Prince Varlam Gelovani (1878–1915) 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...

 lawyer and politician in the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

.

Born of the noble house of Gelovani

Gelovani

House of Gelovani - is a Georgian princely family from the lower part of the mountainous province of Svaneti, formerly - rulers of Svaneti.The family can be traced back to...

, he graduated from the Petersburg University in 1901 and briefly practiced law in St. Petersburg. He later joined the Georgian Social Federalist Party and was elected, in 1905, to the Russian Fourth Duma for the Kutais Governorate (western Georgia). Varlam Gelovani was a close friend of Alexander Kerensky

Alexander Kerensky

Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky was a major political leader before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917.Kerensky served as the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government until Vladimir Lenin was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets following the October Revolution...

, the future Prime-Minister of Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 in February-October 1917. Prince Gelovani was an excellent chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 player and became President of the St Petersburg's Chess Club. During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Gelovani led a Red Cross detachment of the Duma members to the Caucasus front

Caucasus Campaign

The Caucasus Campaign comprised armed conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, later including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Central Caspian Dictatorship and the UK as part of the Middle Eastern theatre or alternatively named as part of the Caucasus Campaign during World War I...

 where he died of typhus

Typhus

Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...

. The obituary in the literary magazine "Zvezda" (the Star) was written by Kerensky.