Georgian Orthodox Saint, Author, Political Figure. Prince Ilia Chavchavadze was a nineteenth century Georgian political figure, journalist, publisher, writer, and poet, who is given credit for spearheading the revival of the Georgian national liberation movement and for this, is considered the "Father of the Nation." Born the third son into Georgian nobility with ancestors of military backgrounds, he attended private boarding schools before enrolling in the University of St. Petersburg for four years. He did not graduate as he left in 1861 for political reasons. While traveling home, he wrote "The Travelers' Diaries," which outlined the goals he had for Georgia. He became a lawyer and started an unsuccessful magazine. In 1863 he married Princess Olga Guramishvili and the next year, he accepted a civil post of an official private secretary to the Governor General of Kutais, during the process of liberating peasants from landlords. While using the Georgian language in schools, he supported in educating all Georgians. By 1907, he had established schools for children of nobility as well as the less prosperous families. He began to play a major role in Georgian society during the Russian rule of Georgia. In 1868 he was given the office of Justice of the Peace in the District of Dushet, staying there until 1874. He played a role in establishing the Land Bank of Tbilisi, with the income funding aiding education. Although the first periodical he founded directly after school only lasted a year, he started during his life, more successful newspapers, which supplied the population with international news. In 1857 he started a literacy magazine, publishing some of his own writings. In 1877 he founded a weekly newspaper "Iveria," which followed with a monthly magazine and a daily political paper in 1885. His poem "The Hermit" has been translated into Russian, English, French and German. This poem along with others was put in a collection titled "Georgian Poet" and published in 1886 in Germany. Supporting the Georgian culture, he translated into the Georgian language well-known Western European authors as well as Russian. The Georgian language is one of the oldest known languages and is nothing like any other language family in the world. During the 1905 Russian Revolution, he was elected as a representative of Georgian nobles to the Imperial Russian State Council, where he advocated against capital punishment and lobbied for Georgian autonomy. He is recognized as the author of "Is That a Human Being?" Some of the other books that he authored were "Life and Law," "The Ghost," "Otaraant Widow," "Kako, The Robber," and "Happy Nation." While traveling home from Russia with his family in an open carriage, he was assassinated. The details are not well-documented, but a six-member gang of the Highly Berbichashvili were executed for the crime. In 1987 he was canonized as Saint Ilia the Righteous by the Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic Church. A postage stamp was dedicated to Chavchavadze in 1958. There are three museums in Georgia that honor him: his hometown village of Kvareli, the estate of Ilya Grigorievich and in the capital city of Tbilisi.