Executed in September 1924 in Sighnaghi District (Based on Archival Materials)

Abstract

The year 2024 marks the centenary of the anti-Soviet armed uprising of August 1924. Across Georgia, including the Kakheti region - specifically in Telavi and Sighnaghi Districts - local Soviet enforcement structures arrested numerous individuals on charges of participating in the uprising, some of whom were subsequently executed.

A detailed analysis of the comprehensive lists of those executed in Kakheti in 1924, obtained by us, reveals that these lists are incomplete. This is confirmed by materials retrieved and analyzed from the Georgian National Archives and the Ministry of Internal Affairs archives concerning those executed in Sighnaghi District. It was established that the names listed among those executed in Sighnaghi District are not fully reflected in the consolidated lists of individuals executed across Georgian districts.

According to archival materials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 857 individuals were executed in August 1924 for alleged participation in the anti-Soviet armed uprising. The general execution lists are preserved in duplicate and provide details such as the number, rank, and social class of those executed in Georgia during August-September 1924. However, discrepancies exist between these lists and other records of executions in Georgia.

For instance, the general list does not include the following names: Korashvili Nikoloz, Alexander Khirsely, Rtskhiladze Giorgi, Nanobashvili Giga, Natsvlishvili Giorgi.

This omission of four names suggests that the general execution list is incomplete.

Similar inconsistencies are evident in the execution records from Sighnaghi District. For example, the individual listed as "N14 – Abashidze Nikoloz, 35 years old, national democrat, prince, middle class" was reportedly born in 1869. This means he would have been 55 years old at the time of his execution, not 35. Such errors appear consistently across all versions of the execution lists. Nikoloz Abashidze, a notable member of the Kaht-Abashidze family, was a representative of the Tbilisi branch of the Society for the Spread of Literacy among Georgians and a known philanthropist.

Additional materials further confirm that the number of those executed was greater than indicated in the general list. Archival records from the "Central Executive Committee of Georgia" of the Georgian SSR, stored in the National Archives of Georgia, document meetings held in October 1924 in villages such as Telavi and Sighnaghi Districts. These records reveal the violent expulsion of individuals, primarily from the nobility, clergy, and intelligentsia, during September 1924. In some cases, this process involved physical punishment and extrajudicial killings by mobs.

One such case is documented in the minutes of the Akhasheni-Chumlaki village council meeting on October 2, 1924. These records mention the "family of the executed Georgi Tsinamdrishvili" as among those expelled. However, the name Georgi Tsinamdrishvili does not appear in any archival lists of executions from Sighnaghi District. This omission, alongside the absence of at least four names from the general list of executions preserved by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, highlights the incomplete and inconsistent nature of these records.

Therefore, it can be concluded that the officially recognized number of those executed in Sighnaghi District during August-September 1924 is inaccurate - the actual number of executions was higher.