Tengliz Simashvili
This article was published by Police Academy
Publisher the Archival Bulletin, #14 (2013)
This one and other interesting articles about Stalin
are here - pages 72-99; 123-129
Ilia Chavchavadze’s Circle;
The people involved with Ilia Chavchavadze
According to documents which are preserved at the
Archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, neither the Tsarist
investigative institutions nor the Soviet authorities investigated the friends
and foes of Ilia Chavchavadze. The documents show that they were both unable
and unwilling to expose the people who were on one hand close friends and on
the other hand supported his assassins. Moreover, between 1936 and 1941 the
Soviet authorities did their best to destroy, falsify and conceal the memoirs
of Ilia’s close friends in August 1907. Among these were Dmitri Jashi (Ilia’s
servant), Daria Jashi (Dmitri’s wife), Sophio Undilashvili (Ilia’s baker),
Sandro Undilashvili (Sophio’s son), Tedo Labauri (Ilia’s cabman), and others.
In addition to the above mentioned, archival documents concerning Ilia’s
assassination and its supporters were also falsified and destroyed.
However, the National Archive of Georgia and the
Archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs have a rich collection of
unpublished documents which could shed a light on the real motives behind
Ilia’s assassination. Moreover, it can draw attention to those people who had a
close relationship with Ilia.
In the following article the inner circle of Ilia
will be discussed in order to gain a clearer view on possible motives.
Who is who?
1.
Ilia Chavchavadze’s servant Dmitri Jashi
Ilia’s servant Dmitri Sofromovich Jashi was
living in Saguramo at the time of Ilia’s assassination. He was born in the
village Abasha, in the region of Kutaisi, in the 1880s. According to different
sources, he finished a three-year elementary school in Chokhatauri. At the
beginning of the 1900s, he worked first as an apprentice, later as a typesetter
in the printing-houses of Tbilisi, and at the following newspapers: Iveria, Tsnobis Purtseli and others.
Dmitri Jashi replaced Ilia’s faithful and trusty servant Moses Memarnishvili
after the latter had been killed on June 7, 1907.
According to archival documents, Dmitri Jashi was
not an agent of the Tbilisi Okhrana (the Tsar’s secret police) when Ilia
Chavchavadze was assassinated in August, 1907. However, since 1904 Dmitri Jashi
had been in close contact with members of the Social Democratic party, both
with Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. [1]
Dmitri Jashi’s got acquainted to his wife Daria
when she was a member of the Social Democratic Party. He was also Noe
Ramishvili’s friend. Interestingly, together with his friends Iliko
Imerlishvili and Alexander (Sasha) Oboladze, Jashi robbed several different
institutions and banks.[2]
Noteworthy is that according to the documents of
the Tbilisi Okhrana, Dmitri Jashi was a member of the Social Federalist Party,
and later a member of - and activist for
the Social Democratic Party.
A different version of Ilia Chavchavadze’s
assassination, made by the Soviet Justice House, was based on a falsified story
of Dmitri Jashi’s life and his activities. Without any actual facts and
materials, they 'proved' that Ilia Chavchavadze had been killed by his servant
Dmitri Jashi; arguing that he was an agent of the Tbilisi Okhrana. The idea
that Jashi was an agent of the gendarmerie or Okhrana emerged in the 1930s
based materials collected through the investigative commission for Ilia
Chavchavadze’s assassination. This commission had been formed on Lavrenti
Beria’s initiative and was headed by Kote Gordeladze; a rough copy of the
report on Chavchavadze's assasination has been written by the latter. [3]
However, it should be noted that the information
about Dmitri Jashi was completely falsified and chronologically mixed in
several books written during the Soviet period.
For example, the book Isidore Odishvili wrote. He
was the chairman of Gigla Berbichashvili’s trial in 1941-1942 and wrote a book
called Tsitsamuri Tragedy (1953).
However, the book does not provide the reader with any evidence that Dmitri
Jashi actually held well-paid positions, not only during the Menshevik period,
but also after the occupation of Georgia by the Bolsheviks, as has been
claimed. Even though the author argues to have witnesses supporting this. [4]
Kote Gordeladze and others, who were involved in
Gigla Berbichashvili’s trial in 1941, used the memoirs of Dmitri Jashi’s wife
Daria. The memoirs provide the reader with the following information: “Dmitri
worked in a grocery shop during the Mensheviks. He guided the process of
providing the shop with purchased food-stuffs”, and “At Sergo Kavtaradze’s
suggestion, Dmitri was appointed as one of the food-stuffs providers after the
Red Army had occupied Georgia”. [5]
An extract from Daria Jashi’s evidence (in Tsitsamuri Tragedy by I. Odishvili)
testifies to the attempt to hide the alliance between Dmitri Jashi and the
Social Democratic Party. At Gigla Berbichashvili’s trial, Daria Jashi was asked
how Dmitri Jashi earned his living. The answer was as following: “When I became
his wife, he robbed an agricultural bank. He had till recently a close
relationship with the Tsar officials. He attended every meeting. I had a few
invitation cards. It happened, because he often wrote articles praising them.
However, he was also such a man that he had been arrested five times under the
Tsar ruling. I don’t know where he would be at nights. He always took his
salary at night.”
However, if we look at Daria Jashi’s complete
answer in the Gigla Berbichashvili’s file, which is preserved in the Archive of
the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, it states:
“When Dmitri Jashi took me as his wife, he had
already robbed an agricultural bank with the assistance of other robbers’
(Author’s note: At the beginning of April 1906 an agricultural bank was robbed
and bank manager G. S. Gandzieli was killed). I learnt it at the place where I
lived as a freeloader. My neighbors were the following robbers: Imerlishvili,
Oboladze, Chikvaidze and Avagh(l)ishvili. They made a plan to rob the bank and
they quarreled about the money.
I was forced to follow them. I wanted to commit
suicide.
My husband told me that he worked on Vysotsky’s
farm. He came home at night. I don’t know where he really worked.
Lado and Iliko Darchias knew Dmitri well. They helped him in translating a book.
Imerlishvili and Oboladze often visited Dmitri.
The latter helped them to draw up plans for future robberies. They were
anarchists.
When I became Dmitri’s wife he introduced himself
to me as a Social-Democrat.
Noe Ramishvili lived next to us. Dmitri had a
close relationship with Imerlishvili and Oboladze. They scolded Dmitri for his
friendly relationship with Noe Ramishvili.
My husband robbed a bank with the anarchists.
One day a man came to me and said that my husband
wrote him a letter asking him for some money. The man wanted to know what my
husband wanted.
This an examplary activity of what my husband and
his friends were involved in.
The man who told me about the letter, lived in
Mtatsminda. I don’t remember his surname.
I became Dmitri’s wife in May and we moved to
Saguramo in June of the following year.
Dmitri used to say to me that he grew up at Ilia
Chavchavadze’s and that he was a friend of Saginova, Ilia Chavchavadze’s
sister”... ”. [6]
According to the archival documents, Dmitri Jashi became an agent during the
investigation of Ilia Chavchavadze’s case in September-October, 1907. However,
in 1908 D. Jashi was inactive. He was a temporary “preserved” agent. In
accordance with the aforementioned, the documents testifying his espionage
activities, salary register and information which was given to the Okhrana, are
dated 1909. In my opinion, his espionage activities started belated because of
two facts. First of all, he needed some time to rehabilitate his past
relationships with the members of the party the Okhrana was interested in after
he had served his time in prison. Secondly, in 1908 the head of the Tbilisi
Okhrana was changed.
The fact that Dmitri Jashi was mentioned as
provocateur and agent was connected with an event in 1911. What happened:
Dmitri Jashi had placed materials for making a grenade in the house of his
opponent and denounced him to the Okhrana. Having found out the truth about
Dmitri Jashi’s activity, the head of Tbilisi Khranka arrested their own agent
Jashi, nicknamed Sluchaini, and sent him to the Metekhi prison. This is the
story of how Dmitri Jashi got known as a provocateur.
Between 1909 and 1911 the Georgian society did
not know anything about Dmitri Jashi’s espionage activities. However, it became
widely known after his trial process in 1911. According to the documents that
are preserved in the archive, Jashi, also known as Sluchaini, continued
providing the Okhrana with useful information until he was arrested in June,
1911.
Dmitri Jashi was imprisoned in June 1911 and
released in November 1912. He moved to Baku to work there, as Georgia was not a
country he could live in anymore. During 1912-1913 he worked as an inspector at
the Baku railway. However, he was arrested for selling falsified tickets and
was imprisoned for eight months from March till November, 1915.
In 1916 Dmitri Jashi began to work in a security
service department, co-operating with headquarter of the Caucasus military
region. His chief was Colonel Basov ordered Jashi to gather relevant
information. Therefore, in late September 1916, Dmitri Jashi visited the
Elizavetopol province and in early November, the area in the vicinity of the
Black Sea.
Noteworthy is that Dmitri Jashi, who was accused
of being an agent of the Okhrana and imprisoned after the February Revolution
of 1917, wrote one long letter addressed to the Special Investigation
Commission co-operating with the Trans-Caucasus Special Committee; and another
seven-page telegram addressed to N. Zhordania and the Georgian society. While
Social-Federalists were denounced, Social- Democrats were praised highly in
both letters.
As it was aforementioned, despite his ex-espionage
activities, Dmitri Jashi held high positions in state organs during 1918-1922,
after he had been released from prison.
Jashi died in a family related issue. He and his
brother-in-law were not on good terms because of office issues. In June 1922,
Dmitri Jashi was shot by his brother-in-law. According to the memoirs of
different contemporaries, it was nothing but an accident.
However, despite Jashi's history in espionage,
one should wonder what his role in Ilia’s assassination was.
Dmitri Jashi was a clever and educated man in
contrast to the other workers of the printing-house. According to several
documents, by virtue of his brains and self-education, Dmitri was actively
involved not only in pro-social and democrat activities, including gathering
money for “military cashbox” of Social-Democrats, but also in the activities of
a revolutionary organization, including drawing up territorial and
expropriation acts. Dmitri Jashi seemed to be appointed Ilia’s servant for that
purpose.
Noteworthy is that Dmitri Jashi had a good chance
of becoming Ilia’s servant, as he worked at the newspaper Iveria and knew Ilia’s sister very well. The people who had
brutally murdered Ilia Chavchavadze’s servant Moses Memarnishvili and his wife,
of course knew about this. M. Memarnishvili was stabbed so many times, that his
head was nearly cut off. Therefore, in my opinion, it is likely to be a part of
the terrorist attack against Ilia Chavchavadze by the Red Detachments of the
Social-Democrats.
It is known that Ilia’s servant Moses
Memarnishvili, who was a devoted friend of his chief, was killed by local Red
Detachments of the Social-Democrats. Two of them – Pavle Pshavlishvili and
Gigla Berbichashvili, were involved in Ilia Chavchavadze’s assassination too.
M. Memarnishvili’s murder was quite organized. The killers ganged up on him.
We present memoirs of Dmitri Jashi’s wife Daria
Jashi from Kote Gordeladze’s rough copy of his work, saying: “When Dmitri
decided to become Ilia’s servant Noe Ramishvili warned him that he would be
expelled from the party ”. [7] Daria Jashi repeated her
words when she was questioned at the trial of G. Berbichashvili on June 6,
1941. She said: “Dmitri had resigned from the printing-house before he became
Ilia’s servant. Noe Ramishvili expelled him from the party. Dmitri’s salary was
130 rubles”.
Dmitri Jashi worked as a type-setter in the
printing-house. Between 1905 and 1907 he also translated and published poems,
wrote articles for several newspapers, and helped people to write applications
to court. Therefore, he had quite a good income. Thus, it can be concluded that
Dmitri Jashi started to work as Ilia’s servant not because he wanted to
increase his income. Nevertheless, it was not a spontaneous decision either.
Actually, he must have had a really important reason for making such decision,
as he dared to oppose Noe Ramishvili who was one of the leaders of the
Social-Democrats.
According to the documents that are preserved in
the archive, the attack on Ilia Chavchavadze was a well organized terrorist
act. The organizer must have been an experienced, skilled and clever person. It
is highly unlikely the killer would have had any personal relationship with his
target. The organizer of this terrorist attack had absolutely very different
tasks. The fact is that the organizers and leaders of a terrorist attack do not
usually participate in spying on the object. While they analyze and summarize
gathered information, draw up the plan and perform the act, other members of
the terrorist group spy on the target.
In conclusion, Dmitri Jashi’s activities do not
give us an answer to the following questions: Who was the organizer and leader
of the terrorist attack on Ilia Chavchavadze? Who needed to know Ilia’s route
to find him alone and unprotected in order to attack him unexpectedly? Who
wanted to carry out this terrorist attack in order to stay alive themselves and
defend their group members?
There is no evidence supporting that Dmitri Jashi
knew Ilia Chavchavadze’s aggressors before he arrived at Saguramo. As we know,
the aggressors were the following: Pavle Pshavlishvili, Gigla Berbichashvili
and Vano Inashvili.
Moreover, the Soviet Justice House did not try to
find out the following issue: how did a type-setter such as Dmitri Jashi manage
to gain confidence of absolutely unknown people to him and form a group of
attackers with them?
The fact that Dmitri Jashi became Ilia’s servant
in order to get information from a future target of a terrorist attack, does
prove that Dmitri was a devoted person to the organizer of the attack.
According to the documents, the organizer and
simultaneously also a participant of the terrorist attack on Ilia, was Iliko
Imerlishvili, also known as Imereli from the Dusheti region. In the early 1900s
he had a friendly relation with Dmitri Jashi; they worked together in the
printing-house. During 1905-1906, Imerlishvili was a member of the terrorist
organization Group of Mtatsminda (Bolsheviks). In 1907 Imerlishvili was the
head of the Red Detachments of the Social-Democrats operating in Saguramo and
Mtskheta.
2.
Dmitri Jashi’s wife Daria Jashi
In the summer of 1907, Dmitri Jashi’s wife Daria
Jashi lived in Ilia Chavchavadze’s house in Saguramo. In 1906 she studied at
Ekaterine Gabashvili’s school in Tbilisi. She became Dmitri’s wife after he had
abducted her. In the autumn of 1907 they had a 6-month old baby.
However, in 1911 a tragedy happened in their
family when their second baby (11-months old) died. In 1914 they divorced.
Nevertheless, according to Daria Jashi, they continued to communicate for the
sake of their children’s.
Daria Jashi was the only person who named Iliko
Imerlishvili as the killer of Ilia Chavchavadze during the Soviet period. [8]
There are many interesting details in Daria
Jashi’s memoirs and statements, according to which Dmitri Jashi knew not only
Noe Ramishvili, but also Philipp Makharadze and Mamia Orakhelashvili. They both
saved the provider of the foodstuff administration, Dmitri Jashi, from
execution in Baku. Noteworthy is Daria Jashi’s following statement, saying:
“When Dmitri Jashi took me as his wife, he had already robbed an agricultural
bank with the assistance of other robbers”.
Noteworthy are Dmitri Jashi and Iliko
Imerlishvili’s activities, their functions and their relationship. Let us
examine the previous statement by investigating the memoirs of one of the
terrorists and expropriator which are in the book Young Stalin by Simon
Montefiore. [Simon Sebeg Montefiore, “Young Stalin”, 2008, Vintage Books, New
York, page 152]: “Stalin’s robbers rushed to the agricultural bank of Georgia,
which was situated opposite of the Tsar’s palace. The robbers aimed guns at
people and shouted “hands up”. Afterwards they gathered the money and escaped
shooting in the air. This aggression, which had been planned by Stalin, was
headed by Kamo”.
3.
Ilia’s maid Sophio Undilashvili and her son
Sandro Undilashvili
Sophio Undilashvili, Ilia’s maid, lived in
Saguramo and was among the people who were close to Ilia. In the materials concerning Ilia
Chavchavadze’s assassination, she is indicated as Ilia’s baker. These materials
were collected by Kote Gordeladze.
Sophio Undilashvili was born in 1853. She was
from the village Kotoraantkari in the Dusheti region. She got married to Zurab
Undilashvili in Saguramo. According to archival documents, she believed that,
“poverty made her to serve with her husband and child to misters Staroselski
and Ilia Chachavadze”. [9] According to the documents
that are preserved in the archive of Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia,
the organizers and participant in Ilia’s assassination had many accomplices,
including Dmitri Jashi, in Ilia’s house in Saguramo. According to newly-dredged
archival documents, Sophio Undilashvili knew who the participants of Ilia’s
assassination were, because she was one of them.
Sophio Undilashvili was near the location where
Ilia’s servant Moses Memarnishvili was killed. The head of the Dusheti region
investigated the case. According to the testimony of Sophio Dmitrievna
Rukhiashvili (Undilashvili), on June 7, 1907 she was baking bread in the tone
(Georgian bakery) when two persons attacked her. While she was seized, other
attackers rushed to Moses Memarnishvili’s dwelling. She said that she lost her
consciousness and could not recognize her attackers.
In 1910, Sophio Undilashvili still lived in
Ilia’s resort in Saguramo. However, later on she was accused of being an
accomplice to the robbers and was exiled to Rostov-on-Don. Interestingly, the
robbers turned out be the heads of the Red Detachments of the Dusheti region.
Sophio Undilashvili confirmed her and her son’s relationship with Iliko
Imerlishvili, who was a head of the Red Detachment of the Social-Democrats in
Saguramo. In 1933, she wrote the following in her memoirs: “I did my best to
assist the members of the Red Detachment and propagandists. They often came
here. I provided accommodation and foodstuffs for them. I kept their guns and
other rifles, as my son Sandro was one of them. The people involved were: Lado
Peikrishvili, Iliko Imerlishvili and others”. [10]
There is other confirmation that Sophio
Undilashvili knew the details about Ilia Chavchavadze’s assassination.
According to Daria Jashi’s testimony which she gave at Gigla Berbichashvili’s
trial process, “Bakery Sophio Undilashvili often told me that the Akhatni
villagers were going to kill Ilia”.
The same idea could be read in the memoirs of
Daria Jashi, which were written in the 1930s. She wrote: “Sophio Undilashvili
and cook Khariton told me that the boys residing in the village of Akhatna were
planning to kill Ilia and that I should be more careful”.
When Ilia was assassinated, Sophio Undilashvili’s
son Sandro Undilashvili was living with his mother in Saguramo. According to
Ilia Rukhadze, a teacher from Saguramo, the following people lived in the
Saguramo country-house in 1910: apiarist Daniel Maslov, baker Sophio and her
son Shakro Undilashvili. (Author’s note: the same Alexander (Sandro)
Undilashvili; noteworthy is that according to Ilia Rukhadze, Sandro
Undilashvili and his mother had a bad relationship with Ilia Chavchavadze).
According to the autobiography of Sandro Undilashvili, which was written in
1933, he was a member of the social democratic workers’ party of Russia. An
extract from the autobiography: “I was an activist of the Revolution in
Tbilisi, 1905. I acquainted with Giorgi Tatishvili and a member of the Red
Detachment, Lado Peikrishvili. I became a member of the Social Democratic
Workers’ party of Russia at once”. [11]
According to Sandro Undilashvili, as a member of
the Red Detachment he participated in the assassination of Prince Nikoloz
Khimshiev’s (Khimshiashvili), who was a major landowner in the Dusheti region.
According to the memoirs of the Social-Democrat Giorgi Tatishvili, Nikoloz
Khimshiev was killed in 1909 based on a decision made at a general meeting of
the Social-Democrats in the Saguramo region.
[12]
The fact that Sandro Undilashvili was one of the
participants in the terrorist acts in Mtskheta and Saguramo, which had been
organized by the members of the Red Detachment, is supported by another
document. According to this document, Sandro Undilashvili confirms that his
mother Sophio Undilashvili had a relationship with the members of the Red
Detachment in Saguramo. He said as follows: “In 1910 my mother was accused of
supporting my friends and me and was imprisoned”. [13] Under the Soviet
authorities in 1936, the process began of falsifying the documents about Ilia’s
assassination. In accordance with this, the information about that Sophio
Undilashvili and her son Sandro Undilashvili knew the members of the Red
Detachments of Social Democratic party and Iliko Imerlishvili was erased from
their testimonies.
4.
Ilia Chavchavadze’s cabman Tedo Labauri
Noteworthy from Ilia Chavchavadze’s circle is his
cabman Tedo Labauri. He was found guilty of Ilia’s assassination under the
Tsar’s authority. In 1909 ,Tedo Labauri, Ivane Inashvili and Giorgi
Khizanishvili were hanged to death.
According to newly-dredged documents, Ilia
Chavchavadze’s cabman Ledo Labauri was connected with the Red Detachments of
the Social-Democrats in Saguramo.
According to the protocol passed by the
“Committee of Old Revolutionaries’ Examination” of the Mtskheta region on
December 7, 1932, the Old Social-Democrats drew up the lists of the Saguramo
revolutionaries. This was done in the in presence of comrade Vano Guruli
(Alikhanashvili) and others who had been sent on a mission from the Georgian
cheka. The following of Ilia’s assassinators are also on the lists of dead
revolutionaries: Pavle Pshavlishvili (certified as “killer of Ilia’s servant),
Vano Inashvili (certified as “Ilia’s killer) and Ilia’s cabman Tedo Labauri.
Accordingly, the persons from Ilia Chavchavadze’s
circle were connected to his assassination and they had relationship with the
heads of the local Red Detachments of the Social-Democratic party.
[1] Section II, MIA Archive (former party organ archives),
document entitled “Ilia’s assassination”, c.7, p. 113
[2]
Section II,
MIA Archive (former party organ archives), document entitled “Ilia’s assassination”,
c.7, p. 113-114
[3]
Section II,
MIA Archive (former party organ archives), document entitled “Ilia’s
assassination”, c. 19, p.354, 355, 356
[4] Section II, MIA Archive (former party organ archives),
document entitled “Ilia’s assassination”, c. 7, p.123
[5]
Section
II, MIA Archive (former party organ
archives), document entitled “Ilia’s assassination”, c.19, p.150
[6] Section II, MIA Archive (former party organ archives),
document entitled “Ilia’s assassination”, c.7, p. 123
[7]
Section
II, MIA Archive (former party organ archives), document entitled “Ilia’s
assassination”, c.7, p.116
[8]
Section II,
MIA Archive (former party organ archives), document entitled “Ilia’s
assassination”, c. 19, p.149
[10]
Section II,
MIA Archive (former party organ archives), fond 93, opp.2, delo 897, p.8
[11]
Section II,
MIA Archive (former party organ archives), fond 93, opp.2, delo 897, p.2
[12]
Section II, MIA Archive (former party organ archives),
fond 93, opp.2, delo 931
[13]
Section II, MIA Archive (former party organ archives),
fond 93, opp.2, delo 897, pp.3, 6
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