Grandfather
My grandfather, Avtandil Menteshashvili, was born in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR. After graduating from the History Faculty of Tbilisi State University, he worked as an assistant, assistant professor, and professor at the Department of History of the USSR TSU. In 1992, he was elected as the head of the Department of History of Russia at Tbilisi State University. The author of 90 scientific publications in Georgian, Russian, German, and English. Among them are monographs on the problem of national relations in Russia, and ethnic -conflicts in the post-Soviet space, in particular, in Transcaucasia.
In 1988-1989, Menteshashvili was on a scientific business trip to the United States at the Russian Research Center of Harvard University. Here he got acquainted with the Archive of the Government of the Georgian Democratic Reservice (1918-1921), which was open for researchers since September 1988. The materials of this archive brought by A. Menteshashvili became the basis for the conclusion of a commission created by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Georgian SSR From the 20th June 1989, on the issues of political and legal assessment of violation of the contract concluded between Georgia and Soviet Russia on May 7, 1920, which, upon the conclusion of the commission, led in February 1921 to armed intervention and occupation of Georgia in February-March 1921 on the part of Soviet Russia.
Of his written works, the most prominent are: “Some National and Ethnic Problems in Georgia” (1992), “Trouble in the Caucasus” (Nova Science Publish Inc. 1995), and “The Collapse of the Emussian and Transcaucasia”. Russia in the 20th Century ”Problems of National Relations (1999). The Russian department of the Harvard Library is used as the source of all three books, from which unknown documents were obtained at that time. The last of his work, which he wrote for the book “Russia in the 20th Century”, unfortunately, he died tragically the next year, so he was going to publish several other papers based on the sources.
Unfortunately, I can’t talk a lot about my grandfather’s personal qualities because I never met him in his life, he died in the year when I was born, though I can say a lot about his literary works that detail every event in the Soviet Republic of Georgia in the 80s Finding, because, at that time, most of the public was obsessed with strong patriotic thinking, which we could not say about the literature of Menteshashvili, where in every line, described in the detailed history of facts.
Hopefully, I will be able to finish my grandfather’s work, which is no less interesting to me. In my opinion, the historical research of conflictology is a prerequisite for future peace.