Leo Kereselidze

Leo Kereselidze (Georgian: ლეო კერესელიძე) (1885 – 1943) was a Georgian military figure, politician and journalist who served as one of the leaders in the Georgian national movement against the Russian and later Soviet domination.^[1] He was an older brother of Jason Kereselidze, a national hero of Georgia.

Kerselidze was born to Georgian parents, Mate Kerselidze and Maryam Kancheli, who were themselves public figures. According to Mikheil Tsereteli's account in Bedi Kartlisa, Georgian patriotism was instilled early on in the Kereselidze household and the "sons brought from their father's house the duty to fight for their homeland, a burning love for it".^[2]

Starting in 1900, he joined the youth movement for Georgia's independence and in 1905 became a member of the Georgian Socialist-Federalist Revolutionary Party, a Georgian nationalist party, and participated in secret operations to import weapons.^[3]

Early in his twenties, Kereselidze was involved in the Russian Revolution of 1905 and took part in attacks against Russian officials and military as well as in the running of a cargo of guns to the port of Sukhum-Kale. He subsequently moved to Western Europe and obtained a Ph.D. degree from the University of Geneva. In 1913, he joined a group of Georgian patriots in the Committee of Independent Georgia, and engaged in journalism, co-editing with his brother Georges Kereselidze a Geneva-based Georgian newspaper Tavisupali Sakartvelo (“Free Georgia”) from 1913 to 1914, and then working for a Berlin-based Kartuli Gazeti (“Georgian Newspaper”) from 1916 to 1918.

In 1914, at the eve of World War I, the Committee moved to Germany and sought the German aid in restoring the independence of Georgia from Russia. Kereselidze led a military unit of Georgian volunteers, the Georgian Legion, which fought on the German side and was transferred to the Ottoman–Russian Caucasus front. Kereselidze tried to negotiate an alliance with the Ottoman Empire, but refused to accept its suzerainty over a potentially independent Georgia.^[4] He was subsequently promoted to major general, but the Legion was disbanded due to his disagreement with the Ottoman government. Kereselidze was then involved in diplomacy between Georgians and Germans, and staging subversions against the Russian troops.

After the collapse of the Russian armies in the Caucasus and the proclamation of Georgian independence in May 1918, Kereselidze was able to his own country and helped create national army divisions. From 1918 to 1921 he served in the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Georgia.

The 1921 Red Army invasion of Georgia forced him into exile to Germany where he was among the founding members and a secretary general of the right-leaning nationalist organization Tetri Giorgi.

In 1923, Kreselidze's younger brother, Jason Kereselidze, who had stayed behind in Georgia, was executed by the Soviets.

Not long before his death, Kereselidze helped establish a new political organization of Georgian émigrés, the Union of Georgian Traditionalists. His revolutionary career is the subject of a fictionalized biography Unending Battle (London, 1934) by the British army officer and writer Harold Courtenay Armstrong (1891–1943).^[5]

On November 23, 1943, during one of the Allied bombings of Berlin, a shell hit the house in which Leo Kereselidze lived, killing him along with numerous other residents. His unique library and personal archive also perished. One manuscript survived, titled "For what purpose did Georgia seek Russian rule? The history of the Georgian uprising against Russian rule during the first quarter of the 19th century. March-May, 1929. Nice".^[6]

Kereselidze was survived by one daughter, Maryam.^[7][8] There is a street named after him in Tbilisi.