Zurab Avalishvili

Zurab Avalishvili (Georgian: ზურაბ ავალიშვილი) (1876 – May 21, 1944) was a Georgian historian, jurist and diplomat in the service of the Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921). He was also known as Zurab Davidovich Avalov in a Russian manner.

Born in Tbilisi, Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire), into the family of Prince David Avalishvili, he graduated from St Petersburg University in 1900 and took post-graduate courses at the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris in 1900-1903. He became an Associate Professor at St Petersburg University (1904) and a Professor at St Petersburg Technical Institute (1907) where he chaired the Department of Administrative Law.

During the revolutionary turmoil of 1917 he was a member of the Russian Senate. When the Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG) proclaimed independence on May 26 1918, Avalishvili was appointed a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and remained on this post until the country was invaded by the Soviet forces in 1921. During the years of the short-lived independence, he saw an active diplomatic service including being a deputy head of the Georgian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919.

One of the founders of the Tbilisi State University in 1918, he was also one of the first professors there.

The fall of the DRG to the Red Army forced him into exile in March 1921. He lived thereafter in Germany where he worked as a Professor at the University of Munich. He was one of the founding members of the Georgian Association in Germany and worked for the editorial boars of historical journals Georgica (London) and Byzantion (Brussels).

He died in 1944, in Germany, and was reburied to Didube Pantheon, Tbilisi, in 1994.

Avalishvili’s main works focuses on the history of Georgia and the Caucasus, Georgian literature (particularly in the field of Rustvelology, i.e. critical studies of Shota Rustaveli), international law and Georgia’s foreign relations.

Some of the main works of Zurab Avalishvili

• "Joining of Georgia to Russia" (a monograph), St.Petersburg, 1901, 1906 (in Russian)
• "The Independence of Georgia in the International Politics of 1918-1921" (a monograph), Tbilisi, 1925
• "Questions of "The Knight in the Panther's Skin"" (a monograph), Paris, 1931 (in Georgian)
• "Geschichte Georgiens" (a monograph), Muenchen, 1944 (in German)
• "King Teimuraz I and his work "Martyrdom of Queen Ketevan"" (a monograph), Paris, 1938 (in Georgian)
• "History of the Caucasian Politics" (a monograph).- J. "Kavkaz", Muenchen, No 35-40, 1936-1937 (in Russian)
• "Geographie et legende dans un ecrit apocriphe de Saint Basile".- J. "Revue de l'Orient Christien", 3 serie, Paris, 1927-28, t. 6 (26), No 3-4 (in French)
• "A fifteenth-century Georgian painting in the Metropolitan Museum".- J. "Georgica", London, vol. 1, No 1, 1935
• "The Cross from Overseas".- J. "Georgica", London, Vol. 1, No 2-3, 1936
• "La succession du Curopalate David d'Iberie, Dynastie de Tao".- J. "Byzantion", Bruxells, t. 7, 1933 (in French)