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Letters to Family (1937-1957) by Luka Tsikhistavi

Editor: Nina Tsikhistavi-Khutsishvili

Published by: George Khutsishvili

Compiled by Granddaughters of Luka Tsikhistavi: Nana Tsikhistavi, Nina Tsikhistavi-Khutsishvili, Tamara Tsikhistavi.

Tbilisi, 2011

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The book is comprised of the letters written in prison by Luka Tsikhistavi (1901-1976), a Georgian professor of history arrested twice by Stalin and Beria.

First, in 1924, he was sentenced to 12 months of imprisonment at Metekhi Castle jail, Tbilisi, Georgia. Later, in 1937, he was exiled from his motherland to Siberia (GULAG), sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment. He was a political prisoner, being accused of “anti-Soviet activities” in both cases.

His family received only 59 letters from him during that period. Those letters are the ones that have reached his family. In one of the letters (published in the Book) Luka explains the ways prisoners were sending their letters to avoid the cencorship of the prison administration, knowing that otherwise they would not survive. He writes that he used to drop a letter on the ground while being transferred with other prisoners to work in the woods and mines, writing on the outside of the letter a plea for its finder to pick it up and drop it into a mailbox. The Regime was using a method of pshychologcal pressure on the prisoners by depriving them of the letters from and photos of their loved ones, to make them feel forgotten and isolated.

The Book contains all of his original letters, both digitalized handwritings and text versions, his biography, photos, as well as copies of the case materials issued by the “TROIKA”.

The Book was published in 2011 in Georgian in a very limited edition (300 copies). Only a few documents in it are in Russian (c. 5%). Later on, in 2018, the e-version of the book was published on ICCN’s official webpage to make it accessible to the public.

Nina Tsikhistavi-Khutsishvili

Downloads:

• luka_tsikhhistavi_book_2011_by_ntk_2018_new_full.pdf