03 — The National Work

The public institutions through which Ilia Chavchavadze built a modern Georgian nation from below: the journals Sakartvelos Moambe (1863) and Iveria (1877), the Society for the Spreading of Literacy among Georgians (1879), the Nobility Land Bank, and his leadership in the imperial State Council of 1906.

Tradition: Georgian Orthodox

Ilia’s greatness was as much organizational as literary. Denied a state and an autocephalous Church, he built the substitutes a nation needs — a press, a system of schools, a financial institution to protect the land, and a public leadership — and in doing so created much of the institutional fabric of modern Georgia. Two files:

  • The Journals: Sakartvelos Moambe and Iveria — the creation of a modern Georgian press: the short-lived but seminal Sakartvelos Moambe (1863) and the enduring Iveria (from 1877), the platform of the national movement for a generation.
  • The Society for Literacy and the Bank — the Society for the Spreading of Literacy among Georgians (1879), the Nobility Land Bank as the movement’s financial engine, and his election to the State Council in 1906.

Files

File Description
the-journals-sakartvelos-moambe-and-iveria.md Sakartvelos Moambe (1863); Iveria (1877), journal and daily newspaper; the Georgian press as a national institution
the-society-for-literacy-and-the-bank.md The Society for the Spreading of Literacy (1879); the Nobility Land Bank; the State Council of 1906

See Also