Departure of the Archetype

Jaba Ioseliani died on March 4 at 77, ending the saga of probably the most controversial politician in Georgia’s recent political history. For Georgia, Ioseliani’s story was probably valuable not for what he was, but for what he represented.

Ioseliani, always a dandy, thief-turned-warlord-turned-politician, is an archetype of the dying breed of the Soviet nobility - intelligentsia. Brought up as a person well connected in Tbilisi arts circles, Ioseliani has walked the slippery path of crime to become a “thief-in-law” – an elite breed of the criminals who formed a state-in-state under the Soviet system and was imprisoned for the criminal activities.

Upon return he went on to prove his academic abilities earning the doctoral degree in fine arts. He wrote three novels – most of them while being in prison, and several plays.

But the most notable of his achievements was his personal participation in a stormy political life of the Georgian politics of 1990s. In early days of the National Liberation Movement, Ioseliani has formed the patriot’s movement “Mkhedrioni” (Horsemen), which transformed into a paramilitary grouping. Jailed by the President Zviad Gamsakhurdia in 1990 for the propaganda of violent regime change and creation of the illegal armed grouping, Ioseliani was the pivotal factor for the coup that has ousted Gamsakhurdia in yearly January 1992.

The coup doubled the charms of the Mkhedrioni unit, which was held together largely by the personal charisma of Ioseliani, who featured a curious and explosive mix of Robin Hood-meets-Sean Connery, The coup itself, a high point for the political career has been the beginning of the fall, as Mkhedrioni became synonymous with looting, and persecution of the supporters of the ousted President. Ioseliani has always denied his boys have committed crimes intentionally, but the positive image of the rebellious, if capricious, leader was destroyed forever, giving the way to the image of a Machiavellian Prince, in the worst sense of this word.

Ioseliani said he was the person who advocated for returning Eduard Shevardnadze as the head of the Georgian State. He also admitted in the last years of his life, that this might have been the mistake in the long run, but was a necessary vice when the decision was taken.

Being the closest ally of Shevardnadze for a while, standing by his side in the trenches of Abkhazia during the conflict of 1992-93, Ioseliani also was the one to appear in the Georgian national costume at the Geneva negotiations on the status of Abkhazia and to receive Georgia’s highest military order.

He liked to go against the public clichés and shock the audience – appearing on TV with witty, but decidedly politically incorrect statements, sitting in a ramshackle parliament on the Rustaveli avenue destroyed during the military clashes of 1991-1992 in a bow tie, ridiculing the Russian diplomats, or the President himself.

He also was the sign of the political cynicism of Georgia, when Ioseliani was convicted in 1996 for the 1995 assassination attempt on Eduard Shevardnadze and had to serve his sentence along with the people jailed for the assassination attempt on himself.

After being pardoned in 2000, Ioseliani moved to restore his Mkhedrioni as a political movement, but the attempt was a failure. The time of the warlords, however charming, in Georgia has passed, yielding the way to the media-savvy younger politicians. Later, he chose to close ranks with his former political and military rivals – President Gamsakhurdia loyalists and formed the Combatants Union as a silent and grim reminiscence of the stormy 1990s.

Departure of Ioseliani is a landmark departure for Georgia’s politics. He was one of the triad that embodied the political archetypes of the Soviet and post-Soviet Georgia. Zviad Gamsakhurdia – idealist son of intelligentsia, doomed by his idealism and intolerance, Jaba Ioseliani – a rebellious son of intelligentsia, turned to Machiavellian cynicism and Eduard Shevardnadze, the Communist politician to find the middle way.

By Jaba Devdariani, Civil Georgia