Irakli Tsereteli

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Irakli Tsereteli

Irakli (Kaki) Tsereteli (; ) (20 November 1881–20 May 1959) was a Georgian

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a transcontinental country in the Caucasus region, located at the dividing line between Europe and Asia. It is bordered by the Russia to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, Armenia to the south, and Turkey to the southwest....
politician

Politician

A politician is an individual who is involved in influencing public decision making through the influence of politics or a person who influences the way a society is governed....
, one of the leaders of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and the Georgian Mensheviks.

Irakli Tsereteli was born in Kutaisi

Kutaisi

Kutaisi is Georgia 's second largest city and the capital of the western region of Imereti. It is 221 km to the west of Tbilisi....
(western Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

File:Russian Emperor Flag.jpgFile:Romanov Flag.svgThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917....
) in the family of a radical writer Giorgi Tsereteli, of the noble family of Tsereteli

Tsereteli

Tsereteli is a former noble family in Georgia , which gave origin to several notable writers, politicians, scholars, and artists....
. He studied law at Moscow University where he became involved in student protests.

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Encyclopedia

Irakli (Kaki) Tsereteli (; ) (20 November 1881–20 May 1959) was a Georgian

Georgia (country)

Politician

Kutaisi

Kutaisi is Georgia 's second largest city and the capital of the western region of Imereti. It is 221 km to the west of Tbilisi....
(western Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

Tsereteli

Siberia

Siberia , is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of North Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the Soviet Union from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the 16th century....
. On his release from prison Tsereteli joined the Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP) and at the party's 1903 congress in London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
sided with Julius Martov

Julius Martov

Julius Martov or L. Martov was born in Istanbul in 1873. The son of Jewish middle class parents, he became the leader of the Mensheviks in early twentieth century Russia....
against Lenin. By becoming a Menshevik, opposed to Lenin's Bolsheviks. Tsereteli became editor of the pro-Menshevik publication Kvali ("Track" in Georgian), but decided to move to Germany

Germany

Russian Revolution of 1905

The 1905 Russian Revolution is a historical term describing a wave of political terrorism, strikes, peasant unrests, mutinies, both anti-government and undirected, that swept through vast areas of the Russian Empire, leading to the establishment of the State Duma of the Russian Empire, multi-party system and the Russian Constitution of 1906....
and was elected to the second Duma

Duma

A Duma is any of various representative assemblies in modern Russia and Russian history. The State Duma in the Russian Empire and Russian Federation corresponds to the lower house of the parliament....
, emerging as a leading Menshevik. On the dissolution of the Duma, Tsereteli was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and then exiled in 1913 to Irkutsk

Irkutsk

Irkutsk is one of the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia in Siberia and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, situated by rail from Moscow....
; there he became the leader of a circle of moderate Internationalists

Internationalism (politics)

Internationalism is a political movement that advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all....
(mostly Mensheviks but including also SRs

Socialist-Revolutionary Party

The Socialist-Revolutionary Party was a Russian political party active in the early 20th century....
and former Bolsheviks) called the “Siberian Zimmerwaldists

Zimmerwald Conference

The Zimmerwald Conference was held in Zimmerwald, Switzerland, from September 5 through September 8, 1915. It was an international socialist conference, which saw the beginning of the end of the coalition between Revolutionary socialism and Reformism socialists in the Second International....
.”

Tsereteli was able to return to Petrograd after the 1917 February Revolution and headed the Petrograd Soviet

Petrograd Soviet

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, usually called the Petrograd Soviet, was the Soviet in Saint Petersburg , Russia established in March 1917 after the February Revolution as the representative body of the city's workers....
in late March. He proposed a program of “Revolutionary Defensism”; i.e., a program which prescribed an energetic pursuit of international agreement to end World War I

World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
and an equally energetic defense against Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
so long as the war continued. He joined the Provisional Government as Minister of Post and Telegraphs (May-August 1917), and of the Interior (July-August 1917). After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks ordered Tsereteli's arrest. He returned to Georgia, which in May 1918 declared its independence as the Democratic Republic of Georgia

Democratic Republic of Georgia

The 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....
. There he was not a major player, but obtained a seat in the Constituent Assembly

Constituent Assembly of Georgia

The Constituent Assembly of Georgia was a national legislature of the Democratic Republic of Georgia which was elected in February 1919 to ratify the Act of Independence of Georgia and enact the Constitution of Georgia of 1921....
and represented his country at the Paris Peace Conference

Paris Peace Conference, 1919

The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors in World War I to set the peace terms for Germany and other defeated nations, and to deal with the empires of the defeated powers following the Armistice of 1918....
. After the Soviet takeover

Red Army invasion of Georgia

The Red Army invasion of Georgia also known as the Soviet-Georgian War was a military campaign by the Russian SFSR Red Army against the Democratic Republic of Georgia aimed at overthrowing the local Georgian Social Democratic Party government and installing the Bolshevik regime in the country....
of Georgia early in 1921, Tsereteli remained in opposition, but emigrated in 1923 to Paris

Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
.

Tsereteli remained an avowed internationalist and did not go through an evolution to nationalism, like many of his fellow Georgian Mensheviks did. Thus, he was an opponent both to the liberal nationalist Zurab Avalishvili

Zurab Avalishvili

Zurab Avalishvili was a Georgia historian, jurist and diplomat in the service of the Democratic Republic of Georgia . He was also known as Zurab Davidovich Avalov in a Russian language manner....
and the social democrat Noe Zhordania

Noe Zhordania

Noe Zhordania was a Georgia n journalist and Menshevik politician. He played an eminent role in the Social Democracy revolutionary movement in Imperial Russia, and later chaired the government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia from July 24 1918 until March 18 1921, when the Bolshevik Russian SFSR Red Army invasion of Georgia forced him...
. All of them extensively wrote abroad on the Georgian politics. Tsereteli accepted the principle of the fight for Georgia’s independence, but rejected the view of Zhordania and other Georgian émigrés that the Bolshevik domination was effectively identical to Russian domination. Furthermore, he insisted on close cooperation between the Russian and Georgian socialists against the Bolsheviks, but did not agree with any cooperation with the Georgian nationalists. This led to Tsereteli’s isolation among the émigré Georgians and he largely withdrew from political activity. In the 1940s, he moved to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
where continued to write on a history of the revolution and died in New York City

New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
in 1959.