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General Konstantine Abkhazi

Prince Kote (Konstantine) Abkhazi (In Georgian:კოტე აბხაზი) (November 17, 1867-May 19, 1923), was a distinguished Georgian military figure, politician and public benefactor, one of the leaders of the Georgian national liberation movement in 1921-1923, Major General of Artillery (1914). He was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1923.

Born in 1867, in a village Kardenakhi (Kakheti region of Eastern Georgia), he was a son of Prince Nikoloz (Niko) Abkhazi and Princess Chavchavadze, the sister of the great Georgian writer and public benefactor Ilia Chavchavadze (1837-1907).

Educated at the Military School, he entered the St. Petersburg Military Academy (Russia). After the graduation, he served in the Imperial Russian army since 1890.

He used his influence and privileges to organize the construction of the Kakhetian railway (1906-1913), and was elected as a leader (Marshal) of the Gathering of the Nobility of Kartl-Kakheti (the Eastern Georgia) (1913-1914, 1916-1917).

At the beginning of the World War I, he was promoted to the rank of Major General of Artillery (1914), and commanded an artillery Brigade in 1914-1916. One of the founders of the National Democratic Party of Georgia (1917), he led it from 1920 through 1923. Actively involved in the forming of the National Army of Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG), he vas one of the founders of the Tbilisi State University (1918). In 1919-1921, he was a member of the National Parliament of the DRG.

After the occupation of the Democratic Republic of Georgia by the Bolshevik Russia’s Red Army (February-March, 1921), Abkhazi was one of the leaders of the Georgian National-Liberation movement. In the spring of 1922, he headed the Military Center of the Committee of Independence of Georgia, an underground inter-party organization aiming preparing an armed uprising against the Soviet rule. Together with his fellow members of the Center, he was actively involved in organizing partisan movements in Kakheti and Pshav-Khevsureti (1922). In February 1923, Abkhazi and 14 other members of the Military Center (Alexandre Andronikashvili, Varden Tsulukidze, Giorgi Khimshiashvili, Rostom Muskhelishvili, Mikheil Zandukeli, Simon Bagrationi-Mukhraneli, Parnaoz Karalashvili, Iason Kereselidze, Ivane Kutateladze, Simon Chiabrishvili, Alexandre Machavariani, Elizbar Gulisashvili, Levan Klimiashvili and Dimitri Chrdileli) were arrested by the GPU, and were shot for anti-Soviet activities on May 19, 1923, in Tbilisi.

Abkhazi’s son, Nicholas (died 1987) and his Shanghai-born spouse Peggy Pemberton Carter (died 1994) moved to Canada and, beginning from 1946, built a well-known garden at Vancouver Island, Victoria, British Columbia (Abkhazi Garden).

• List of Georgians
• August Uprising in Georgia

• U. Sidamonidze. Abkhazi, Konstantine. Encyclopedia "Sakartvelo", vol. I, Tbilisi, 1997: pp. 256-257 (in Georgian)
• Journal "Samshoblo", No: 21-22, Paris, 1937 (in Georgian)
• Journal "Mkhedari", Paris, No: 2, 1929, pp. 22-23 (in Georgian)