Giorgi Kvinitadze

Giorgi Kvinitadze (1874 to 1970), born with the surname Chikovani, was a Georgian general who rose from an officer in the Imperial Russian army to commander-in-chief of the army of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. He was born into the family of a Russian colonel, trained at the Tiflis Cadet Corps and the Saint Constantine Infantry School, and was a captain in the Russo-Japanese War. After graduating from the General Staff Academy he served in the Caucasus, became a colonel in World War I and a major general after the Russian Revolution. In independent Georgia he served as chief of staff in the war with Armenia, commanded the troops that took Artvin in 1919, defended the military school in Tiflis against a Bolshevik coup attempt in 1920 and was again commander-in-chief during the Red Army invasion of 1921. He then lived in exile in France, where he wrote his memoirs of the years 1917 to 1921. He was posthumously named a National Hero of Georgia in 2013.