Konstantine Gamsakhurdia

კონსტანტინე გამსახურდია Konstantine Gamsakhurdia
Born	May 3, 1893 Abasha, Kutais Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	July 17, 1975 (aged 82) Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union
Occupation	writer, poet, social activist
Language	Georgian
Nationality	Georgian
Literary movement	Expressionism, Literary modernism
Notable works	"The Right Hand of the Grand Master" "David the Builder"
Spouse	Miranda Palavandishvili
Children	Zviad Gamsakhurdia

Konstantine Gamsakhurdia (Georgian: კონსტანტინე გამსახურდია) (May 3, 1893 – July 17, 1975) was a Georgian writer and public figure, who, along with Mikheil Javakhishvili, is considered to be one of the most influential Georgian novelists of the 20th century. Educated and first published in Germany, he married Western European influences to purely Georgian thematic to produce his best works, such as The Right Hand of the Grand Master and David the Builder. Hostile to the Soviet rule, he was, nevertheless, one of the few leading Georgian writers to have survived the Stalin-era repressions, including his exile to a White Sea island and several arrests. His works are noted for their character portrayals of great psychological insight. Another major feature of Gamsakhurdia's writings is a new subtlety he infused into Georgian diction, imitating an archaic language to create a sense of classicism.

Konstantine Gamsakhurdia's son, Zviad, became a notable Soviet-era dissident who was subsequently elected the first President of Georgia in 1991, but died under suspicious circumstances in the civil war in 1993.

Born into a petite noble family in Abasha in western Georgian province of Mingrelia, then under the Imperial Russian rule, Gamsakhurdia received early education at the Kutaisi gymnasium and then studied in St. Petersburg, where he quarreled with Nicholas Marr. He spent most of the World War I years in Germany, France, and Switzerland, taking his doctorate at the Berlin University in 1918. As a Russian subject, he was briefly interned at Traunstein in Bavaria where Thomas Mann sent him chocolate. Gamsakhurdia published his first poems, and short stories early in the 1910s, influenced by German Expressionism and French Post-Symbolist literature. While in Germany, he regularly wrote for German press on Georgia and the Caucasus, and was involved in organizing a Georgian Liberation Committee. After Georgia's declaration of independence in 1918, he became an attaché on Georgia's embassy in Berlin, responsible for repatriation of Georgian World War I prisoners and placing Georgian students in German universities.

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