given a greater role in the decision-making. In recognition of his enormous popularity, Gamsakhurdia was brought into negotiations with the new Soviet Georgian leader Givi Gumbaridze over impeding legislation in the Georgia's Supreme Soviet. It passed a number of measures demanded by the opposition, paving path towards the independence. Gamsakhurdia's Round Table organization soon gained support in almost all Georgian institutions and Gamsakhurdia played a prominent role in their decisions to break their ties with the Kremlin. In February 1990, the Georgian sports association announced that it was breaking off the Soviet championships, holding its own championships with a goal of sending its team to international competitions. The ceremonies inaugurating the independent Georgian games began with Gamsakhurdia's opening remarks. The Georgian trade union organization broke off all-Union trade union organization, while the republican Komsomol declared independence from the Communist Party and all-Union Komsomol, later dissolving itself, being replaced by the new youth groups. The progress of democratic reforms was accelerated and led to Georgia's first democratic multiparty elections, held on 28 October 1990. Gamsakhurdia's SSIR party and the Georgian Helsinki Union joined with other opposition groups to head a reformist coalition called "Round Table — Free Georgia" ("Mrgvali Magida — Tavisupali Sakartvelo"). The coalition won a convincing victory, with 64% of the vote, as compared with the Georgian Communist Party's 29.6%. On 14 November 1990, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was elected by an overwhelming majority as chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia, which made him de facto head of Georgia, albeit not a sovereign country yet. Georgia held a referendum on restoring its pre-Soviet independence on 31 March 1991 in which 98.9% of those who voted declared in its favour. The Georgian parliament passed a declaration of independence on 9 April 1991, in effect restoring the 1918–1921 Georgian sovereign state. However, it was not recognized by the Soviet Union and although a number of foreign powers granted early recognition, universal recognition did not come until the following year. Gamsakhurdia was elected president in the election of 26 May with 86.5% per cent of the vote on a turnout of over 83%. According to Stephen F. Jones, a historian and specialist on Russian and Eurasian studies, Gamsakhurdia promoted the concept of pan-Caucasian unity, "Caucasian House". Gamsakhurdia favored regional cooperation between peoples of the Caucasus and considered concepts such as a common economic zone, a "Caucasian Forum" (a regional United Nations) and an alliance against foreign interference. "Caucasian House" was based on the idea of shared Ibero-Caucasian languages and common tribal and cultural identity among autochthonous Caucasian nations, such as Chechens, Circassians, Abkhazians and Georgians. An allegiance between Gamsakhurdia and Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev was seen as pivotal to its success. However, Gamsakhurdia was soon overthrown after taking office, so the "realisation of the idea of Caucasianness and the Caucasian House has never gone beyond the declaratory level or imaginative projects...". In his election program, Gamsakhurdia argued for gradual privatization and transition from socialist command economy to capitalist market economy. He supported social market economy, a model which would synthesize "free labor and guarantees of social rights, respect for private property and social utility, free entrepreneurship and honest competition". This included support for: wage indexation, consumer protection, social protection of vulnerable groups, unemployment benefits etc. Gamsakhurdia supported price controls for certain and the most basic products. Upon Gamsakhurdia taking office in November 1990, the Georgia's Supreme Council under his leadership renamed the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic into the "Republic of Georgia" and restored the state hymn, flag and seal of the Georgian Democratic Republic. The Supreme Council appointed Tengiz Sigua, a member of an opposition Rustaveli Society, as the chairman of the Georgian Council of Ministers (later renamed into a post of prime minister). Though state authorities continued to operate under the 1976 Soviet Georgian Constitution, several changes were adopted following independence to create a presidential republic. Gamsakhurdia took steps to create a new military structure independent from the Soviet control. In December 1990, the Georgia’s Supreme Council adopted the law which ended Soviet military draft in Georgia. As a result, only 10 percent of eligible draftees responded to call-up, the lowest percentage among all Soviet republics. Instead, in January 1991 the Georgia’s Supreme Council approved the legislation which created the National Guard of Georgia. The first military parade was held on Independence Day in 1991, with 10,000 soldiers of the National Guard taking their oath of service in front of President Zviad Gamsakhurdia at Boris Paichadze Stadium. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, through the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Anatoly Lukyanov, instructed Gamsakhurdia to ban the creation of the Guard. The official newspaper of the Soviet Army, Krasnaya Zvezda, published an article mocking the National Guard entitled "Mr. Prefects and Mr. Guardsmen". In August 1991, Georgia created a national bank and the legislature committed Georgia to issue its own currency in the future. In September 1991, the law on privatization was passed after long discussions on how to prevent "party-economic mafia" (a term used by Gamsakhurdia to refer to Communist Party leaders and administrators at various levels who controlled shadow economy of the Soviet Georgia) from becoming the primary beneficiary. On 3 May 1991, Gamsakhurdia issued a decree implementing fixed prices for some basic goods and lifting the national 5-percent sales tax on some food and services. During the Soviet period, Gamsakhurdia, a major dissident, criticized concessions made by Soviet authorities to ethnic minorities in Georgia. Upon taking office in November 1990, Gamsakhurdia faced the situation of ethnic minorities, making up 30% of the population. Georgians feared that minorities, particularly Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Ossetians, would secede to join their co-ethnics outside of Georgia, which had already happened during Georgia's First Republic in 1918-1921. Anti-Georgian riots in Abkhazia and South Ossetia fueled by local and Russian conservative military elites exacerbated Georgian concerns of fragmentation. In turn, minorities were scared by Gamsakhurdia's statements and policies, such as the repelling of Soviet treaties protecting minority rights. They started forming cultural and political organisations. For Gamsakhurdia, the state embodied the Georgian nation, while ethnic and religious minorities, such as Abkhazians, Adjarians, Armenians, Azeris, Greeks, Meskhetians, Muslims, Russians, and Ossetians, were "ungrateful guests", not proper Georgians, or Russia's fifth column, threatening Georgia's territorial integrity and national identity. According to Georgian philosopher George Khutsishvili, the nationalist slogan "Georgia for the Georgians" launched by Gamsakhurdia's followers, part of the Round Table—Free Georgia coalition, "played a decisive role" in "bringing about Bosnia-like inter-ethnic violence." While Gamsakhurdia may not have actually used the slogan, according to Georgian politician Ghia Nodia, "it probably expressed his true attitude". Gamsakhurdia's ethnoreligious chauvinism, his nationalist and xenophobic rhetoric and his negative policies toward minorities stirred ethnic tensions in the country. Gamsakhurdia's stance particularly threatened the Abkhazian and Ossetian elites' privileges. Therefore, ethnic minority leaders such as Vladislav Ardzinba in Abkhazia and Torez Kulumbegov in South Ossetia employed similar rhetoric, also focusing on demographic issues. Still, according to historian Stephen F. Jones, although Gamsakhurdia oppressed minorities, he was pragmatic. For instance, he took steps to diffuse tensions with Abkhazians and granted them over-representation in the local Abkhazian parliament with 43% of seats for 18% of the population. This proposal failed to pacify the conflict. On 27 December 1991, the U.S. based NGO Helsinki Watch issued a report on human rights violations made by the government of Gamsakhurdia. The report included information on documented freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of the press violations in Georgia, on political imprisonment, human rights abuses by the Georgian government and paramilitary in South Ossetia, and other human rights violations. In a report published in April 1992, Human Rights Watch noted that Gamsakhurdia had "quasi-dictatorial powers". The first steps towards the abolition of death penalty in Georgia came during the government of Gamsakhurdia on 20 March 1991, when the Georgian Supreme Council removed this possible punishment for four economic offences not involving the use of violence. Thus, Georgia became a first former Soviet republic to take steps to abolish the death penalty. During his rule, Gamsakhurdia maintained that Georgia would not sign New Union Treaty or interrepublican economic treaty. Gamsakhurdia called for a boycott of the 1991 Soviet Union referendum on preserving the Union and the Georgia's Supreme Council voted to do so. On 15 June 1991, in an interview to Saarländischer Rundfunk, Gamsakhurdia said that Georgia sought an eventual membership in the European Community and the United Nations, while it would develop relations with the USSR as a foreign state. On 6 and 7 April 1991, representatives of Armenia, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Moldova met in Chișinău, Moldova and pledged to cooperate in their independence efforts. Gamsakhurdia forged close ties with Chechnya, Russia’s breakaway republic. Gamsakhurdia welcomed Chechnya’s declaration of independence and attended inauguration of Dzokhar Dudayev as Chechnya’s President in Grozny. While Chechnya did not receive backing from the international community, it received support and attention from Georgia, which became its only gateway to the outside world that was not controlled by Russia. As a sign of moral support, on 11 November 1991 Gamsakhurdia wrote a letter to the United Nations and Russian President Boris Yeltsin, condemning his declaration of the state of emergency in Chechnya amid its proclamation of sovereignty as "a show of force against the Chechen people". In response to George H. W. Bush's Chicken Kiev speech which supported Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and his New Union Treaty, the government of Georgia issued a statement declaring that "the heir of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and others arrives ... and carries on propaganda in favor of the Union Treaty. Why didn't he call on Kuwait to sign the Union Treaty with Iraq?". In 1989, violent unrest broke out in South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast between the Georgian independence-minded population of the region and Ossetians loyal to the Soviet Union. South Ossetia's regional soviet announced that the region would secede from Georgia to form a "Soviet Democratic Republic". In response, the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR annulled the autonomy of South Ossetia in March 1990. During the 1991 Soviet coup attempt, the Russian news agency Interfax reported that Gamsakhurdia had agreed with the Soviet military that the Georgian National Guard would be disarmed, and on 23 August, he issued decrees abolishing the post of commander of the Georgian National Guard and redesignating its members as interior troops subordinate to the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs. In reality, the National Guard was already a part of the Ministry of the Interior, and Gamsakhurdia's opponents, who claimed he was seeking to abolish it, were asked to produce documents they claimed they possessed which verified their claims, but did not do so. Gamsakhurdia always maintained he had no intention of disbanding the National Guard. In defiance of the alleged order of Gamskhurdia, the sacked National Guard commander Tengiz Kitovani led most of his troops out of Tbilisi on 24 August. By this time, however, the coup had clearly failed and Gamsakhurdia publicly congratulated Russia's President Boris Yeltsin on his victory over the putschists. Gamsakhurdia reacted angrily, accusing shadowy forces in Moscow of conspiring with his internal enemies against Georgia's independence movement. In a rally in early September, he told his supporters: "The infernal machinery of the Kremlin will not prevent us from becoming free.... Having defeated the traitors, Georgia will achieve its ultimate freedom." He shut down an opposition newspaper, "Molodiozh Gruzii," on the grounds that it had published open calls for a national rebellion. Giorgi Chanturia, whose National Democratic Party was one of the most active opposition groups at that time, was arrested and imprisoned on charges of seeking help from Moscow to overthrow the legal government. It was also reported that Channel 2, a television station, was closed down after employees took part in rallies against the government. On 22 December 1991, armed opposition supporters launched a violent coup d'état and attacked a number of official buildings including the Georgian parliament building, where Gamsakhurdia himself was sheltering. Heavy fighting continued in Tbilisi until 6 January 1992, leaving hundreds dead and the centre of the city heavily damaged. On 6 January, Gamsakhurdia and members of his government escaped through opposition lines and made their way to Azerbaijan where they were denied asylum. Armenia finally hosted Gamsakhurdia for a short period and rejected Georgian demands to extradite Gamsakhurdia back to Georgia. In order not to complicate tense relations with Georgia, Armenian authorities allowed Gamsakhurdia to move to the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya, where he was granted asylum by the rebel government of General Dzhokhar Dudayev. It was later claimed that Russian forces had been involved in the coup against Gamsakhurdia. On 15 December 1992 the Russian newspaper Moskovskiye Novosti printed a letter claiming that the former Vice-Commander of the Transcaucasian Military District, Colonel General Sufian Bepayev, had sent a "subdivision" to assist the armed opposition. If the intervention had not taken place, it was claimed, "Gamsakhurdia supporters would have been guaranteed victory." It was also claimed that Soviet special forces had helped the opposition to attack the state television tower on 28 December. A Military Council made up of Gamsakhurdia opponents took over the government on an interim basis. One of its first actions was to remove Gamsakhurdia as president. It reconstituted itself as a State Council and, without any formal referendum or election, in March 1992 appointed Gamsakhurdia's old rival Eduard Shevardnadze as chairman, who then ruled as de facto president until the formal restoration of the presidency in November 1995. After his overthrow, Gamsakhurdia continued to promote himself as the legitimate president of Georgia. He was still recognized as such by some governments and international organizations, although as a matter of pragmatic politics the insurrectionist Military Council was quickly accepted as the governing authority in the country. Gamsakhurdia himself refused to accept his ouster, not least because he had been elected to the post with an overwhelming majority of the popular vote (in conspicuous contrast to the undemocratically appointed Shevardnadze). In November–December 1992, he was invited to Finland (by the Georgia Friendship Group of the Parliament of Finland) and Austria (by the International Society for Human Rights). In both countries, he held press conferences and meetings with parliamentarians and government officials On 31 December 1993, Zviad Gamsakhurdia died in circumstances that are still unclear. It is known that he died in the village of Dzveli Khibula in the Samegrelo region of western Georgia and later was re-buried in the village of Jikhashkari (also in the Samegrelo region). According to British press reports, his body was found with a single bullet wound to the head but, in fact, it was found with two bullet wounds to the head. Years later Avtandil Ioseliani—counter-intelligence head of interim government—admitted that two special units were hunting Zviad on interim government's orders. In the first days of December 1993 two members of President's personal guard also disappeared without a trace, after being sent on a scout mission. Some remains and ashes, never identified, were found 17 years later. A variety of reasons has been given for Gamsakhurdia's death, which is still controversial and remains unresolved. On 14 December 2018, Constantine and Tsotne Gamsakhurdia, the former president's two sons, announced concerns about the expiration of the statute of limitations set at the end of the same year for a potential investigation into the death of their father, as Georgian law set a 25-year limit for serious crime investigations. They then announced the beginning of a hunger strike. On 21 December, newly inaugurated President Salome Zurabishvili formally endorsed the request to expand the statute of limitations, calling Gamsakhurdia's death a "murder", a move supported by opposition and ruling party members of Parliament. Less than a week later, Parliament approved a bill to expand the statute of limitations for serious crimes from 25 to 30 years after the crime, following Constantine Gamsakhurdia's hospitalization. On 26 December, following the setting-up of a new investigative group under the leadership of General Prosecutor Shalva Tadumadze, Tsotne Gamsakhurdia ended his hunger strike, thus promising a new investigation into his father's death. However, the investigation failed to reach any conclusion to this day, with numerous theories about Gamsakhurdia's death floating in public discourse.. According to former deputy director of Biopreparat Ken Alibek, that laboratory was possibly involved in the design of an undetectable chemical or biological agent to assassinate Gamsakhurdia. BBC News reported that some of Gamsakhurdia's friends believed he committed suicide, "although his widow insists that he was murdered." Gamsakhurdia's widow later told the Interfax news agency that her husband shot himself on 31 December when he and a group of colleagues found the building where he was sheltering surrounded by forces of the pro-Shevardnadze Mkhedrioni militia. Gamsakhurdia's death was announced by the Georgian government on January 5, 1994. Some refused to believe that Gamsakhurdia had died at all but the question was eventually settled when his body was recovered on 15 February 1994. Zviad Gamsakhurdia's remains were re-buried in the Chechen capital Grozny on 17 February 1994. On 3 March 2007, the newly appointed president of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov announced that Gamsakhurdia's grave – lost in the debris and chaos of a war-ravaged Grozny – had been found in the center of the city. Gamsakhurdia's remains were identified by Russian experts in Rostov-on-Don, and arrived in Georgia on 28 March 2007, for reburial. He was interred alongside other prominent Georgians at the Mtatsminda Pantheon on 1 April 2007. Thousands of people throughout Georgia had arrived in Mtskheta's medieval cathedral to pay tribute to Gamsakhurdia. In addition to Georgian, Gamsakhurdia was fluent in Russian, French, English and German. He was a devout adherent of the Georgian Orthodox Church his entire life. Gamsakhurdia's second wife, Manana Archvadze-Gamsakhurdia, was the inaugural First Lady of independent Georgia. The couple had two sons, Tsotne and Giorgi. Gamsakhurdia was a proponent of Georgian messianism: the "spiritual mission of Georgia" to be a moral example to the rest of the world. He believed that he was divinely appointed by God to lead Georgia. On 26 January 2004, in a ceremony held at the Kashueti Church of Saint George in Tbilisi, the newly elected President Mikheil Saakashvili officially rehabilitated Gamsakhurdia to resolve the lingering political effects of his overthrow in an effort to "put an end to disunity in our society", as Saakashvili put it. He praised Gamsakhurdia's role as a "great statesman and patriot" and promulgated a decree granting permission for Gamsakhurdia's body to be reburied in the Georgian capital, declaring that the "abandon[ment of] the Georgian president's grave in a war zone ... is a shame and disrespectful of one's own self and disrespectful of one's own nation". He also renamed a major road in Tbilisi after Gamsakhurdia and released 32 Gamsakhurdia supporters imprisoned by Shevardnadze's government in 1993–1994, who were regarded by many Georgians and some international human rights organizations as being political prisoners. In 2013, Gamsakhurdia was posthumously awarded the title and Order of National Hero of Georgia by President Mikheil Saakashvili. Along with Gamsakhurdia, the title and Order of National Hero of Georgia was also awarded to his fellow dissident and friend Merab Kostava. Saakashvili called Gamsakhurdia "a leading light of the national idea" who fought for his country's freedom "when no one could even image it". In parallel, in March 2005 the Parliament of Georgia passed resolution "About the Legal Assessment of the Events of December–January 1991-92", which denounced the overthrow of Gamsakhurdia as an "unconstitutional armed coup". Government officials as well as people pay tribute to memory of Zviad Gamsakhurdia every year on his birthday. In 2014, the Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili announced a scholarship dedicated to Zviad Gamsakhurdia, awarded to an outstanding student studying historic literature. In 2019, the plenary room of the Parliament of Georgia was named after Zviad Gamsakhurdia, with Irakli Kobakhidze, chairman of Parliament, describing Gamsakhurdia as "the symbol of our statehood". The museum honoring the life of the Gamsakhurdia is located in the village of Dzveli Khibula, where Gamsakhurdia spent the last days of his life. On 3 August 2018, by order of the director of the National Agency for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Georgia, the museum received the status of an immovable monument of cultural heritage. Gamsakhurdia is acknowledged as a symbol of Georgian nationalism and Georgia's national liberation in 1990s. According to the 2020 Caucasus Research Resource Centers poll, 81% of Georgians consider Gamsakhurdia to be a true Georgian patriot, while 76% think that the overthrow of Gamsakhurdia was a bad thing for Georgia. 50% consider that independence would not be possible without Gamsakhurdia. According to the Cambridge University study, Gamsakhurdia is seen as one of the main Georgian national heroes of the 20th century, while his arch enemy Eduard Shevardnadze is perceived as a villain. Gamsakhurdia published important scientific works (including 4 monographs) on issues of Russian history, history of Georgian culture, history of Georgian literature, theology, and history of American poetry. He translated into Georgian language the works of William Shakespeare, Charles Baudelaire, Nikolai Gogol and others. He also wrote poems and fables, which have been published. In 1970, Zviad Gamsakhurdia became a member of the Writers' Union of Georgia, but later was expelled in 1977 for his anti-Soviet dissident activity. Gamsakhurdia was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Georgian National Academy of Sciences for his work The Language of the Forms of the Knight in a Lordly Skin. 20th century American Poetry (a monograph). Ganatleba, Tbilisi, 1972 (in Georgian) The Man in the Panther's Skin" in English, a monograph, Metsniereba, Tbilisi, 1984, 222 pp. (In Georgian, English summary). "Goethe's Weltanschauung from the Anthroposophic point of view.", Tsiskari, Tbilisi, No 5, 1984 (in Georgian), link to Georgian archive version, p.149 Tropology (Image Language) of "The Man in the Panther's Skin", monograph). Metsniereba, Tbilisi, 1991 (in Georgian) Collected articles and Essays. Khelovneba, Tbilisi, 1991 (in Georgian) Gamsakhurdia: a Product of the Soviet Union. Janice Bohle, University of Missouri, 1997. The Spiritual mission of Georgia (1990) The Spiritual Ideals of the Gelati Academy (1989) at the Wayback Machine (archived April 28, 2007) "Dilemma for Humanity", Nezavisimaia Gazeta, Moscow, May 21, 1992 (in Russian) "Between deserts" (about the creative works of L. N. Tolstoy), Literaturnaia Gazeta, Moscow, No 15, 1993 (in Russian) Fables and Tales. Nakaduli, Tbilisi, 1987 (in Georgian) The Betrothal of the Moon (Poems). Merani, Tbilisi, 1989 (in Georgian) Timeline of Georgian history Outline of Georgia (country) Index of Georgia (country)-related articles Bibliography of the history of the Caucasus Burkadze, Zarina (2022). Great Power Competition and the Path to Democracy: The Case of Georgia, 1991-2020. University of Rochester Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv24tr8hv.7. Cheterian, Vicken (2012). "The Origins and Trajectory of the Caucasian Conflicts". Europe-Asia Studies. 64 (9): 1625–1649. doi:10.1080/09668136.2012.718415. ISSN 0966-8136. JSTOR 23274948. S2CID 144837761. Kaufman, Stuart J. (2001). Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8736-6. Gamsachurdia, Konstantin (1995). Swiad Gamsachurdia: Dissident, Präsident, Märtyrer (in German). Perseus-Verlag. ISBN 9783907564196. van der Plas, Bas (2000). Georgie: traditie en tragedie in de Kaukasus (in Dutch). Papieren Tijger. ISBN 9789067281140. Country Studies: Georgia — U.S. Library of Congress Quotations related to Zviad Gamsakhurdia at Wikiquote
7. David IV of Georgia (1073 - 1125)
With an HPI of 67.06, David IV of Georgia is the 7th most famous Georgian Politician. His biography has been translated into 50 different languages.
David IV, also known as David IV the Builder (Georgian: დავით IV აღმაშენებელი, romanized: davit IV aghmashenebeli) (1073–1125), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the 5th king (mepe) of the Kingdom of Georgia from 1089 until his death in 1125. Popularly considered to be the greatest and most successful Georgian ruler in history and an original architect of the Georgian Golden Age, he succeeded in driving the Seljuk Turks out of the country, winning the Battle of Didgori in 1121. His reforms of the army and administration enabled him to reunite the country and bring most of the lands of the Caucasus under Georgia's control. A friend of the Church and a notable promoter of Christian culture, he was canonized by the Georgian Orthodox Church.
8. Sergo Ordzhonikidze (1886 - 1937)
With an HPI of 64.68, Sergo Ordzhonikidze is the 8th most famous Georgian Politician. His biography has been translated into 43 different languages.
Sergo Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze (born Grigol Konstantines dze Orjonikidze; 24 October [O.S. 12 October] 1886 – 18 February 1937) was a Georgian-born Bolshevik and Soviet politician. Born and raised in Georgia, in the Russian Empire, Ordzhonikidze joined the Bolsheviks at an early age and quickly rose within the ranks to become an important figure within the group. Arrested and imprisoned several times by the Russian police, he was in Siberian exile when the February Revolution began in 1917. Returning from exile, Ordzhonikidze took part in the October Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power. During the subsequent Civil War he played an active role as the leading Bolshevik in the Caucasus, overseeing the invasions of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. He backed their union into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (TSFSR), which helped form the Soviet Union in 1922 and served as the First Secretary of the TSFSR until 1926. Promoted to lead the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate (Rabkrin), Ordzhonikidze moved to Moscow and joined the inner circle of top Bolsheviks. Tasked with overseeing Soviet economic production, Ordzhonikidze led a massive overhaul of Rabkrin and its associated bodies, noting inefficiencies within the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy (Vesenkha). In 1930 he was transferred to lead Vesenkha, which was re-formed as the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry (NKTP) in 1932. While there, Ordzhonikidze oversaw the implementation of the five-year plans for economic development and helped create the Stakhanovite movement of model Soviet workers. At the same time, he was named to the Politburo, the leading political body in the Soviet Union. Ordzhonikidze was reluctant to take part in the campaigns against so-called wreckers and saboteurs that began in the early 1930s, causing friction between himself and his longtime friend Joseph Stalin, whom he helped during his rise to power. Realizing the need for people experienced in their fields, Ordzhonikidze refused to purge older workers or disassociate himself from individuals deemed anti-Bolshevik. According to some theories, his relationship with Stalin deteriorated and, on the eve of a 1937 meeting where he was expected to denounce workers, Ordzhonikidze shot himself and died at his home, though this has been contested. Grigol Ordzhonikidze was born in 1886 in Ghoresha, a village in the Kutais Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in the Imereti region of Georgia). Named after his maternal grandfather, he was the second child of Konstantine Ordzhonikidze and Eupraxia Tavarashvili; he had an older brother, Papulia. Ordzhonikidze's father Konstantine was a member of an impoverished Georgian noble family, while Eupraxia was a peasant. Six weeks after Grigol's birth, his mother died. Konstantine worked the family farm growing grains but this was not enough to live on. Konstantine began working in Chiatura, a mining community, and drove manganese to Zestaponi, where it was refined. Unable to take care of his son, Konstantine sent Grigol to live with his uncle and aunt, David and Eka Ordzhonikidze, who also lived in Ghoresha. Konstantine would later marry Despine Gamtsemlidze and have three more children. Grigol grew up in the household of David and Eka, but as they lived close to his father, Grigol would frequently visit him. The elder Konstantine died when Ordzhonikidze was 10 years old, leaving him with David and Eka. He completed school, had medical training to become an orderly, and worked briefly as a medical assistant. Ordzhonikidze joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1903 when he was 17 and worked for them in an underground printshop distributing leaflets for the Bolshevik faction of the party. By 1905 a revolution began in Russia, and he was given more dangerous assignments. He was arrested for the first time in December 1905 for transporting arms and spent several months in prison. Granted bail, he fled briefly to Germany to avoid trial, though he soon returned to work in Baku, where he had previously been working. There he helped organize the 1907 May Day parade and was arrested again. He may also have been involved in the assassination of the prominent Georgian writer Ilia Chavchavadze on 12 September 1907. Imprisoned for a third time in October 1907, Ordzhonikidze shared a cell with a fellow Georgian revolutionary, Iosif Dzhugashvili, who would later adopt the name Joseph Stalin. The two became close friends and spent their time playing backgammon and discussing politics. After his fourth arrest, in November 1907, Ordzhonikidze was exiled to Siberia, though he fled after several months and came back to work in Baku. The Bolsheviks reassigned him to Persia to help with the revolutionary movement that was launched there in 1910. The Bolsheviks were unable to gain sufficient support in Persia and Ordzhonikidze returned to Baku. In 1911, Ordzhonikidze traveled to Paris where he met Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks. He attended classes at the Longjumeau Party School, which had been set up to train Bolsheviks, though he left after a short time because of party in-fighting. He was sent back to Russia to help prepare the Sixth RSDLP Conference, which was held in Prague, Austria-Hungary in January 1912. At this meeting the Bolsheviks, the majority faction within the RSDLP, confirmed themselves to be a distinct party and established themselves as a separate party; while they had split from the RSDLP back in 1903 and ceased to work with it, they formally remained part of it until the Prague Conference. Ordzhonikidze was elected to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, the leadership body of the party, and sent back to Russia to inform other Bolsheviks of the results of the Conference. He also visited Stalin, exiled in Vologda, and the two traveled back to the Caucasus, then to Saint Petersburg, where Ordzhonikidze was arrested once again in April 1912. Recognized by the authorities as a revolutionary, Ordzhonikidze was sentenced to three years at the Shlisselburg Fortress prison. Late in 1915 he was sentenced to permanent exile in the eastern Siberian town of Yakutsk, where he met his future wife Zinaida in September 1916. They were married in 1917 and would adopt a daughter, Eteri (born 1923). In exile, Ordzhonikidze mainly spent his time reading; his favourites were Georgian classics as well as authors like Jack London, Lord Byron, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. He also was interested in statistics relating to the Russian economy, especially details regarding the production of food and agriculture, as well as the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Ordzhonikidze was still in Yakutsk when news of the 1917 February Revolution reached him. He briefly worked with the Yakutsk soviet (council) before quickly leaving for Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg had been named since 1914), reaching there by the end of May. Once in the city, Ordzhonikidze took on an active role in the revolution. He became a member of the Petrograd Bolshevik Committee and would frequently address rallies and visit large factories to conduct party work. In doing this Ordzhonikidze became closely associated with both Lenin and Stalin. He returned briefly to Georgia for a visit but was back in Petrograd by October and was there for the October Revolution when the Bolsheviks seized power. The outbreak of the Russian Civil War in 1917 saw Ordzhonikidze appointed as the Bolsheviks' Commissar of Ukraine, South Russia, and the North Caucasus. In this role he saw action at the Battle of Tsaritsyn and the Western Front in Ukraine, but it was in the Caucasus that he was most active. Sent to Vladikavkaz in the North Caucasus in July 1918, Ordzhonikidze and other Bolsheviks had to flee to the mountains in August as the city was occupied by Cossacks. While in hiding Ordzhonikidze led attempts to convince Cossack soldiers to abandon their officers and join the Bolsheviks, but was not successful. Ordzhonikidze also organized meetings with the local Chechen and Ingush population and urged them to join, arguing that the soviet system was similar to the Islamic system the Chechens favored. This proved successful, and with Ingush help the Bolsheviks re-conquered Vladikavkaz in mid-August. By late 1918 Ordzhonikidze effectively controlled every Bolshevik body within the North Caucasus and surrounding region: "the Crimea, Don, Kuban, Terek, Dagestan Oblasts, Stavropol, and Black Sea Gubernias, and the Black Sea Fleet", as historian Stephen Blank has noted, were subordinate to him. Ordzhonikidze earned a reputation as a brutal leader and ordered the arrest or execution of many opponents associated with the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, or any other group fighting the Bolsheviks. To help co-ordinate control over the region, the Central Committee in Petrograd authorized the formation of the Caucasian Bureau (Kavbiuro) on 8 April 1920. It was tasked with establishing Bolshevik rule over the Caucasus (both the North, which was under Bolshevik control, and the South Caucasus), and assisting other revolutionary movements in the region. Ordzhonikidze was named the chairman of the Kavbiuro, while Sergei Kirov was made vice-chairman. Ordzhonikidze was also given a position on the Revolutionary Military Council of the Caucasian Front and named Chairman of the North Caucasus Revolutionary Committee. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the South Caucasus had broken away from Russia and by mid-1918 comprised three independent states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Bolshevik activity in the region was limited; only the city of Baku was under control of a small group of local allies at that point. With vast deposits of oil in the region around Baku, it was of vital importance to the Bolsheviks that they control the area. After Ordzhonikidze consolidated control in the North Caucasus, Lenin issued an order to him on 17 March 1920 to prepare for an invasion of Azerbaijan. Using the pretext of a local Bolshevik uprising in Azerbaijan, Ordzhonikidze ordered the Eleventh Army to invade on 27 April 1920; with most of the Azerbaijani army fighting Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku was occupied by the Bolsheviks by 23:00 that night. The ease with which Azerbaijan was occupied emboldened Ordzhonikidze, and he began making preparations to launch similar invasions of Armenia and Georgia and supported a failed coup attempt in Georgia on 2–3 May. It was not until 27 November that he was given approval from both Lenin and Stalin to prepare the Eleventh Army to invade Armenia, which he did the next day. Already weakened from earlier regional conflicts, Armenia was unable to put up any resistance and surrendered on 2 December. There was serious discussion among the Bolshevik leadership on how to best approach Georgia, the remaining state outside of their control. While Ordzhonikidze wanted to repeat his earlier actions and invade, he was opposed by the rest of the Central Committee, Lenin in particular favouring a more peaceful approach. By early February 1921 Lenin had relented somewhat and consented to Ordzhonikidze leading the Eleventh Army into Georgia to support a local Bolshevik uprising. Concerned about gaining the support of the Georgian populace, Lenin sent Ordzhonikidze a telegram outlining a policy to be implemented, which included seeking a compromise with the Menshevik leadership. The invasion of Georgia began on 15 February. The Georgians put up a strong fight but were unable to stop the Bolsheviks, and on 25 February the Bolshevik forces occupied the capital Tiflis (now Tbilisi). Ordzhonikidze sent a telegram to Lenin and Stalin with the news, stating, "The proletarian flag flies over Tiflis!" In recognition of his work in the Caucasus, Ordzhonikidze was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and the Order of Red Banner of the Azerbaijani SSR in 1921. After the occupation of the South Caucasus, Ordzhonikidze took an active role in establishing Bolshevik authority over the region, Georgia in particular requiring considerable work due to the strong opposition to the Bolsheviks there. As the head of the Kavbiuro, Ordzhonikdze was the nominal leader of the Bolsheviks in Georgia but had to work with the local leadership, which was split between Filipp Makharadze and Budu Mdivani. Owing to his years of service as an organizer and theorist Makharadze was well-respected among the Georgian Bolsheviks, while Mdivani was a strong proponent of Georgian national sentiment, which was not as popular with local Bolsheviks. This led to a clash between Ordzhonikidze and the Georgian Bolsheviks, especially as Ordzhonikidze would ignore the advice of the Georgians, who were familiar with the situation within the country. Ordzhonikidze and Stalin, both natives of Georgia, were concerned about the nationalism displayed by the remaining Georgian Mensheviks (most had left in 1921), who were initially allowed to work with the Bolsheviks. They considered Georgian nationalism as serious a threat as Great Russian chauvinism, in that both variants dominated ethnic minorities within their regions (Georgia over the Abkhazians and Ossetians, Russia over several ethnic groups). They wanted to bring Georgia into a union with the Russian Soviet Republic as soon as possible to eliminate any nationalist tendencies, but Lenin was also concerned about moving too quickly: independent Georgia had started to gain support among European states, and with the weak international position of the Bolsheviks, the possibility of an uprising or civil war was a serious threat. Not wanting to allow this dispute to become public, the Central Committee largely stood behind Ordzhonikidze and allowed him to implement policies as he saw fit. This involved uniting the three states of the South Caucasus into one federation, which he argued was the best option both militarily and economically, especially as it would make union with Russia simpler. In April 1921 the railways, post and telegraph, and foreign trade of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia were merged; further economic ties, notably the removal of customs barriers, were made throughout May and June, which caused resentment among the Georgian Bolsheviks. Tensions remained high until November, when the Kavbiuro announced that the three states would be united into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (TSFSR). This caused an uproar among the Georgians, who protested that such a move was premature; their arguments delayed the formation of the federation until March 1922. This dispute, which later became known as the Georgian affair, delayed the creation of the Soviet Union, which was not proclaimed until December 1922. Ordzhonikidze retained his leadership role in the Caucasus, assuming the title of First Secretary, and remained there until 1926. In 1926 Ordzhonikidze was named the head of the Central Control Commission of the Communist Party, the body responsible for party discipline, and of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate (known by its Russian acronym Rabkrin), an agency created to oversee implementation of Soviet economic policy at every level. Though initially reluctant to take up the positions, as it meant a move to Moscow, Ordzhonikidze was forced to do so by Stalin, who told him to either accept the post or become First Secretary of the North Caucasus, which would have been a downgrade in status and prestige. Historian Oleg Khlevniuk speculated that Ordzhonikidze was not interested in taking over Rabkrin as it meant leaving the quiet of a low-key post in the Caucasus and getting intimately involved in the drama and politics at the highest levels. As the head of Rabkrin, Ordzhonikidze replaced Valerian Kuybyshev, who took over the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy (known as Vesenka, after its Russian acronym, VSNKh). At the same time as this appointment, Ordzhonikidze was named a candidate member of the Politburo, the executive committee of the Communist Party, though technically his position as head of the Central Control Commission should have precluded that, as there was supposed to be a separation between the two offices. He served as a candidate member of the Politburo from 23 July to 3 November 1926, when he was removed. The purpose of Rabkrin was meant to ensure the Soviet economy worked properly, in that it oversaw planning and implementation, budgetary considerations, and administrative policies. Under Kuybyshev, Rabkrin had become rather ineffective and was primarily focused on administrative theory rather than firm action, in part because the economic situation of the Soviet Union had improved by 1926. Initially unfamiliar with the field, Ordzhonikidze quickly educated himself on the best means to use Rabkrin and re-oriented its focus towards industry, specifically overseeing the workings of Vesenka. In a speech he gave to Rabkrin officials shortly after taking over, Ordzhonikidze stated they had two main duties: to fight bureaucratization of the state and economic apparatus and to "review the whole complex of the state system". Between 1927 and 1930, Rabkrin launched hundreds of investigations into the workings of the Soviet economy. Historian Sheila Fitzpatrick has noted that during this period it looked at "the oil industry, the chemical industry (twice), precious metals, capital construction in industry, repair and re-equipment of industry, planning in industry, delivery of imported equipment, use of foreign experts, the design bureau of the metallurgical industry, diesels, coal, steel, textiles and most of Vesenkha's major industrial trusts, in addition to drafting a radical reform of the structure of industrial administration". Reports would be presented to the highest authorities, and frequently included the Politburo and Central Committee. At the other end Ordzhonikidze was sought out by factory managers, who would present grievances and petitions in hopes of getting help from Rabkrin. Ordzhonikidze revitalized Rabkrin; it became a powerful tool within the Soviet Union, and by the end of the 1920s was the centre of state industrial policymaking, usurping that role from Vesenka. This role became more prominent during the first five-year plan, an economic development plan that began in 1929. While Vesenka was tasked with implementing the high targets of the plan, Rabkrin oversaw everything and ensured that industrial production was increased while keeping costs down. This caused friction between the two bodies, Vesenka complaining that they could not work with such interference, made worse by Rabkrin investigations of alleged wreckers and counter-revolutionaries. These disputes reached a peak at the 16th Party Congress in June 1930, where Ordzhonikidze gave a speech outlining Kuybyshev and Vesenka's failures in industry. Likely in response to his critique of Kuybyshev, Ordzhonikidze was made the new head of Vesenka on 13 November 1930, and Kuybyshev was moved to the State Planning Committee (Gosplan). Shortly after his new appointment, on 21 December 1930, Ordzhonikidze was also named as a full member of the Politburo, as he had also been removed from his post at the Central Control Commission. On his arrival at Vesenka Ordzhonikidze was mandated to improve the quality of workers. Khlevniuk has also argued that by putting a close ally in charge of Vesenka, Stalin was aiming to strengthen his own position in a field previously neglected. Replacing Ordzhonikidze at Rabkrin was Andrey Andreyev; with Stalin firmly in control of the Soviet Union, Rabkrin had lost its importance, and it was eventually made subordinate to the Central Committee. Much like when he started at Rabkrin, Ordzhonikidze was not an expert on the work of Vesenka, but immediately began to familiarize himself with it. Though he was not educated, Ordzhonikidze compensated by being energetic and assertive in his tasks and worked to deliver results. Devoted to his workers, he brought many of the senior staff from Rabkrin with him: by 1931 nine of eighteen sector heads in Vesenka were either from Rabkrin or the Control Commission. Tasked with finding wreckers within Vesenka, Ordzhonikidze initially followed Stalin's view and took a harsh stance on the matter, eagerly trying to clean up the organization. Within a few months, his position had softened, and he came to defend the branch; Fitzpatrick suggested this change was due to the realization that there was a shortage of trained workers and low morale stemming from the purges. It was around this time that Ordzhonikidze's relationship with Stalin began to change; while quite close previously, Ordzhonikidze's favourable opinion of his workers was not in line with what Stalin wanted to see. Despite calls by Stalin to remove senior workers, Ordzhonikidze relied on them as they had the technical experience required. He would downplay their previous political affiliations and back them up. While new engineers were being trained within the Soviet Union at this time, Ordzhonikidze felt they were not yet ready to take on senior positions yet, thus the need to keep the older workers. In 1932 Vesenka was re-organized as the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry (known by the Russian acronym NKTP); Ordzhonikidze remained as the head of the new commissariat. As head of the NKTP, Ordzhonikidze played an important role in directing the Soviet economy and oversaw the main aspects of defence production; thus, the needs of the NKTP were considered before nearly every other commissariat. This was made more apparent with the launch of the second five-year plan in 1933, which Ordzhonikidze took a leading role in drafting. He argued against Stalin regarding growth targets: Stalin wanted to set unrealistic targets, while Ordzhonikidze eventually got Stalin to agree on a yearly industrial growth of 13–14%, which, while high, was attainable. In this Ordzhonikidze was heavily dependent on the technical skills and knowledge of his deputy, Georgy Pyatakov, who led the program. While visiting Lavrentiy Beria, the First Secretary of the TSFSR, in Tbilisi on 7 November 1934, Ordzhonikidze began to have severe stomach pains and internal bleeding. Four days later, on 11 November, he had a major heart attack, aggravated by food poisoning. On doctor's orders, Ordzhonikidze remained in Georgia until 26 November and then was limited in what he could do. As a result of this, Ordzhonikidze was unable to travel to Leningrad for the funeral of Sergei Kirov, who had been assassinated on 1 December. This had a profound effect on Ordzhonikidze, who had been a close friend of Kirov. In recognition of this relationship Ordzhonikidze was chosen to place Kirov's urn into the Kremlin Wall, in which other leading Bolsheviks were interred. Ordzhonikidze's concerns about the low productivity within the NKTP and the Soviet economy as a whole led to the launch of the Stakhanovite movement in 1935. Concerned about productivity in two key sectors, metallurgy and coal mining, which had both seen consistent shortages, despite efforts to increase output, Ordzhonikidze took an active role in improving performance. While metallurgical production was starting to improve, coal mining was not. Ordzhonikidze looked for ways to solve the issue, paying particular attention to the Donbas, a region of Ukraine that was the main centre of Soviet coal production. Based on Ordzhonikidze's goal of improving coal output, in late August 1935 the Central Irmino mine, which had been producing below its quota, decided to have one miner overachieve his quota as a means to encourage all workers. To ensure things went smoothly, the selected miner would secretly be given assistance, though for appearances he would seem to work alone. Alexei Stakhanov was chosen for the task, and on the night of 30–31 August he mined a reported 102 tons of coal, 14 times his quota (though with the assistance of two helpers it worked out to just over five times his regular output). Stakhanov's achievement, a Union record for a single night of mining, was reported as a small news item in the 2 September edition of Pravda, the official paper of the Party. It was there that Ordzhonikidze first learned of it and decided to make Stakhanov a symbol of a new program. On 6 September Stakhanov's record was made a front-page story in Pravda, alongside fellow miners who had also set new records in the meantime. Ordzhonikidze praised the work of Stakhanov and encouraged other workers, not just miners, to follow his example and exceed their expected quotas. Though the Stakhanovite movement led to increased production and enthusiasm both at the official and worker level, results fell short of expectations. To prove themselves, workers and managers falsified quotas, and the increased speed led to a significant increase in workplace accidents. Indeed, coal production in the Donbas actually declined in 1936, leading to an official acknowledgement in a 7 June 1936 Pravda article that the Stakhanovite movement had not worked out. Despite this setback, Ordzhonikidze was recognized for his efforts at the NKTP with the Order of Lenin and Order of the Red Banner of Labour. From the beginning of Ordzhonikidze's time as the head of Vesenka and then the NKTP, there had been efforts to remove so-called wreckers and saboteurs from positions of influence. Ordzhonikidze had long tried to protect those working under him, a characteristic he retained throughout his time in Rabkrin, Vesenka, and the NKTP. This policy was tested throughout the 1930s, as those close to Ordzhonikidze were purged from their positions, forced out as they were perceived to challenge Stalin's authority. This led to friction between Ordzhonikidze and Stalin. Ordzhonikidze argued against police interference in factory affairs and was successful enough in this to have the Politburo agree to ban prosecutors from investigating factories or even entering them, a policy that Stalin would later regret approving. Early in Ordzhonikidze's tenure at the NKTP, he witnessed the purging of Vissarion Lominadze. Lominadze, a fellow Georgian and an ally of Ordzhonikidze, had been expelled from the Party previously for his role in the Syrtsov-Lominadze Affair, where along with Sergey Syrtsov, he had been accused of "factionalism" in 1930, when the two had opposed collectivization of agriculture. After returning to Georgia, Lominadze was brought back into a leadership role by Ordzhonikidze, who helped him become the Party Secretary in Magnitogorsk. A wave of arrests of wreckers in January 1935 made Lominadze realize he would soon be targeted; to avoid this, he shot himself on 18 January, and died the next day. Though Stalin did not bring up the incident initially, in December 1936 he attacked Ordzhonikidze for having secretly corresponded with Lominadze before his suicide and then failing to disclose this to the Politburo. Stalin was also angry that Ordzhonikidze had been sending a pension to Lominadze's wife and son (who was named Sergo in his honour). Georgy Pyatakov, Ordzhonikidze's deputy at the NKTP, also found himself in trouble. Back in 1921, Ordzhonikidze and Pyatakov had been political enemies, but they soon resolved their differences and established a strong working relationship. Pyatakov followed Ordzhonikidze to Vesenka in 1930 and remained his top deputy when it became the NKTP. As Khlevniuk notes, Ordzhonikidze valued Pyatakov for his "intelligence and organizational abilities" and "well understood ... that his own success as commissar of heavy industry owed much to his first deputy commissar". Earlier in his career, Pyatakov had worked with Leon Trotsky, Stalin's main rival for leadership of the Bolsheviks throughout the 1920s. Though Pyatakov had been rehabilitated, by 1936 the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, was collecting materials on him. Pyatakov was arrested on 12 September 1936 and charged with being part of a conspiracy to overthrow the Soviet government. Pyatakov gave forced confessions to the charges. While Ordzhonikidze never gave a statement on the matter, Khlevniuk noted that their long association together likely gave Ordzhonikidze "substantial grounds" to doubt their veracity. Pyatakov was executed in January 1937. Ordzhonikidze's older brother, Papulia (Russified as Pavel), had also been an active revolutionary and Bolshevik. Ordzhonikidze was instrumental in finding Papulia a position with the Transcaucasus Railway. Papulia was frequently criticized for his work, and in 1932 this criticism was made public, forcing him to take up another position. In November 1936, Papulia was arrested on unspecified charges. Sergo Ordzhonikidze learned of the arrest during a party for his 50th birthday and was so upset at the news that he refused to attend the celebration. Ordzhonikidze reached out to Beria and asked for his help in freeing Papulia. Beria had been a former protege of Ordzhonikidze, and the two had worked together for years: Ordzhonikidze shielded Beria from attacks from other Bolsheviks, and in return Beria kept him updated on events throughout the Caucasus. Beria had named his son "Sergo" in honour of Ordzhonikidze. Their relationship had changed in the 1930s as Beria rose to become the First Secretary of the Transcaucasus; he grew to resent being treated as a subordinate to Ordzhonikidze and wanted to be respected as an equal. Beria offered to look into Papulia's arrest, though as he was the dominant figure in the region it is unlikely the arrest was made without his consent; whether Beria ordered the arrest or did so at the behest of Stalin is unknown. Khlevniuk suspected that Beria would not have turned on Ordzhonikidze without Stalin's instruction. The stress of his brother's arrest had a serious effect on Ordzhonikidze's already frail health, leading to heart failure. He reached out to Stalin for help but was refused. Stalin's refusal to help further damaged the relationship between the two. Throughout the end of 1936 and into 1937, there were further efforts to remove so-called wreckers and saboteurs. Ordzhonikidze was now unable to protect those from the NKTP, which was heavily targeted at this time. He was expected to address wrecking and sabotage within the NKTP at a Central Committee plenum that was scheduled to start 20 February 1937. On 17 February Ordzhonikidze spoke to Stalin privately on the phone. Ordzhonikidze then left for the Kremlin to see Vyacheslav Molotov and attend a subsequent Politburo meeting. At the meeting he again repeated his belief that charges of wrecking within his Commissariat were exaggerated and was ordered by Stalin to leave after making these remarks; despite Ordzhonokidze being forced to leave, Khlevniuk has noted that the meeting was not unusual in its discussion. After Ordzhonikidze left, he visited Lazar Kaganovich and Alexander Poskrebyshev, and was home that night by 19:00, though he left for his Commissariat office at 21:30. He met a deputy there and was home again by 00:20, following a routine schedule. The details of the last few hours of Ordzhonikidze's life are unclear. What is known is that upon arriving back home he discovered the NKVD had searched his house, so he phoned Stalin to complain about this intrusion. The two talked angrily, switching between Russian and Georgian, Stalin explaining that the NKVD had the power to search anyone's residence, even his own. Ordzhonikidze was then invited to visit Stalin and did so for about 90 minutes. The following day, 18 February, Ordzhonikidze stayed at home in bed for most of the day. In the evening Zinaida heard a gunshot from Ordzhonikidze's room, and found him dead, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot. Stalin and other leaders arrived quickly at Ordzhonikidze's apartment, where it was decided to announce the cause of death as heart failure. An official bulletin was released the following day; it detailed Ordzhonikidze's troubled health history, and concluded by stating that "[o]n the morning of 18 February Ordzhonikidze made no complaint about his health, but at 17:30, while he was having his afternoon rest, he suddenly fell ill and a few minutes later died of paralysis of the heart". The announcement of Ordzhonikidze's death came as a surprise to the public. Seen as the driving force behind the industrialization of the Soviet Union, he was held in high esteem. His body lay in state in the House of the Unions on 19 February, and over 250,000 people visited the memorial. The funeral was held on 20 February, and his body was subsequently cremated and the ashes interred within the Kremlin Wall. Immediately after Ordzhonikidze's death was announced, the cause of death was disputed. Exiled Mensheviks publicized the idea that Stalin was the reason behind the death, either directly ordering Ordzhonikidze's death, or forcing him to kill himself. The recent arrests of figures within the NKTP also gave credence to these rumours, suggesting Ordzhonikidze would be targeted next. Some Old Bolsheviks insisted he was killed, though details from Zinaida and others refuted any plausible explanation for a murder. Khlevniuk has suggested that Ordzhonikidze was reluctant to openly challenge Stalin regarding wrecking in the NKTP, and instead only wanted to change his mind on the subject, and that instances of wreckers were highly exaggerated. Even to do that would take a massive toll on Ordzhonikidze's health, which was already in a weakened state. That several other Bolsheviks had committed suicide over political affairs previously also gave credence to the idea that Ordzhonikidze killed himself. Details of Ordzhonikidze's death were not widely discussed within the Soviet Union until Nikita Khrushchev gave his "Secret Speech" criticizing Stalinism in 1956, and this helped keep rumours of a targeted killing alive. In the speech, Khrushchev suggested Ordzhonikidze shot himself because of the stress from Stalin's persecutions. After Ordzhonikidze's death, both his family and those associated with him in the NKTP were targeted for reprisals; Khlevniuk suggests that this was because Stalin was not happy with Ordzhonikidze's criticism on how to handle the wreckers. Papulia was tortured and eventually shot in November 1937, while Papulia's wife Nina was arrested and sentenced to ten years imprisonment on 29 March 1938, and re-sentenced to death on 14 June. Ordzhonikidze's other brother, Konstantine, was also arrested and sent to the Gulag before being executed, along with his nephew Giorgi Gvakharia, while Zinaida was sentenced to ten years in the camps. Zinaida was released in 1956 and lived a relatively quiet life afterwards. She published a memoir of Ordzhonikidze's life that was first released in 1956, and died in 1960. Throughout his time in the Caucasus, Ordzhonikidze was known as a difficult man to work with. He was controversial within the regional Bolshevik leadership for being authoritarian and having a preference to promote fellow ethnic Georgians rather than qualified candidates. Near the end of 1920, a Cheka (secret police) representative had asked for Ordzhonikidze to be replaced, accusing him of policy errors, specifically his appointing nationalists to positions of authority, which went against Bolshevik policy that frowned upon nationalism. At the Tenth Party Congress, held in March 1921, there were calls for Ordzhonikidze not to be re-elected; delegates from the North Caucasus stated that Ordzhonikidze, who was unable to attend due to the invasion of Georgia, "yells at everyone, orders everyone around him, ignores the opinions of loyal party members". He was defended by Lenin and Stalin: the former revealed that Ordzhonikidze was deaf in one ear and so had to shout, even at Lenin himself, to hear himself. With this backing, the critiques of Ordzhonikidze's leadership style were downplayed, and he was re-elected as a delegate. During the invasions of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia, Ordzhonikidze also tended to act independently. He would often ignore any advice, including from the leadership in Moscow, and would only listen to those close to him. During the invasion of Georgia, he would make demands of Moscow, rather than ask for assistance, and ignored calls to work with local Georgian Bolsheviks, which caused tension between them and Ordzhonikidze. Throughout his adult life, Ordzhonikidze suffered from severe health issues. After his death, a medical bulletin reported he had sclerosis and had tuberculosis earlier in his life, which led to the removal of his left kidney in 1929. He had also dealt with stenocardia and cardiac asthma for two years before his death, with a serious bout of asthma in November 1936. In 1928 he had spent several weeks in Germany for unspecified medical treatments. Due to his health issues, in January 1936, the Politburo had forced Ordzhonikidze to limit his schedule and take more time off from his duties. Several towns and districts in the Soviet Union were renamed after Ordzhonikidze; the largest city was Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, which became Ordzhonikidze in 1931. Throughout the 1930s many factories and plants also asked to take on his name, which is something Fitzpatrick notes may have annoyed Stalin. After Ordzhonikidze's death the process was reversed, so by 1942 nearly every town had changed names again. The only exception was Vladikavkaz: it took on Dzaudzhikau, the Ossetian variant of the name, from 1944 to 1954, before returning to Ordzhonikidze until 1990, when it returned to the original name. Two ships (Ordzhonikidze, a Sverdlov-class cruiser and MS Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze, an ocean liner) were named after Ordzhonikidze. In addition, the Baltic Shipyard was name after him for a time, and a Russian shipyard in Crimea currently bears his name, having been attacked by Ukraine in 2023.[1] Quotations related to Sergo Ordzhonikidze at Wikiquote Newspaper clippings about Sergo Ordzhonikidze in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW Linoleum print of Orjonikidze, Narimanov, and Kirov by Azerbaijani artist Alakbar Rezaguliyev, Azerbaijan International, Vol. 13:4 (Winter 2005), pp. 40-45.
9. Mikheil Saakashvili (b. 1967)
With an HPI of 64.47, Mikheil Saakashvili is the 9th most famous Georgian Politician. His biography has been translated into 109 different languages.
Mikheil Saakashvili (Georgian: მიხეილ სააკაშვილი [miχeˈil saakʼaˈʃʷili]; Ukrainian: Міхеіл Саакашвілі [m⁽ʲ⁾ixeˈil sɐɐkɐʃˈwil⁽ʲ⁾i]; born 21 December 1967) is a Georgian and Ukrainian politician and jurist. He was the third president of Georgia for two consecutive terms from 25 January 2004 to 17 November 2013. From May 2015 until November 2016, Saakashvili was the governor of Ukraine's Odesa Oblast. He is the founder and former chairman of the United National Movement party. Saakashvili heads the executive committee of Ukraine's National Reform Council since 7 May 2020. In 2021 he began serving a six-year prison sentence in Georgia on charges of abuse of power and organization of an assault occasioning grievous bodily harm against an opposition lawmaker Valery Gelashvili. Saakashvili entered Georgian politics in 1995. He served as member of parliament and minister of justice under President Eduard Shevardnadze. Saakashvili later moved to opposition, establishing the United National Movement party. In 2003, Saakashvili became a leading opposition figure who accused the government of rigging the 2003 Georgian parliamentary election, spearheading mass protests which saw President Shevardnadze resign from his post in the bloodless Rose Revolution. Saakashvili's key role in the protests led to him being elected as the President in 2004. He was later reelected as President in 2008. However, his party suffered defeat in the 2012 Georgian parliamentary election, while Saakashvili was barred by the constitution of Georgia from seeking a third term in the 2013 presidential election, which was also won by the opposition candidate. During his tenure as president, Saakashvili oversaw police, military, economic and government reforms. As the new Patrol Police department was established, the entire police force was fired and replaced with new one in an effort to root out corruption. The bureaucratic spendings were decreased as several ministries were abolished to cut the government size. Military budget rose to 9.2% of GDP by 2007 to strengthen the nation's defense capability. The government pursued a zero-tolerance policy towards crime. Saakashvili appointed Kakha Bendukidze as the Minister of Economy to implement economic liberalization and rapid privatization. Georgia's economy grew 70% between 2003 and 2013, and per capita income roughly tripled. However, poverty only marginally declined. At the end of Saakashvili's second term, about a quarter of the population was still living below the absolute poverty rate. Georgia's ranking in the Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International improved dramatically from rank 133 in 2004 to 67 in 2008 and further to 51 in 2012, surpassing several EU countries. The World Bank ranked the country 8th in terms of ease of doing business and named it as the leading economic reformer in the world. The Abkhaz–Georgian and Georgian-Ossetian conflicts continued during Saakashvili's presidency and saw a major escalation in 2008, which saw Russia officially announcing its support for separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Saakashvili led Georgia through the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, which ended after five days of fighting by a ceasefire agreement negotiated by the French president Nicolas Sarkozy. The war resulted in Georgia losing all of its possessions in the disputed territories. Russia subsequently recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, while Georgia responded with breaking diplomatic relations. On the economic front, Saakashvili pursued a neoliberal policy: abolition of the minimum wage, dismissal of 60,000 civil servants, lowering of corporate income tax from 20% to 15%, and dividend tax from 10% to 5%. In 2009, Forbes ranked Georgia as the fourth country with the lowest tax burden in the world. During Saakashvili's tenure, Georgia went through several political crises. In 2007, mass demonstrations erupted demanding resignation of Saakashvili. The protests, which were triggered by detention of Georgian politician Irakli Okruashvili, were violently dispersed by the special forces on 7 November 2007. The largest opposition media Imedi TV was raided by the police and transformed into a pro-government channel. Another wave of protests erupted in 2009. In May 2011, the government again violently responded to the opposition protests staged by Saakashvili's former ally Nino Burjanadze. Saakashvili was embroiled in a number of scandals, the most important ones relating to the beating of the opposition politician Valery Gelashvili and the murder of Sandro Girgvliani. In September 2012, the leaked video footage of systemic torture and rape in the Georgian prison system came to light during the Gldani prison scandal. Saakashvili was accused of being behind police brutality and the inhuman treatment of inmates. Shortly after the 2013 presidential election, Saakashvili left Georgia. In 2014, the Prosecutor's Office of Georgia filed criminal charges against Saakashvili. In 2018, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced him in absentia to six years in prison for ordering the beating of Valeri Gelashvili and pardoning in prior agreement the individuals tried for Sandro Girgvliani's murder. Saakashvili continued to manage his party from abroad while accusing the Georgian government of using the legal system as a tool of political retribution. Saakashvili supported Ukraine's Euromaidan movement and the Revolution of Dignity. On 30 May 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appointed Saakashvili as Governor of Odesa Oblast. He was also granted Ukrainian citizenship, and due to restrictions on dual nationality under Georgian law, was stripped of his Georgian citizenship. On 7 November 2016, Saakashvili resigned as governor while blaming President Poroshenko personally for enabling corruption in Odesa and in Ukraine overall. Four days later, he announced his goal to create a new political party called Movement of New Forces. On 26 July 2017, Saakashvili (at the time staying in the US) was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship by Petro Poroshenko, and became a stateless person. He reentered Ukraine with a group of supporters through Poland but was arrested in February 2018 and deported. Saakashvili moved to the Netherlands, where he was granted permanent residency. On 29 May 2019, he returned to Ukraine after newly elected President Volodymyr Zelenskyy restored his citizenship. On 1 October 2021, Saakashvili announced via Facebook his return to Georgia after an eight-year absence, on the eve of the local elections. Later on the same day Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili held a press briefing announcing that Saakashvili had been arrested in Tbilisi. According to the investigation, Saakashvili entered the country secretly, hiding in a semi-trailer truck loaded with milk products. He illegally crossed the state border of Georgia, bypassing the customs control. He was placed in the No. 12 penitentiary facility in Rustavi. President of Georgia Salome Zourabichvili stated that she would "never" pardon Saakashvili. He has been transferred to hospital numerous times due to his health condition and since May 2022 he is being treated in a civilian clinic in Tbilisi.
10. Sergei Witte (1849 - 1915)
With an HPI of 64.47, Sergei Witte is the 10th most famous Georgian Politician. His biography has been translated into 43 different languages.
Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte (Russian: Сергей Юльевич Витте, romanized: Sergey Yulyevich Vitte, IPA: [sʲɪrˈɡʲej ˈjʉlʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈvʲitːɛ]; 29 June [O.S. 17 June] 1849 – 13 March [O.S. 28 February] 1915), also known as Sergius Witte, was a Russian statesman who served as the first prime minister of the Russian Empire, replacing the emperor as head of government. Neither liberal nor conservative, he attracted foreign capital to boost Russia's industrialization. Witte's strategy was to avoid the danger of wars. Witte served under the final two emperors of Russia, Alexander III (r. 1881–1894) and Nicholas II (r. 1894–1917). During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), he had risen to a position in which he controlled all the traffic passing to the front along the lines of the Odessa Railways. As finance minister from 1892- 1903, Witte presided over extensive industrialization and achieved government monopoly control over an expanded system of railroad lines. Following months of civil unrest and outbreaks of violence in what became known as the 1905 Russian Revolution, Witte framed the 17th the October Manifesto and the accompanying government communication to establish constitutional government. However, he was not convinced it would solve Russia's problems with the Tsarist autocracy. On 20 October 1905 Witte was appointed as the first chairman of the Council of Ministers (effectively prime minister). Assisted by his Council, he designed Russia's first constitution. But within a few months Witte fell into disgrace as a reformer because of continuing court opposition to these changes. He resigned before the First Duma assembled on 10 May [O.S. 27 April] 1906. Witte was fully confident that he had resolved the main problem: providing political stability to the regime, but according to him, the "peasant problem" would further determine the character of the Duma's activity. He is widely considered to have been one of the key figures in Russian politics at the end of 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century. Orlando Figes has described Witte as the 'great reforming finance minister of the 1890s', 'one of Nicholas's most enlightened ministers', and as the architect of Russia's new parliamentary order in 1905. Witte's father, Julius Christoph Heinrich Georg Witte, was from a Lutheran Baltic German family. He converted to Russian Orthodoxy upon his marriage with Yekaterina Fadeyeva. His father was made a member of the knighthood in Pskov but moved as a civil servant to Saratov and Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi, Georgia). Sergei was raised on the estate of his mother's parents. His grandfather was Andrei Mikhailovich Fadeyev, a Governor of Saratov and Privy Councillor of the Caucasus, and his grandmother was Princess Helene Dolgoruki. Sergei had two brothers (Alexander and Boris) and two sisters (Olga and Sophia). Helena Blavatsky, noted as a mystic, was their first cousin. Witte studied at a Tiflis gymnasium, but he took more interest in music, fencing and riding than in academics. He finished Gymnasium I in Kishinev and began studying Physico-Mathematical Sciences at the Novorossiysk University in Odessa in 1866 and graduated at the top of his class in 1870. After completing his studies he devoted some time to journalism in close relations with the Slavophiles and Mikhail Katkov. Witte had initially planned to pursue a career in academia with the intention of becoming a professor in theoretical mathematics. His relatives took a dim view of that career path, as it was considered unsuitable for a noble or aristocrat at the time. He was instead persuaded by Count Vladimir Pavlovich Machabelovy, Minister of Ways and Communication, to pursue a career in the Russian railroads. At the direction of the count, Witte undertook six months of training in a variety of positions on the Odessa Railways to gain a practical understanding of Ukrainian railways operations. At the end of that period, he was appointed as chief of the traffic office. After a wreck on the Odessa Railways in late 1875 cost many lives, Witte was arrested and sentenced to four months in prison. However, while he was still contesting the case in court, Witte directed the Odessa Railways and achieved extraordinary efforts towards the transport of troops and war materials in the Russo-Turkish War and attracted the attention of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, who commuted his prison sentence to two weeks. Witte had devised a novel system of double-shift operations in his efforts to overcome delays on the railways. In 1879, Witte accepted a post in St. Petersburg, where he would meet his future wife. He moved to Kiev the following year. In 1883, he published a paper on "Principles of Railway Tariffs for Cargo Transportation" in which he also discussed social issues and the role of the monarchy. Witte gained popularity in the government. In 1886, he was appointed manager of the privately-held Southwestern Railways, based in Kiev, and was noted for increasing its efficiency and profitability. Around then, he met Tsar Alexander III, but he conflicted with the tsar's aides by warning of the danger in their practice of using two powerful freight locomotives to achieve high speeds for the royal train. His warnings were proven in the October 1888 Borki train disaster, Witte was then appointed as Director of State Railways. Witte worked in railroad management for 20 years after he had begun as a ticket clerk. He caught the attention of Finance Minister Ivan Vyshnegradsky, who appointed him as Russian Director of Railway Affairs within the Finance Ministry, where he served from 1889 to 1891. During that period, he oversaw an ambitious program of railway construction. Until then, less than one fourth of the small railway systems were under direct state control, but Witte set about expanding the rail lines and getting the railway service under control as a state monopoly. Witte also obtained the right to assign employees based on their performance or merit, rather than for patronage for political or familial connections. In 1889, he published a paper, "National Savings and Friedrich List", which cited the economic theories of Friedrich List and justified the need for a strong domestic industry, to be protected from foreign competition by customs barriers. A new customs law for Russia was passed in 1891, spurring an increase in industrialization by the turn of the 20th century. While Witte worked to achieve industrialization, he also fought for practical education. He said that railways operated by the state would be useless "unless it does its utmost for spreading technical education..." Tsar Alexander III appointed Witte in 1892 as acting Minister of Ways and Communications. That gave him both control of the railroads in Russia and the authority to impose a reform on the tariffs charged. "Russian railroads gradually became perhaps the most economically operated railroads of the world". Profits were high: over 100 million gold rubles a year to the government (exact amount unknown because of accounting defects). In 1892 Witte became acquainted with Matilda Ivanovna (Isaakovna) Lisanevich in a theater. Witte began to seek her favour, urging her to divorce her gambling husband and marry him. The marriage was a scandal not only because Matilda was a divorcee but also because she was a converted Jew. That cost Witte many of his connections with the upper nobility, but the tsar protected him. In August 1892, Witte was appointed to the post of Minister of Finance, which he held for the next eleven years, and he nearly doubled the revenues of the empire. (Until 1905 matters pertaining to industry and commerce were within the province of the Ministry of Finance.) During his tenure, he greatly accelerated the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. He also emphasized creation of an educational system to train personnel for industry, in particular, the establishment of new "commercial" schools. He was known for appointing subordinates by their academic credentials or merit, rather than because of patronage political connections. In 1894, he concluded a 10-year commercial treaty with the German Empire on favorable terms for Russia. When Alexander III died, he told his son on his deathbed to listen well to Witte, his most capable minister. In 1895, on a crusade against the evils of drunkenness, Witte established a state monopoly on alcohol, which became a major source of revenue for the Russian government. In 1896, he concluded the Li–Lobanov Treaty with Li Hongzhang of the Qing dynasty. One of the rights secured for Russia was the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway across northeast China, which greatly shortened the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway to its projected eastern terminus at Vladivostok. However, following the Triple Intervention, Witte strongly opposed the Russian occupation of Liaodong Peninsula and the construction of the naval base at Port Arthur in the Russia–Qing Convention of 1898. In 1896, Witte undertook a major currency reform to place the Russian ruble on the gold standard. That resulted in increased investment activity and an increase in the inflow of foreign capital. Witte also enacted a law in 1897 limiting working hours in enterprises, and in 1898 reformed commercial and industrial taxes. In 1899 the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute was founded on his initiative. In summer 1898, he addressed a memorandum to the Tsar calling for an agricultural conference on the reform of the peasant community. This resulted in three years of talks about laws to abolish collective responsibility and facilitate the resettlement of farmers onto lands on the outskirts of the empire. Many of his ideas were later adopted by Pyotr Stolypin. In 1902 Witte's supporter, Dmitry Sipyagin, the Minister of Home Affairs, was assassinated. In an attempt to keep up the modernization of the Russian economy, Witte called and oversaw the Special Conference on the Needs of the Rural Industry. The conference was to provide recommendations for future reforms and compile the data to justify those reforms. By 1900 the growth in the manufacturing industry had been four times faster than in the preceding five-year period and six times faster than in the decade before that. External trade in industrial goods was equal to that of Belgium. In 1904, the Union of Liberation was formed, which demanded economic and political reform. Witte controlled East Asian policy in the 1890s. His goal was peaceful expansion of trade with Japan and China. Japan, with its greatly expanded and modernized military, easily defeated the antiquated Chinese forces in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). Russia had to confront collaborating with Japan with which relations had been fairly good for some years or acting as protector of China against Japan. Witte chose the second policy, and in 1894, Russia, Germany and France forced Japan to soften the peace terms that it had imposed on China. Japan was forced to cede the Liaodong Peninsula and Port Arthur back to China (both territories were located in south-eastern Manchuria, a Chinese province). The new Russian role angered Tokyo, which decided Russia was the main enemy in its quest to control Manchuria, Korea and China. Witte underestimated Japan's growing economic and military power and exaggerated Russia's military prowess. Russia concluded an alliance with China (in 1896 by the Li–Lobanov Treaty), which led in 1898 to Russian occupation and administration (by its own personnel and police) of the entire Liaodong Peninsula. Russia also fortified the ice-free Port Arthur and completed the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railway, which was to cross northern Manchuria from west to east and link Siberia with Vladivostok. In 1899, the Boxer Rebellion broke out, and the Chinese attacked all foreigners. A large coalition of the major Western powers and Japan sent armed forces to relieve their diplomatic missions in Peking. The Russian government used that as an opportunity to bring a substantial army into Manchuria. As a consequence, by 1900 Manchuria was a fully-incorporated outpost of the Russian Empire, and Japan prepared to fight Russia. Witte, in a memorandum, tried to turn the reports of the zemstvo presidents into a condemnation of the Home Office. In a political conflict on land reform, Vyacheslav von Plehve accused him of being part of a Jewish-Masonic conspiracy. According to Vasily Gurko, Witte had dominated the irresolute tsar, and his opponents decided that was the moment to get rid of him. Witte was appointed on 16 August 1903 (O.S.) as chairman of the Committee of Ministers, a position he held until October 1905. While officially a promotion, the post had no real power. Witte's removal from the influential post of Minister of Finance was engineered under the pressure of the landed gentry and his political enemies within the government and at the court. But historians Nicholas V. Riasanovsky and Robert K. Massie say that Witte's opposition to Russian designs on Korea resulted in his resigning from the government in 1903. Witte was brought back into the governmental decision-making process to help deal with growing civil unrest. Confronted with increasing opposition and, after consulting with Witte and Prince Sviatopolk-Mirsky, the tsar issued a reform ukase on December 25, 1904 with vague promises. After the Bloody Sunday riots of 1905, Witte supplied 500 rubles, the equivalent of 250 dollars, to Father Gapon in order for the leader of the demonstration to leave the country. Witte recommended that the government issue a manifesto related to the people's demands. Schemes of reform would be elaborated by Ivan Goremykin and a committee consisting of elected representatives of the zemstva and municipal councils under the presidency of Witte. On 3 March the tsar condemned the revolutionaries. The government issued a strongly worded prohibition of any further agitation in favor of a constitution. By spring a new political system was beginning to form in Russia. A petition campaign was conducted seeking a wide variety of proposed changes, such as ending the war with Japan, which lasted from February to July 1905. In June mutiny broke out on the Russian battleship Potemkin. The tsar called upon Witte to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese War. He was sent to the United States for the talks, as the Russian emperor's plenipotentiary titled "his Secretary of State and President of the Committee of Ministers of the Emperor of Russia," along with Baron Roman Rosen, Master of the Imperial Court of Russia. The peace talks were held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Witte is credited with negotiating brilliantly on Russia's behalf during the Treaty of Portsmouth discussions. Russia lost little in the final settlement. But the loss of the war with Japan is believed to have marked the beginning of the end of Imperial Russia. For his efforts, he was made a (Russian: граф, romanized: graf). After that diplomatic success, Witte wrote to the tsar stressing the urgent need for political reforms at home. He was dissatisfied with proposals by Alexander Bulygin, the successor of Sviatopolk-Mirsky. Even figures like Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov and Vladimir Meshchersky agreed. A 6 August (O.S.) manifesto created a Duma as a consultative body only. Elections of its representatives would not be direct but be held in four stages, and qualifications for class and property would exclude much of the intelligentsia and all of the working classes from suffrage. The proposal was greeted by numerous protests and strikes across the country, which became known as the Russian Revolution of 1905. Witte described the regime's usual "incompetence and obstinacy" in response to the crisis of 1904–1905 as a "mixture of cowardice, blindness and stupidity". On 8 January 1905, Witte and Sviatopolk-Mirsky had been approached by a delegation of intellectuals led by Maxim Gorky, who begged them to negotiate with demonstrators. After the government's postings of warnings of 'resolute measures' against street gatherings led by Father Gapon, they worried about violent confrontation, which did take place. They were unsuccessful as the government had believed they could control Fr. Gapon. Leaving his visiting cards with Witte and Mirsky, Gorky was arrested, along with the other members of the deputations. In later 1905 Witte was approached by the tsar's advisers, in an effort to save the country from complete collapse, and on 9 October 1905, he went to the Winter Palace for a meeting. Here he told the tsar 'with brutal frankness' that the country was on the verge of a catastrophic revolution, which he said 'would sweep away a thousand years of history'. He presented the tsar with two choices: either appoint a military dictator, or agree to broad and major reforms. In a memorandum arguing for a manifesto, Witte outlined the reforms needed to appease the masses. He argued for the following reforms: creation of a legislative parliament (Imperial Duma) elected via a democratic franchise; granting of civil liberties; establishing a cabinet government and a 'constitutional order'. Those demands, which basically comprised the political programme of the Liberation Movement, were an attempt to isolate the political Left by pacifying the liberals. Witte emphasised that repression would be only a temporary solution to the problem and a risky one because he believed that the armed forces, whose loyalty was now in question, could collapse if they were to be used against the masses. Most of the military advisers to the tsar agreed with Witte, as did the Governor of Saint Petersburg, Dmitri Feodorovich Trepov, who wielded considerable influence at court. Only when Nicholas II's cousin Grand Duke Nicholas threatened to shoot himself if he did not agree to Witte's demands, following the tsar's request for him to accept appointment as dictator, would the tsar agree. He was embarrassed to have been forced by a former "railway clerk", a man who was a bureaucrat and "businessman," to relinquish his autocratic rule. Witte later said that the tsar's court were ready to use the Manifesto as a temporary concession, and later return to autocracy "when the revolutionary tide subsided". In October Witte was charged with the task of assembling the nation's first cabinet government, and he offered the liberals several portfolios: Ministry of Agriculture to Ivan Shipov; Ministry of Trade and Industry to Alexander Guchkov; Ministry of Justice to Anatoly Koni and the Ministry of Education to Evgenii Troubetzkoy. Pavel Milyukov and Prince Georgy Lvov were also offered ministerial posts. None of those liberals agreed to join the government, though. Witte had to form his cabinet from 'tsarist bureaucrats and appointees lacking public confidence'. The Kadets doubted that Witte could deliver on the promises made by the tsar in October, knowing the tsar's staunch opposition to reform. Witte argued that the Tsarist regime could be saved from a revolution only by the transformation of Russia to a 'modern industrial society', in which 'personal and public initiatives' were encouraged by a rechtsstaat who guaranteed civil liberties. In the two weeks following the October Manifesto, several pogroms took place against Jews, especially in St. Petersburg and Odessa. Witte ordered an official investigation, where it was revealed that the police in the former city had organised, armed and gave vodka to the anti-Semitic crowds, and even participated in the attacks. Witte demanded the prosecution of the chief of police in St. Petersburg, who was involved in the printing of anti-Semitic pamphlets, but the tsar intervened and protected him. Witte believed that anti-Semitism was 'considered fashionable' among the elite. In the aftermath of the Kishinev pogrom in 1903, Witte had said that if Jews 'comprise about fifty percent of the membership in the revolutionary parties', it was 'the fault of our government. The Jews are too oppressed'. Milyukov once confronted Witte to ask why he would not commit himself to a constitution. Witte replied that he could not 'because the Tsar does not wish it'. Witte was worried that the court was only using him, as had emerged in talks with members of the Kadet Party. After his skillful diplomacy Witte was appointed as Chairman of the new Council of Ministers, the equivalent of Prime Minister, and formed Sergei Witte's Cabinet, not belonging to any party, as there were none. No longer was the tsar the head of the government. "Immediately upon my nomination as President of the Imperial Council I made it clear that the Procurator of the Most Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev, could not remain in office, for he definitely represented the past." He was replaced by Prince Alexey D. Obolensky. Trepov and Alexander Bulygin were dismissed and, after many discussions, Pyotr Nikolayevich Durnovo was appointed as Minister of Interior on 1 January 1906; his appointment is considered one of the greatest errors Witte made during his administration. According to Harold Williams: "That government was almost paralyzed from the beginning. Witte acted immediately by urging the release of political prisoners and the lifting of censorship laws." Alexander Guchkov and Dmitry Shipov refused to work with the reactionary Durnovo and to support the government. On 26 October (O.S.), the tsar appointed Trepov as Master of the Palace without consulting Witte, and had daily contact with the emperor; his influence at court was paramount. "In addition mass violence broke out in the days following the issuance of the October Manifesto. The major source of the unrest was unrelated to the October Manifesto. It took the form of attacks by gangs in the cities on the Jews. In general, the authorities ignored the attacks. On 8 November, the sailors in Kronstadt mutinied. The same month, the border provinces were clearly taking advantage of the weakening of Central Russia to show their teeth. Witte later wrote in his Memoirs about the empire's ethnic minorities: The dominating element of the Empire, the Russians, fall into three distinct ethnic branches: the Great, the Little, and the White Russians, and 35 per cent, of the population is non-Russian. It is impossible to rule such a country and ignore the national aspirations of its varied non-Russian national groups, which largely make up the population of the Great Empire. The policy of converting all Russian subjects into "true Russians" is not the ideal which will weld all the heterogeneous elements of the Empire into one body politic. It might be better for us Russians, I concede, if Russia were a nationally uniform country and not a heterogeneous Empire. To achieve that goal there is but one way, namely to give up our border provinces, for these will never put up with the policy of ruthless Russification. But that measure our ruler will, of course, never consider. On 10 November, Russian Poland was placed under martial law. Witte's position was not well established. The Liberals remained obdurate and refused to be cajoled. The All-Russian Peasant Union asked the Russian people to refuse to make redemption payments to the government and withdraw their deposits from banks that might be subject to government action. He promised an eight-hour working day and tried to secure vital loans from France to keep the government from bankruptcy. Witte sent his envoy to the Rothschild bank; they responded that "they would willingly render full assistance to the loan, but that they would not be in a position to do so until the Russian Government had enacted legal measures tending to improve the conditions of the Jews in Russia. As I deemed it beneath our dignity to connect the solution of our Jewish question with the loan, I decided to give up my intention of securing the participation of the Rothschilds."On 24 November by Imperial decree provisional regulations on the censorship of magazines and newspaper was released. On 16 December Trotsky and the rest of the executive committee of the St. Petersburg Soviet were arrested. The Minister of Agriculture Nikolai Kutler resigned in February 1906; Witte refused to appoint Alexander Krivoshein. In the next few weeks, changes and additions to the Russian Constitution of 1906 were made, so that the emperor was confirmed as the dictator of foreign policies and the supreme commander of the army and navy. The ministers remained responsible solely to Nicholas II, not to the Duma. The "peasant question" or land reforms was a hot issue; the influence of the "Duma of Public Anger" had to be limited, according to Goremykin and Dmitri Trepov. The Bolsheviks boycotted the coming election. When Witte discovered that Nicholas never intended to honour those concessions, he resigned as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. The position and influence of General Trepov, Grand Duke Nicholas, the Black Hundreds, and overwhelming victories by the Kadets in the 1906 Russian legislative election, forced Witte on 14th to resign, which was announced 22 April 1906 (O.S.). Witte confessed to Alexander Polovtsov in April 1906 that the success of the repressions in the wake of the Moscow uprising in 1905 had resulted in his losing all influence over the tsar. Despite Witte's protests, Durnovo was allowed to 'carry out a brutal and excessive, and often totally unjustified, series of repressive measures.' In 1906, Father Gapon returned to Russia from exile and supported Witte's government. On 30 April 1905 Witte proposed the Law of Religious Toleration, followed by the edict of 30 October 1906 giving legal status to schismatics and sectarians of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), the established state church. Witte argued that ending discrimination against religious rivals of the Orthodox Church 'would not harm the church, provided it embraced the reforms that would revive its religious life'. Although the Church's 'senior hierarchs' may for some time have played with the thought of self-government, Witte's demand that it would come at the cost of religious toleration 'guaranteed to drive them back into the arms of reaction'. Witte had made that demand (self-government in exchange for religious toleration) in the hope of 'wooing' the important commercial groups of the ethnic minorities of Jewish and Old Believer communities. According to Dmitry Filosofov, Witte was the only talented person in the government, but he brought many troubles to Russia. He destroyed the autocracy not from the outside like revolutionaries but from the inside. Witte failed to retain the confidence of the emperor but continued in Russian politics as a member of the State Council but he was never again appointed to an administrative role in the government. He was ostracized by the Russian establishment. In January 1907 a bomb was found planted in his home. The investigator Pavel Alexandrovich Alexandrov proved that the Okhrana, the tsarist secret police, had been involved. During the winter season, Witte lived in Biarritz and started writing his Memoirs, but he returned to St Petersburg in 1908. During the July Crisis in 1914, Grigori Rasputin, and Witte desperately urged the Tsar to avoid the conflict and warned that Europe faced calamity if Russia became involved. The advice went unheeded. French Ambassador Maurice Paléologue complained to Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Sazonov. Witte died in February 1915 at his home in St. Petersburg; his quick death was attributed to meningitis or a brain tumor. His third-class funeral was held at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. On the black granite slab, in addition to the usual dates of birth and death, another date was carved: 17 October, 1905, the date he presented the Manifesto. Witte had no children, but he had adopted his wife's by her first marriage. According to Edvard Radzinsky, Witte asked in vain for the title of Count to be given to his grandson, L. K. Naryshkin (1905-1963). Witte's reputation was burnished in the West after his secret memoirs were published in translation in 1921. They had been completed in 1912 and kept in a bank in Bayonne, France. He had left orders that they could not be published during the lifetimes of him and his contemporaries. The ambassador in France, Vasily Maklakov, received them from his widow. The original manuscript of his memoirs are now held in Columbia University Library's Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture. The Sergei Witte University of Moscow, with campuses in Ryazan, Krasnodar and Nizhny Novgorod is named in his honour (a private institution accredited by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Russia) in 1997) Russian orders and decorations Knight of St. Stanislaus, 1st Class, 1890 Knight of St. Anna, 1st Class, 1894 Commemorative Medal of the Reign of Emperor Alexander III, 1896 Emperor Nicholas II Coronation Medal, 1896 Medal "For Works on the First General Population Census", 1897 Knight of the White Eagle, 1904 Knight of St. Alexander Nevsky, in Diamonds, 1906 Red Cross Medal "In Commemoration of the Russo-Japanese War", 1906 Commemorative Medal of the Romanov Tricentenary, 1913 Knight of St. Vladimir, 1st Class, 1913 Foreign orders and decorations Witte was portrayed by Laurence Olivier in the film Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). He was portrayed by Freddie Jones in the British BBC series Fall of Eagles (1974). History of the Russian Far East History of Sino-Russian relations Ananich, B. V. and S. A. Lebedev, "Sergei Witte and the Russo-Japanese War." International Journal of Korean History 7.1 (2005): 109-131. Online Boublikoff, A.A. "A suggestion for railroad reform". In: Buehler, E.C. (editor) "Government ownership of railroads", Annual Debater's Help Book (vol. VI), New York, Noble and Noble, 1939; pp. 309–318. Original in journal North American Review, vol. 237, pp. 346+. (This issue is 90% about Russian railways.) Davis, Richard Harding, and Alfred Thayer Mahan. (1905). The Russo-Japanese war; a photographic and descriptive review of the great conflict in the Far East, gathered from the reports, records, cable despatches, photographs, etc., etc., of Collier's war correspondents New York: P. F. Collier & Son. OCLC: 21581015 Figes, Orlando (2014). A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924. London: The Bodley Head. ISBN 9781847922915. Harcave, Sidney. (2004). Count Sergei Witte and the Twilight of Imperial Russia: A Biography. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-1422-3 Kochan, Lionel. "Sergei Witte: The Last Statesman of Imperial Russia" History Today (Feb 1968), Vol. 18 Issue 2, pp 102–108, online. Kokovtsov, Vladamir. (1935). Out of My Past (translator, Laura Matveev). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Korostovetz, J.J. (1920). Pre-War Diplomacy The Russo-Japanese Problem. London: British Periodicals Limited. Theodore H. von Laue (1963) Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia Witte, Sergei. (1921). The Memoirs of Count Witte (translator, Abraham Yarmolinsky). New York: Doubleday. online free Wcislo, Francis W. (2011). Tales of Imperial Russia: The Life and Times of Sergei Witte, 1849-1915. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-954356-4. Portsmouth Peace Treaty, 1905-2005 Archived 2019-05-05 at the Wayback Machine Memoirs of Count Witte, 1921 English translation, available in full online at Internet Archive The Museum Meiji Mura—peace treaty table on display Newspaper clippings about Sergei Witte in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
People
Pantheon has 108 people classified as Georgian politicians born between 550 BC and 1996. Of these 108, 34 (31.48%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Georgian politicians include Mikheil Saakashvili, Bidzina Ivanishvili, and Aslan Abashidze. The most famous deceased Georgian politicians include Joseph Stalin, Attila, and Darius the Great. As of April 2024, 15 new Georgian politicians have been added to Pantheon including Tengiz Kitovani, Levan Tediashvili, and Solomon II of Imereti.
Living Georgian Politicians
Go to all Rankings
Mikheil Saakashvili
1967 - Present
HPI: 64.47
Bidzina Ivanishvili
1956 - Present
HPI: 58.65
Aslan Abashidze
1938 - Present
HPI: 56.06
Giorgi Margvelashvili
1969 - Present
HPI: 55.77
Kakha Kaladze
1978 - Present
HPI: 54.02
Nino Burjanadze
1964 - Present
HPI: 53.02
Irakli Garibashvili
1982 - Present
HPI: 49.33
Giorgi Kvirikashvili
1967 - Present
HPI: 48.73
Giorgi Gakharia
1975 - Present
HPI: 45.67
Zurab Noghaideli
1964 - Present
HPI: 45.34
Besarion Gugushvili
1945 - Present
HPI: 44.74
Vano Merabishvili
1968 - Present
HPI: 44.04
Deceased Georgian Politicians
Go to all RankingsJoseph Stalin
1879 - 1953
HPI: 89.54
Attila
406 - 453
HPI: 84.97
Darius the Great
550 BC - 486 BC
HPI: 80.81
Eduard Shevardnadze
1928 - 2014
HPI: 72.69
Tamar of Georgia
1166 - 1213
HPI: 70.99
Zviad Gamsakhurdia
1939 - 1993
HPI: 67.84
David IV of Georgia
1073 - 1125
HPI: 67.06
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
1886 - 1937
HPI: 64.68
Sergei Witte
1849 - 1915
HPI: 64.47
Rusudan of Georgia
1194 - 1245
HPI: 64.27
Pharnavaz I of Iberia
326 BC - 234 BC
HPI: 64.23
Kato Svanidze
1885 - 1907
HPI: 62.74
Newly Added Georgian Politicians (2024)
Go to all Rankings
Tengiz Kitovani
1938 - 2023
HPI: 55.89
Levan Tediashvili
1948 - 2024
HPI: 55.50
Solomon II of Imereti
1772 - 1815
HPI: 53.77
Reşid Mehmed Pasha
1780 - 1836
HPI: 53.11
Koca Yusuf Pasha
1730 - 1800
HPI: 52.90
Bogdan Kobulov
1904 - 1953
HPI: 51.38
Filipp Makharadze
1868 - 1941
HPI: 51.35
George XI of Kartli
1651 - Present
HPI: 51.33
Mikhail Tskhakaya
1865 - 1950
HPI: 49.29
Georges Pitoëff
1884 - 1939
HPI: 47.92
Leri Khabelov
1964 - Present
HPI: 42.23
Khatia Dekanoidze
1977 - Present
HPI: 38.68
Overlapping Lives
Which Politicians were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 25 most globally memorable Politicians since 1700.
