Mikheil Javakhishvili
| მიხეილ ჯავახიშვილი Mikheil Javakhishvili |
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| Born | 8 November 1880 Tserakvi, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died |
30 September 1937 (aged 56) Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union |
| Occupation | writer, novelist |
| Language | Georgian |
| Nationality | Georgian |
| Genre | Critical Realism |
| Notable works |
Kvachi Kvachantiradze(1924) Jaqo's Dispossessed(1925) The White Collar (1926) |
Mikheil Javakhishvili (Georgian: მიხეილ ჯავახიშვილი; birth surname: Adamashvili ადამაშვილი) (8 November 1880 – 30 September 1937) was a Georgian novelist who is regarded as one of the top twentieth-century Georgian writers. His first story appeared in 1903, but then the writer lapsed into a long pause before returning to writing in the early 1920s. His recalcitrance to the Soviet ideological pressure cost him life: he was executed during the Great Purge and his writings were banned for nearly twenty years. In the words of the modern British scholar of Russian and Georgian literature, Donald Rayfield, "his vivid story-telling, straight in medias res, his buoyant humour, subtle irony, and moral courage merit comparison with those of Stendhal, Guy de Maupassant, and Émile Zola. In modern Georgian prose only Konstantine Gamsakhurdia could aspire to the same international level."
He was born as Mikheil Adamashvili in the village of Tserakvi in what is now the Kvemo Kartli region, Georgia (then part of Imperial Russia). The mismash with his real family name was later explained by writer himself. According to him, his grandparent, born as Javakhishvili (noble family from the province Kartli) killed a man, therefore had to flee to Kakheti where he took a new name Toklikishvili. Mikheil's grandfather Adam returned in Kartli. His son Saba was registered as Adamashvili. Mikheil was also wearing this name in his youth but later he returned the family name of ancestors-Javakhishvili. He enrolled into the Yalta College of Horticulture and Viticulture, but a family tragedy forced him to abandon his studies: robbers killed his mother and sister, and his father died shortly thereafter. Returning to Georgia in 1901, he worked at a copper smeltery in Kakheti. His first story was published in 1903 under the penname of Javakhishvili, followed by a series of journalistic articles critical of the Russian authorities. In 1906, the Tsarist political repressions forced him to retire to France, where he studied art and political economy at the University of Paris. After the extensive travels to Switzerland, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, the United States, Germany and Turkey from 1908 to 1909, he clandestinely returned to his homeland only to be arrested and exiled from Georgia in 1910. He returned in 1917 and, after almost fifteen years of pause, resumed writing. In 1921, he joined the National Democratic Party of Georgia and was in opposition to the Soviet government established in Georgia the same year. In 1923, during the Bolshevik crackdown on the party, Javakhishvili was arrested and sentenced to death, but was exonerated through the mediation of the Georgian Union of Writers and released after six months of imprisonment. Javakhishvili's reconciliation with the Soviet regime was only superficial and his relations with the new authorities remained uneasy.
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Wikipedia