09 — Legacy

The afterlife of Ilia Chavchavadze in modern Georgia: the “father of the nation” whose institutions and ideas shaped the independent state, buried on the Holy Mountain of Tbilisi, and now numbered — a modern layman — beside the royal saints of Georgia.

Tradition: Georgian Orthodox

This closing section takes the measure of what Ilia became. Two files:

  • Father of the Nation — his standing as the founder of modern Georgia: the endurance of his institutions and ideas, his role in the independence movements of 1918 and 1991, and his place in the national imagination.
  • The Pantheon and the Royal Saints — his burial in the Mtatsminda Pantheon on the Holy Mountain, and his distinctive place among the Georgian saints as the one modern layman beside the ancient royal and monastic saints — David, Tamar, Vakhtang, Nina, Gabriel.

Files

File Description
father-of-the-nation.md The founder of modern Georgia; his institutions, ideas, and place in the national story
the-pantheon-and-the-royal-saints.md The Mtatsminda Pantheon; his place among the Georgian saints

See Also