Evgen (Geno) Gvaladze (May 13, 1900 - October 15, 1937) was a
GeorgianGeorgia Georgia Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the east by Azerbaijan...
jurist, journalist and politician, and one of the leaders of the anti-Soviet national-liberation movement in Georgia of 1921-1937.
He was born in a small village of Sveri near the mining town of
ChiaturaChiatura is a city in the Imereti region of Western Georgia. In 1989, it had a population of about 30,000. It is inland, in a mountain valley on the banks of the Kvirila River, and since 1879 has been a major centre of manganese production in the Caucasus. There is a rail link to transport...
,
ImeretiImereti Province is a province in Georgia situated along the middle and upper reaches of the Rioni river...
(Western Georgia), into the family of a Georgian nobleman (
aznauriAznauri was a class of Georgian nobility; the term that was first applied to all nobles, but in the later Middle Ages narrowed to designate the petty nobles....
), retired cavalry officer Artem Gvaladze (1862-1918).
Evgen (Geno) Gvaladze (May 13, 1900 - October 15, 1937) was a
GeorgianGeorgia Georgia Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the east by Azerbaijan...
jurist, journalist and politician, and one of the leaders of the anti-Soviet national-liberation movement in Georgia of 1921-1937.
He was born in a small village of Sveri near the mining town of
ChiaturaChiatura is a city in the Imereti region of Western Georgia. In 1989, it had a population of about 30,000. It is inland, in a mountain valley on the banks of the Kvirila River, and since 1879 has been a major centre of manganese production in the Caucasus. There is a rail link to transport...
,
ImeretiImereti Province is a province in Georgia situated along the middle and upper reaches of the Rioni river...
(Western Georgia), into the family of a Georgian nobleman (
aznauriAznauri was a class of Georgian nobility; the term that was first applied to all nobles, but in the later Middle Ages narrowed to designate the petty nobles....
), retired cavalry officer Artem Gvaladze (1862-1918). Gvaladze was a descendant of
David IIDavid II , of the Bagrationi Dynasty, was King of Imereti from 1784 to 1789 and from 1790 to 1791.He was the son of George IX of Imereti, who had briefly ruled in 1741. After the death of his cousin, King Solomon I, he became a regent but prevented Solomon’s heir David from being crowned king of...
, King of imereti in 1784-1790.
Having graduated from the Tiflis
GymnasiumA gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools...
in 1920, he joined the National Army of the
Democratic Republic of GeorgiaThe Democratic Republic of Georgia , 1918–1921, was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Georgia.The DRG was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917...
in July, 1920 and took part in the battles against the
invading Red and Turkish armiesThe Red Army invasion of Georgia also known as the Soviet—Georgian War or the Soviet invasion of Georgia was a military campaign by the Soviet Russian Red Army against the Democratic Republic of Georgia aimed at overthrowing the local Social-Democratic government and installing the Bolshevik...
in Kojory-Tabakhmela (near Tbilisi) and
BatumiBatumi is a seaside city on the Black Sea coast and capital of Adjara, an autonomous republic in southwest Georgia. It has a population of 121,806 ....
in February-March, 1921. On February 20, 1921 Gvaladze was decorated with the Cross of "Tetri Giorgi" ("White Giorgi").
After the
BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
takeover of the Georgian government, he was demobilized. In 1926 Gvaladze graduated from the Department of Law of the Social-Economic Faculty of the
Tbilisi State UniversityTbilisi Ivane Javakhishvili State University, better known as Tbilisi State University , is a university established on 8 February, 1918 in Tbilisi, Georgia. TSU is the oldest university in the whole Caucasus region...
(TSU). Since April, 1921 he was involved in the underground activities of the Georgian Menshevik Party to which he was a member in 1917-1923.
In 1926-1932 Gvaladze was a member of the Board of the Defending Lawyers of Georgia, and lectured at the Pedagogical Institute in
GoriGori is a city in eastern Georgia, which serves as the regional capital of Shida Kartli and the centre of the eponymous administrative district. The name is from Georgian gora, that is, "heap", or "hill"...
from 1935 to 1937. His articles were systematically published in the Georgian press of 1916-1928. In 1921-1930 Gvaladzes journalistic papers were published in the Georgian emigrant press also ("Tavisupali Sakartvelo", "Tetri Giorgi", etc.
PseudonymsA pseudonym is a fictitious name used by a person, or sometimes, a group.Pseudonyms are often used to hide an individual's real identity, as with writers' pen names, graffiti artists, resistance fighters' or terrorists' noms de guerre and computer hackers' handles. Actors, musicians, and other...
: "G.", "Geno", etc.). In spite of continuing social activity under the Soviet government, he never abandoned his political positions and led, from 1926, the underground
conspirativeIn a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....
group of the Georgian national political organization
Tetri GiorgiTetri Giorgi has been a name of several political and paramilitary organizations as well as non-political foundations operating in Georgia or by Georgians abroad. It is derived from the cult of Tetri Giorgi, one of the Georgian identities of St...
. Earlier, on May 26, 1922, on the fourth anniversary of the independence of Georgia, he was one of the organizers of the first mass anti-Soviet demonstration in Tbilisi and was arrested by the
GPUThe State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
. In 1922, he joined an underground anti-Bolshevik bloc of the Georgian political opposition known as the
Committee for Independence of GeorgiaThe Committee for the Independence of Georgia or the Parity Committee was an underground anti-Soviet organization active in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in the early 1920s...
and represented it in the
KakhetiKakheti is a historical province in Eastern Georgia inhabitant by Kakhetians who speak a local dialect of Georgian. It is bordered by the small mountainous province of Tusheti and mountain-range of Greater Caucasus to the north, Azerbaijan to the east and the south, and the Georgian province of...
district where he was involved in preparation of an armed rebellion in August 1924. He was arrested on September 5, 1924, but was released due to a declared amnesty in March 1925. On August 10, 1937, during the
Great PurgeGreat Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1937–1938. It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and Government officials, repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and the persecution of...
, he was rearrested along with his associates from the "Tetri Giorgi" group and shot in Tbilisi on October 15, 1937.