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Ivane (Zhango)

 

Ghoghoberidze

poet

1905
|
1937

Poet was born in 1905 in the village Partskhanakanevi, West Georgia, Kutaisi district.

In the 1920s he was a member of the Futurists group; participated in the publishing of avangardist magazine H2SO4.

In 1927 he was sent to France, Paris for higher education by the Georgian Writers Union and People's Commissariat of Education. Living in Paris, Zhango was enjoying a bohemian life in close friendship with artists, living in Emigration. He was close to Salome Andronikashvili, Vera Shukhaeva, Lucien Vogel and Ukrainian politician and writer – Volodymyr Vynnychenko.

Zhango Ghoghoberidze was deported by French police in 1932. Following years, he was living in Moscow, working in the editorial of "Literaturnaya Gazeta". During the Great Terror of 1937–1938, Zhango Ghoghoberidze was arrested in Moscow on 5 April by the NKVD of the USSR. On 14 April, he was extradited to Tbilisi, NKVD of Georgian SSR. The investigation accused him of being a member of the "Counter–Revolutionary Trotskyist organization" and a spy of a foreign state, linked with Levan Ghoghoberidze, his cousin and one of the former leaders of Georgian Bolsheviks and Giorgi Eliava (Head of the Bacteriophage Institute).

In the final conclusion of the investigation, quoted:

"... Being abroad, Ghoghoberidze I.S. according to the assignment by Levan Ghoghoberidze, was linked with a famous representative of Ukrainian counter–revolutionary emigration – Vynnychenko, has a systematic audience with him and supplied him with evilly fabricated information about Georgian SSR…
During his stay in France, from 1927 to 1932, Ghoghoberidze I.S. was linked with an agent of the French secret police, emigrants – Salome Andronikov and Vera Shukhaeva and French journalist Lucien Voge, who was working for the French secret police…
While living in Moscow, when Ghoghoberidze I.S. was working as a secretary of the "Literaturnaya Gazeta", he managed the relationship with counter–revolutionary elements in the writers' circle (Reznik, Selivanovsky, Postupalsky etc.) and together with them was criticizing from the counter–revolutionary position a policy in the literature of All–Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. He was expressing counter–revolutionary opinions about literature in his articles in "Literaturnaya Gazeta" and was helping the writers with counter–revolutionary and evil positions to print their pieces in the newspaper…”.

On 12 September 1937 – the Outgoing Session of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of USSR sentenced death to Zhango Ghoghoberidze. He was shot on the same night – 13 September 1937.

Zhango Ghoghoberidze was rehabilitated in 1989.

Archive of former KGB of Georgian SSR contains Criminal file of Ivane (Zhango) Ghoghoberidze #371145 – 4 volumes. The main part of the criminal case either was given to the Museum of Georgian Literature in 1991 and then lost or – was burnt with other cases of rehabilitated persons during the Coup d’etat in Tbilisi, December 1991, when headquarter of the former KGB was burnt. Already mentioned four volumes are – materials of Supervision on the criminal process, Materials of Session of the military collegium of the supreme court of USSR, personal documents of Zhango Ghoghoberidze and registration photos of NKVD.

Everyone can read and download the KGB documents about Ivane (Zhango) Ghoghoberidze on the website of the Digital Archive of the Ukrainian liberation movement.