GIORGI ZHURULI AND HIS DESCENDANTS IN FRANCE

Abstract

Durmishkhan Zhuruli and his wife Ketevan Namoradze had four children. Two of their sons, Luka and Andria, died at a young age. Nino Zhuruli was the wife of the famous military figure - Lieutenant General Ilia Makarashvili, and Giorgi Zhuruli (Durmishkhan’s son) was the Minister of Trade, Industry and Finance of the Independent Republic of Georgia. Durmishkhan Zhuruli had a great desire for his son to have a military career, but Giorgi’s heart was not inclined to military work. After graduating from the Cadet Corps in 1886, he refused to enter the school for military officers. With the support of his parents, Giorgi Zhuruli left for Europe, namely, to Paris, to study agronomy at the Mining Institute. After that, he continued his studies at the Petrovsko Razumovsky Academy in Moscow. During 1897-1903, Giorgi Zhuruli was a censor in the Caucasus Censorship Committee. Then, he worked in the ministry of Agriculture for three years. Giorgi Zhuruli had a close relationship with Ilia Chavchavadze. Giorgi Zhuruli worked in the self-governments of Batumi and, later, Tbilisi. He was the acting head of the city of Batumi during 1910-1913. Member of the Tbilisi City Council, member of the board, as well as chairman of the Finance Commission. As a real member, he was actively involved in the activities of the Society for the Spreading Literacy Among Georgians. In 1908-1910, he headed the Batumi branch of the board of the mentioned society. In 1917, he was part of the Council of Nationalities established with Ozakom. He was a member of the founding society of the Georgian University, as well as a member of the Georgian National Interparty Council. In May 1918, as an adviser to the Transcaucasian delegation, he participated in the Batumi Armistice Conference. He was invited as an expert who discussed the importance of maintaining Georgian control over Batumi. On May 26, 1918, during the period of the restoration of Georgia’s state independence and the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, Giorgi Zhuruli was appointed to the position of Minister of Finance and Trade-Industry. He was holding this position until March 1919 when the founding assembly of Georgia recruited the government with the representative of the Social Democrats, who had won the elections.  Its facsimile is recorded on the denominations of one-year treasury (5%) bonds of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, which were issued in January 1919 to collect cash from the population. Since 1919, he headed the Tchiatura Black Stone Industrialists’ Council, which funded a number of cultural projects in the country. In 1919-1920, Zhuruli headed the representative office of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, which negotiated with the command of the allied army stationed in Batumi. After the occupation of independent Georgia by Soviet Russia, on March 18, 1921, Giorgi Zhuruli went abroad from Batumi together with the Georgian government and finally settled in Europe.  Giorgi Zhuruli and Elene Muskhelishvili had only two sons - Konstantine and Durmishkhan Zhuruli, who have never cut ties with Georgia. This is confirmed by Konstantine’s letter to his aunt Nino Zhuruli and cousin Irina Makarashvili which was sent from The Hague in 1925. He expressed great emotion because of missing Arbo, his native village, and asked his family members living in Georgia to send photos. Konstantine died in 1947, without leaving any heir. Giorgi Zhuruli’s second son Durmishkhan was in poor health and underwent several operations. He died in 1987 after a long illness. Durmishkhan Zhuruli was married to Hugete (1916-2003), with whom he had a daughter Catherine (1948). Named after her grandmother (Ketevan Namoradze-Zhuruli), Catherine married Patrick Desbo (born in 1947). Catherine and Patrick have two sons – Cedric (born in 1974) and Louis (born in 1977). Cedric was in his first marriage with Laura (born in 1974), with whom he had two children: Valentin and Timothy. And his second wife is Helen (born in 1981), with whom Cedric has one son, Clement, born in 2019. Cedric’s brother Louis (born in 1977) is married to Audrey (born in 1982). They have four children: Logan, Manon, Nathan, and Thea. Cedric chose history as a profession. He graduated from Sorbonne University. At the end of the 1990s, Cedric Desbo traveled to Georgia with his parents, he also visited Zhuruli’s native village of Arbo. The historical house on the verge of demolition, where the families of Zhuruli and Makarashvili lived, was captured in his photo.