Khariton Rostomovich Shavishvili ( Georgian ხარიტონ შავიშვილი , 1886-1975) is a Russian revolutionary, Georgian diplomat, and later a political emigrant and writer.
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Biography
Born in a large family of Sady Dolidze and Rostom Shavishvili. His parents had seven children: six sons and one daughter. The older brother, Vano, played an important role in the life of Chariton. He took him to Batumi in 1881 and brought him into the circle of revolutionaries. There Khariton became close to the Social Democrats - Isidore Ramishvili , Noem Khomeriki , Benia Chkhikvishvili , Noah Ramishvili . He also met Noah Zhordania and Joseph Stalin . He continued his revolutionary activities in Chiatura, from where he moved to Kutaisi.
In 1906 he was arrested, kept in Metekhi prison, then exiled to Siberia.
In the spring of 1908, he managed to escape from Siberia, cross Russia, Poland and eventually end up in Switzerland, where his older brother Vano lived. In Geneva, met with Lenin. He had close relations with the Menshevik leaders - Plekhanov and Martov . Khariton Shavishvili described this in a 1974 book, Russian Revolutionaries in Geneva in 1908, published in French in Geneva.
In October 1918, together with Mikhail Sumbatashvili, he created the diplomatic mission of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in Bern.
After the Sovietization of Georgia in February 1921, Khariton Shavishvili remained in Geneva and until 1934 was the representative of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in the League of Nations. Several times in the League of Nations he criticized the Soviet Union. It is known about his performance in 1934, when he accused Soviet Russia of secret weapons.
In November 1918, Khariton Shavishvili founded the Bureau of Georgian Press in Bern. For 25 years, the Bureau has published information on the political and economic situation of Georgia.
In 1934, he protested against the USSR joining the League of Nations, Shavishvili’s activities as a Georgian delegate to the League of Nations ceased; however, he remained a representative of the Georgian Press Bureau accredited to the League of Nations.
During the Second World War, he was active in supporting compatriots in the occupation zones of Germany, Austria and Italy. After the war he was engaged in journalism.
In Switzerland, he created a family, married a Frenchwoman, and his son Levan was born in marriage, who had three children: Catherine, Emanuel and Isabelle (Nino) Shavshavel.
Khariton Shavishvili died on January 27, 1975 at the age of 88 and was buried in a cemetery in the Geneva colony.
On June 10, 2013 in Geneva, on Georges-Pavonis Boulevard, a memorial plaque was installed on the house where Shavishvili lived at the end of his life: “Hariton Shavishvili lived here. Revolutionary writer, representative of the Democratic Republic of Georgia (in French) in the League of Nations He lived for his homeland (in Georgian). ”
Khariton Shavishvili’s archive is kept by the UN Geneva Library, an electronic copy was transferred to Georgia in 2015, these documents were added to the funds of the Central Historical Archive and are available to Georgian researchers.