Zurab Avalishvili was a Georgian historian, jurist and diplomat in the service of the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
Education
Born in Tbilisi, Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire), into the family of Prince David Avalishvili, he graduated from Saint St. Petersburg University in 1900 and took post-graduate courses at the Department of Law, University of Paris from 1900 to 1903.
Career
He was also known as Zurab Davidovich Avalov in a Russian manner. He became a Docent at the Saint St. Petersburg University in 1904 and a Professor of Public Law at the Saint St. Petersburg Polytechnical Institute in 1907. He was an official adviser to the Russian Ministry of Trade and Commerce for many years.
After the February Revolution in Russia, Avalishvili was named a Senator by the Provisional Government in May 1917.
When Georgia declared independence on May 26, 1918, Avalishvili entered Georgian diplomatic service and was appointed a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Red Army invasion of Georgia forced him into exile in March 1921.
He lived thereafter in Germany where he worked as a Professor at the University of Munich. He died in 1944, in Germany, and was reburied to Didube Pantheon, Tbilisi, in 1994.
Avalishvili’s main works focuses on the history of Georgia and the Caucasus, Georgian literature (eg, the critical studies of Shota Rustaveli), international law and Georgia’s foreign relations.
His The Independence of Georgia in International Politics, 1918-1921 is a detailed and well-documented first-hand account of Georgia’s relations with its neighbors, the nation’s struggle for recognition and its international ramifications in the period of 1918 to 1921. Much of the works is in diary form, the author being judiciously critical of ineptitude of the Caucasian governments.
Membership
He rendered important services to his homeland as a member of her delegation to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. He was one of the founding members of the Georgian Association in Germany and worked for the editorial boards of historical journals Georgica (London) and Byzantion (Brussels).