Ekvtime Takaishvili (January 3, 1863-February 21, 1953) 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...

 historian, archaeologist and public benefactor.

Born in the village of Likhauri in the western Georgian province of Guria

Guria

Guria is a region in Georgia, in the western part of the country, bordered by the eastern end of the Black Sea. The region has a population of 143,357 and Ozurgeti is a regional capital.-Geography:...

 (then part of Imperial Russia) to a local nobleman Svimon Takaishvili, he graduated from St. Petersburg University in 1887. From 1887 to 1917, he lectured on the history of Georgia at various prestigious schools in 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...

, including the Tbilisi Gymnasium for Nobility. During these years, he was actively involved in extensive scholarly activities and chaired, from 1907 to 1921, the Society of History and Ethnography of Georgia. Between 1907 and 1910, he organized a series of archaeological expeditions to the historic Georgian region of 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...

 (now part of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

).

After the February Revolution

February Revolution

The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...

, he engaged also in politics, taking part in the establishment of the National Democratic Party of Georgia in 1917 and being elected to a post of Deputy Chairman in the Constituent Assembly

Constituent Assembly of Georgia

The Constituent Assembly of Georgia was a national legislature of the Democratic Republic of Georgia which was elected in February 1919 to ratify the Act of Independence of Georgia and enact the Constitution of 1921...

 of the Democratic Republic of Georgia

Democratic Republic of Georgia

The Democratic Republic of Georgia , 1918–1921, was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Georgia.The DRG was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917...

 from 1919 to 1921.

Georgian national treasury

In 1918, he was among the founders and professors of the Tbilisi State University

Tbilisi State University

Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University , better known as Tbilisi State University , is a university established on 8 February 1918 in Tbilisi, Georgia. TSU is the oldest university in the whole Caucasus region...

 (TSU). He lost his tenure both in the parliament and at the TSU in 1921, when the Bolshevik Russia's 11th Red Army put an end to Georgia's independence. He followed the Georgian government in their French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 exile, taking the Georgian national treasury – numerous precious pieces of Georgian material culture - with him to Europe.

The treasury contained into 39 immense boxes, were shipped to Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

 and placed in a bank depository. Subsequently this precious cargo was transferred to one of the banks in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. Although the treasury was officially the property of the Georgian government-in-exile, it was actually Ekvtime Takaishvili who supervised this huge collection. In the early 1930s, Takaishvili won a lawsuit against Salome Obolenskaya (1878-1961), daughter of the last Mingrelian prince Nikoloz Dadiani, who also laid claim to a part of the treasury taken from the former Dadiani Palace in Zugdidi

Zugdidi

Zugdidi is a city in the Western Georgian historical province of Samegrelo . It is situated in the north-west of that province. The city is located 318 kilometres west of Tbilisi, 30 km. from Black sea coast and 30 km. from Egrisi range. 100-110 metres above sea level. As of 2007, it had a...

, Georgia. Despite numerous attempts by various Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an museums to purchase portions of this treasury, and extreme economic hardship, Takaishvili never sold a single piece of the priceless collection to live on and guarded it until 1933, when the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

 recognized the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

; the Georgian embassy in Paris was abolished and transformed into the "Georgian Office". The treasury passed into the possession of the French state. In 1935, Takaishvili urged the French government to hand the collections to Georgia, but it was not until the end of the World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 when was he able, in November 1944, to attract the attention of the Soviet ambassador A. Bogomolov to the fate of the Georgian treasury. Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

's good relations with General Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....

 enabled Takaishvili to bring the treasury back to Georgia. However, Takaishvili had to spend his long unhappy days in Tbilisi under house arrest, seemingly considered to be too old to be imprisoned.

He was an author of numerous scholarly works on the history and archaeology 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...

 which are of special value even today. In Tbilisi, Tbilisi Second Gymnasium has been named after him. He has been canonized by the Georgian Orthodox Church.