78. Akhmeteli had been scathing toward fellow Georgian writers, whom he accused of giving in to political pressure; they now shrank from defending his name. Rayfield, “Death of Paolo Iashvili,” 655n23.
79. Zelinskii, “V iune 1954 goda,” 82–3.
80. According to the recollections of Semyon Chikovani, who carefully listed all the people who had been present. (Interview with Lasha Bakradze, director of the Georgian Literary Museum, who read out Chikovani’s Georgian-language memoir to me.) By other accounts, after Yashvili shot himself, Javakhishvili muttered, “He was a real man, he was a real man.” Be that as it may, four days later, the writers voted approval of a resolution condemning “Javakhishvili as an enemy of the people, spy and diversant [who] is to be expelled . . . and physically annihilated.” One friend, Geronti Kikodze, had the courage to walk out (and he would survive). Rayfield, “Death of Paolo Iashvili,” 660; Rayfield, Stalin and His Hangmen, 344; Rayfield, Literature of Georgia, 269.
81. Pasternak, Essay in Autobiography, 110; Rayfield, “Pasternak and the Georgians”; Rayfield, Literature of Georgia, 262–3. Beria also stripped Tblisi University of its professors, including the papyrologist and classical scholar Grigol Tsereteli.
82. Rayfield, “Death of Paolo Iashvili,” 636, 647; Rayfield, Literature of Georgia, 247. Countless others were executed, including Dimitri Shevardnadze, a painter who had established the country’s national gallery in 1920 (and had co-designed the emblem of Georgia’s Mensevik-dominated republic of 1918–1921); he had led opposition to a proposal by Beria to tear down Tbilisi’s ancient Metekhi Church (which would survive).
83. Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 16–9, 20 (Mikoyan and Beria to Stalin Jan. 5, 1937). These are documents from the former Communist Party Archive, Georgian Affiliate of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, Tbilisi (f. 14, op. 11, korobka 18, d. 152: telegrammy, poslannye na imia sekretaria TsK VKP [b] tov. Stalina).
84. Beria had asked Molotov for 33,000 more tons, and received an answer from Molotov’s aid (Antipov) that Georgia would have to make do within its existing allocation. Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 31 (Feb. 4, 1937), 40 (May 5, 1937), 47–8 (May 22, 1937).
85. Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 41–5 (May 9, 1937).
86. Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 61–3 (Beria to Stalin and Molotov, July 31, 1937).
87. Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 58–9, 66, 73–5 (Sept. 1, 1937). In Sept. 1937 Beria wrote to Stalin asking for additional kerosene, complaining of severe shortages and queues because of central cutbacks in supplies to the republic. Demand, he wrote, was increasing as a result of the return of students to Tbilisi and provincial capitals for the academic year. In Oct. 1937, he wrote to Stalin and Molotov about failures to deliver planned supplies of gasoline, complaining that the Azerbaijan oil distribution company was sending Georgia’s allotments to Moscow. Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 76–7, 88–9.
88. Zen’kovich, Marshaly i genseki, 194–5. See also Kremlev, Beriia, 84–5.
89. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i glavnoe upravlenie, 252–5 (APRF, f. 3, op. 24, d. 315, l. 24–42).
90. Six others stood in the same trial. Zaria vostoka, July 11, 1937; Conquest, Reassessment, 225. There is a story that Mdivani told his interrogators at Metekhi: “Being shot is not enough punishment for me; I need to be quartered! It was me who brought the 11th Army here. I betrayed my people and helped Stalin and Beria, these degenerates, enslave Georgia and bring Lenin’s party to its knees.” Antonov-Ovsenko, Beriia, 27.
91. The trial was staged Sept. 24, 1937, in Batum’s House of the Red Army. Junge and Bonwetsch, Bolshevistskii poriadok, II: 293–9 (Arkhiv MVD Gruzii, 2–i otdel, f. 14, op. 11, d. 106, l. 61–6).
92. The trial took place on Nov. 3, 1937, in the Drama Theater. RGANI, f. 89, op. 48, d. 5; APRF, Volkogonov papers, Hoover, container 27; Abkhazia, 433–40. See also Delba, “Besposhchadno borot’sia s vragami naroda,” 427–30. See also Sovetskaia Abkhazia, Nov. 3, 1937; Marykhuba, Moskovskie arkhivnye, 12–5, 26–7 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 18, d. 104, l. 15–7; op. 3, d. 993, l. 3).
93. Guruli and Tushurashvili, Correspondence, 71–2. See also Zaria vostoka, Aug. 26, 1937.
