George Gurdjieff in Georgia (1906)

 

Tengiz Simashvili

George Gurdjieff in Georgia (1906)

[Published in Works of the Faculty of Humanities and the Institute of Georgian History, 

Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Vol. X, 2016]

To confirm the residence and “activities” of the well-known mystic and philosopher George Ivanovich Gurdjieff in Georgia in 1906, I would like to present the relevant archival documents and materials.

On January 26, 1906, the head of the Gori branch of the Transcaucasian Railway Gendarmerie Police Department sent the following letter to the head of the Tiflis Gubernia Gendarmerie Department:

*“In addition to the telegram I sent on January 14 of this year, I inform you that in the town of Mikhailovo (present-day Khashuri – T.S.) the manufacture of explosive grenades has been detected, in which are implicated: student George Gurdjieff, agent of the Singer Company Nikolai Sikharulidze, and student Vladimir Bilanov. The first two may have fled to Guria, while the third is living somewhere in Tiflis.

Addendum: Gurdjieff’s letter addressed to a professor of the Kovno Polytechnic Institute; also, a letter sent from Warsaw by Tanentzweig addressed to Gurdjieff (George Gurdjieff evidently had certain ties with Poland – his wife, Julia Ostrowska, was herself the daughter of a Polish noble – T.S.); and an envelope addressed to Dmitri Gurdjieff in the city of Nikolaev.” (George Gurdjieff had two sisters and a younger brother, Dmitri Gurdjieff – T.S.) [Central Historical Archive of Georgia, Fund 153, Inventory 1, File …, p. 51] (see Document 1).

In the same archival file there is another confidential letter, sent by the head of the Tiflis Gubernia Gendarmerie Department to the head of the Kutaisi Gendarmerie Department:

“On January 14 of this year, the fabrication of explosive grenades was discovered in the town of Mikhailovo. As reported by the head of the Gori branch, those suspected of manufacturing the grenades are student George Gurdjieff, Singer Company agent Nikolai Sikharulidze, and student Vladimir Bilanov. The first two have probably fled to Guria, and the third is in Guria. I inform you so that you may ascertain the identities and places of residence of these individuals.” [Central Historical Archive of Georgia, Fund 153, Inventory 1, File …, p. 56]

On the following page of this letter is another confidential message from the head of the Tiflis Gubernia Gendarmerie Department to the Tiflis Police Chief, in which he requests the arrest of student Vladimir Bilanov, who “is suspected of participating in the fabrication of explosive grenades on January 14 in the town of Mikhailovo.” [Central Historical Archive of Georgia, Fund 153, Inventory 1, File …, p. 57]

From the archival materials it is clear that the representatives of the Tsarist authorities’ security structures treated this case with particular attention. On June 2, 1906, the head of the Kutaisi Gubernia Gendarmerie Department wrote to the head of the Tiflis Gendarmerie Department:

“I inform you that student Gurdjieff and Nadezhda Company agent Nikolai Sikharulidze have not been discovered as residing within the area under my supervision.” [Central Historical Archive of Georgia, Fund 153, Inventory 1, File …, p. 119]

In one of my previously published studies, I expressed the opinion that the above-mentioned Vladimir (Valerian) Bilanov (Bilanishvili) may in fact have been the person identified here. In the autumn of 1905, in order to avert Armenian–Tatar clashes, he was apparently a member of an armed detachment composed of representatives of both wings of the Social Democrats (Mensheviks and Bolsheviks), alongside Aleksandre (Sasha) Oboladze, Iliko Imerlishvili, Gigla Berbichashvili, and others. [T. Simashvili, “On the Identity of Ioseb Jughashvili (Stalin) and ‘Nijaradze’,” Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Works of the Faculty of Humanities and the Institute of Georgian History, vol. IX, 2015] http://simashvili.blogspot.com/2015/12/tengiz-simasvili-ioseb-jurasvilistalini.html

As for Nikolai Sikharulidze, I have found quite interesting information about him. First of all, it appears that he was an active member of the Social Democratic Party during 1904–1921. According to one of the documents preserved in the Central Historical Archive of Georgia, which also contains his photograph, on September 24, 1905 he was exiled to Olonets Gubernia by order of Colonel Alftan for revolutionary activity. [Central Historical Archive of Georgia, Fund 84, Inventory 3, File 488, p. 157]

In addition, I found the Singer Company’s 1906 payroll lists, in which Nikolai Ivanovich Sikharulidze is recorded as the company’s agent (i.e., a distributor – T.S.) residing in the town of Mikhailovo. [Central Historical Archive of Georgia, Fund 190, Inventory 1, File 6, pp. 2–4]

There also exist photographs in which Nikolai Sikharulidze appears together with various individuals in the 1910s and 1920s. From one of these photographs, it can be discerned that during the period of Georgia’s independence in 1918–1921, he was chairman of the National Guard in Khashuri.

As for George Gurdjieff – his trail leads us to the Avlabari illegal printing press! It appears that after completing his “activities” in Khashuri in March–April 1906, he began teaching the preparation of explosives, barricade fighting in the city, and other “useful skills” for terrorists to a six-person group of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, in a residential house located above the premises of the well-known Avlabari illegal printing press.

In one of the files preserved in the so-called Party Archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, we read:

“In the Avlabari illegal printing press, the seven-member group included three Bolsheviks – Mikho Bochorishvili (Bochoridze), Nina Alajova, Nushik Zavariani – and three Mensheviks – Silvester Jibladze, Kalistrate Gogua, Kotsia Chichua – who began working in January 1906 to manufacture explosives under the direction of someone named Gurdjieff.” (8, 2(1), File 2) [Archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (former Party Archives), Fund 8, Inventory 2, Part I, File 2, p. 58]

Several memoirs of participants in the Avlabari illegal printing press affair, published between the 1920s and 1940s, contain quite interesting material for the study of Gurdjieff’s “activities” in Georgia.

In the memoir of David Rostomashvili, published under the pseudonym “D. Ninotsmindeli” in The Chronicle of the Revolution, no. 4, 1923, under the title “Who Betrayed the Great Printing Press of Caucasian Social Democracy in Tiflis,” there is highly relevant information for our research subject. The author, who was the official owner of the house where the Avlabari illegal printing press was located, recalls that in early April 1906, Mikha Bochorishvili asked him for “the empty rooms above the press… since an excellent teacher has arrived, he is idle, and we want to learn how to prepare explosive material.” [The Chronicle of the Revolution, no. 4, 1923, p. 123] (In this study I will not go deeply into the details of the founding and “collapse” of the Avlabari illegal press, as it requires an extensive separate analysis – T.S.)

According to Rostomashvili, he became curious about the figure of this “teacher” and, the following morning, went to the aforementioned residence. There he found Mikha Bochorishvili (Bochoridze), Kotsia Chachava, “Babe” (Bochorishvili’s aunt – T.S.), and two young women, whom he did not know at the time.

Later the “teacher” arrived – “a man of medium height, very dark-skinned, with a face that glistened as if oiled. Two young women met him at the gate… The teacher greeted them very cheerfully. He spoke to me in Armenian. The women did not respond to every word, from which I concluded that they did not know the Cilician Armenian dialect… I began to suspect the teacher and involuntarily said: ‘Khachagogha!’ Those who do not know what ‘khachagogha’ means may shrug their shoulders, but for me, who was well acquainted with them, it was obvious why this man was here, if indeed he really was a ‘khachagogha.’” [The Chronicle of the Revolution, no. 4, 1923, pp. 123–124] (“Khachagogha” – in the slang of that time, a swindler or trickster. I would like to express my gratitude to researcher Irakli Khvadagiani, who clarified the meaning of this term – T.S.)

Rostomashvili confided his suspicion to Bochorishvili’s aunt, who was offended: “Mikha is experienced in this matter and would not make such a mistake.” [The Chronicle of the Revolution, no. 4, 1923, p. 125] A few days later, Mikha Bochorishvili told him that spies had surrounded the press and that things were going badly. Soon after, the printing press was indeed discovered, and arrests followed.

According to Rostomashvili, while in prison he asked Mikha Bochorishvili about “who their former teacher was, and what sort of man he had been.” Bochorishvili, already near death, told him: “The teacher’s name was Gurdjieff, an Ottoman Armenian who had fled from Turkey. He had relatives in Surami (or in Khashuri, I do not remember precisely).” [The Chronicle of the Revolution, no. 4, 1923, p. 125]

He also notes that while in prison he asked Kola Sikharulidze about Gurdjieff: “Did he not have relatives in your organization?” He replied: ‘Gurdjieff swindled us out of three thousand rubles, promised to teach us bomb-making, but taught us nothing. We beat him and threw him out.’” [The Chronicle of the Revolution, no. 4, 1923, p. 126]

Thus, Davit Rostomashvili’s memoir to some extent confirms the content of the archival documents cited above.

Interestingly, according to Rostomashvili, Gurdjieff had also acted as an informant against members of the powerful and influential Armenian nationalist party “Dashnaktsutyun” at the time — “In prison I had good relations with the Armenians, and once I asked an Armenian from Ganja whether he knew anything about Gurdjieff. He sighed bitterly and said: ‘It was precisely that Gurdjieff who got twenty of us killed in prison.’”

Rostomashvili believed that “Gurdjieff was a special government provocateur and was looking for those 360 bombs that were being kept in Sulkhanov’s house.” [Revolutsiis Mateane (The Chronicle of the Revolution), no. 4, 1923, p. 126]

In the memoir published in The Chronicle of the Revolution, no. 2(12), 1925, under the title “From the Distant Past” and authored by Nina Alajova and Nushik Zavarian — the “two young women” previously unnamed by Rostomashvili — we read:

“In mid-January 1906, the Tbilisi Committee of the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party appointed a group composed of several comrades to study the methods of partisan struggle (street fighting with barricades, etc.), as well as the manufacture of explosive devices (grenades, mines, etc.). This task was entrusted to several comrades, three of them from the Bolshevik faction (Mikho Bochoridze, Nushik Zavarian, Nina Alajova), and three from the Menshevik faction (Silibistro Jibladze, Kalistrate Gogua, and Kotsia Chichua). At that time the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were still working within one organization. [It is noteworthy that during the Soviet period Gurdjieff was also referred to as a Menshevik (Zarya Vostoka, 20 August 1937) – T.S.]

“To study this matter, we invited a ‘specialist-engineer’ (a Greek), who, according to comrade Jibladze, had rendered great service to our organization in Mikhailovo, when the Tsarist Cossacks suppressed the revolutionary uprising there.” [Revolutsiis Mateane, no. 2(12), 1925, p. 135]

In the so-called party archives of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs, a file is preserved under the title “Autobiography and Memoirs of Nina Alajova, 1902–1918” (93, 2, 13). It states:

“Nina Alajova joined the Caucasus Union of Communists in 1904 and worked as its technical secretary until 1906... She was close to Stalin and Mikha Tskhakaya. In 1906, when the Bolsheviks formed a group to study methods of partisan warfare and the manufacture of explosive devices, Alajova became a member. Under the leadership of the ‘specialist,’ she worked together with Babe Bochoridze, Mikho Bochoridze, and others.” [Ministry of Internal Affairs Archive (former Party Archives), fond 93, opis 2, delo 13, p. 2]

During the Soviet period a considerable amount was written about the Avlabari printing press. It is interesting that in The Chronicle of the Revolution, no. 1(16), 1927, Davit Rostomashvili once again published a memoir — under the title “The Discovery of the Avlabari Press by the Authorities” — which, while similar to his 1923 account, differs in several details. [Revolutsiis Mateane, no. 1(16), 1927, p. 123]

Here he again mentions Gurdjieff multiple times and retells his meeting with the “teacher” from a slightly different perspective. He notes that when Gurdjieff arrived late, he began conversing with the young women, whom he now identifies by name — Alajova and Zavarian. [In his 1923 memoir he had explicitly noted that he did not know their identities at the time – T.S.] According to him, the teacher spoke to them in the Cilician Armenian dialect and “was of medium height, dark-eyed and dark-browed, his face shone like tanned leather, he resembled a Negro from afar, dressed elegantly in European fashion, constantly smiling while speaking with the women... To me, the teacher seemed like some Don Juan.” [Revolutsiis Mateane, no. 4, 1923, p. 132]

In this second memoir, Rostomashvili recounts his prison conversation with Nikolaz Sikharulidze:

“In prison Kolia Sikharulidze was brought in. He asked me why the printing press had been betrayed, and when he heard Gurdjieff’s name, this is what he told me: In Khashuri, that Gurdjieff swindled us out of three thousand rubles, promising to teach us how to make explosives. We studied with him for several weeks, and finally asked him to demonstrate. We went out into the field and threw one [grenade] — it didn’t explode. Then a second, a third... The comrades became furious with Gurdjieff. One of them even tried to beat him up. After that we never saw Gurdjieff again.” [Revolutsiis Mateane, no. 4, 1923, p. 139]

An attentive reader will easily notice the differences between Rostomashvili’s 1923 and 1927 accounts, but these do not alter the essence of the matter.

I would also like to present a short excerpt from a one-page letter Rostomashvili sent in 1942 to the director of the “Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute.” The letter concerns the accuracy of published accounts about the Avlabari clandestine press. In it, Rostomashvili once again identifies Gurdjieff as the person who betrayed the group studying explosive devices in the building above the press. [Ministry of Internal Affairs Archive (former Party Archives), fond 8, opis 2, part 2, p. 246] (see Document 2)

I should also note that in the collections of the Georgian Historical Archive I located several files concerning the discovery of the Avlabari clandestine press by the authorities. Among them are reports of external surveillance agents — the so-called filers — of the Tbilisi branch of the Tsarist secret (political) police, the “Okhrana,” which mention persons connected with the press, including Gurdjieff himself.

Thus, the above-cited materials definitively confirm Gurdjieff’s presence in Georgia in the early months of 1906 — a fact not reflected in any of his published biographies to date.

P.S.

As for the question of whether Gurdjieff acted as an agent of the Tsarist secret police — a view expressed in his unpublished writings by historian Aleksandre Kochlavashvili (who was to some extent familiar with the above materials, though our interpretations differ diametrically – T.S.) — as well as the issue of his possible presence and “activities” in Tbilisi in 1919–1920 and perhaps later(?), and finally, whether Gurdjieff may have been a “secret collaborator” (seksot, sekretnyi sotrudnik) of the Soviet authorities in the early 1920s, I will present the relevant research and documents in future articles.