Career
As a scientist, he was Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics and vice-president of the Georgian Academy of Sciences. Dzotsenidze was born in a peasant family in Kutaisi and graduated from the Tbilisi State University in 1929. In 1933–1934 he briefly headed the department of mineralogy and petrography at the pedagogical institute in Kutaisi, and from 1934 to 1959 held positions of professor, dean and rector (1958-1959) of the Tbilisi University.
Between 1951 and 1955 he was a secretary, and from 1955 to 1958 the first vice-president of the Georgian Academy of Sciences.
His scientific works concerned paleovolcanology and the connection between magmatism and tectonics. In particular, he was one of the founders of the theory of volcanogenic-sedimentary lithogenesis.
In 1959 he was chosen as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, and in 1960 appointed as the deputy chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. He held these posts until his death in 1976.