Dimitri Bakradze (October 26, 1826 – February 10, 1890) was a Georgian

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

 scholar who authored several influential works in the history, archaeology and ethnography of Georgia and the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

.

He was born in the village Khashmi in Kakheti

Kakheti

Kakheti is a historical province in Eastern Georgia inhabited by Kakhetians who speak a local dialect of Georgian. It is bordered by the small mountainous province of Tusheti and the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north, Russian Federation to the Northeast, Azerbaijan to the Southeast, and...

, eastern Georgia (then under the Imperial Russian rule). Educated at the theological academies of Tbilisi

Tbilisi

Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

 and Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, Bakradze worked as a teacher at Gori

Gori, Georgia

Gori is a city in eastern Georgia, which serves as the regional capital of Shida Kartli and the centre of the homonymous administrative district. The name is from Georgian gora , that is, "heap", or "hill"...

 and a governmental clerk at Kutaisi

Kutaisi

Kutaisi is Georgia's second largest city and the capital of the western region of Imereti. It is 221 km to the west of Tbilisi.-Geography:...

 in the 1850s. At the same time, he regularly wrote articles on Georgia's history and ethnography for Georgian and Russian press. In 1861, Bakradze permanently settled in Tbilisi where he energetically engaged in public and scholarly activities. In 1875, he published his resonant work The Caucasus in Ancient Monuments of Christianity . In 1878, Bakradze was the first scholar to have travelled and studied Adjara

Adjara

Adjara , officially the Autonomous Republic of Adjara , is an autonomous republic of Georgia.Adjara is located in the southwestern corner of Georgia, bordered by Turkey to the south and the eastern end of the Black Sea...

 and Tao-Klarjeti

Tao-Klarjeti

Tao-Klarjeti is the term conventionally used in modern history writing to describe the historic south-western Georgian principalities, now forming part of north-eastern Turkey and divided among the provinces of Erzurum, Artvin, Ardahan and Kars...

, the historical Georgian lands recently recovered from the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. His accounts of this research appeared in several publications and, in 1879, he was elected a corresponding member of Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg. He helped found the Society for the Spreading of Literacy Among Georgians

Society for the Spreading of Literacy Among Georgians

The Society for the Spreading of Literacy Among Georgians was a charity founded by a group of leading Georgian intellectuals in May 1879 in order to promote a cultural renaissance among the peasantry of Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire...

 (1879), Society of Amateurs of Caucasian Archaeology (1873), the Society for Caucasian History and Archaeology (1881; chaired it until 1886) and the Museum of Church Antiquities at the Tbilisi Sioni Cathedral

Tbilisi Sioni Cathedral

The "Sioni" Cathedral of the Dormition is a Georgian Orthodox cathedral in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Following a medieval Georgian tradition of naming churches after particular places in the Holy Land, the Sioni Cathedral bears the name of Mount Zion at Jerusalem...

 (1889). His last major work, The History of Georgia (Georgian: ისტორია საქართველოსი), appeared in 1889 and was an insightful study into the history of Georgia

History of Georgia (country)

The nation of Georgia was first unified as a kingdom under the Bagrationi dynasty in the 9th to 10th century, arising from a number of predecessor states of ancient Colchis and Iberia...

from the beginnings to the end of the 10th century. Bakradze died in Tbilisi in 1890.