Aleksandre Chikvaidze (; 19 January 1932 – 8 May 2012) was a Soviet and Georgian statesman and diplomat. Chikvaidze was appointed Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of independent Georgia by Acting Prime Minister Tengiz Sigua in February 1992NRK Handelsblatt, Dinsdag, februari 25, 1992 and went on to serve in Eduard Shevardnadze's government, after the latter's return to Georgia in March 1992, until December 1995.
During his tenure as foreign minister, Chikvaidze ushered Georgia into the United Nations as its 179th member, on 31 July 1992,Security Council Resolution 763 (1992); UN GA Resolution A/46/241 of 31 July 1992; ახალგაზრდა ივერიელი, 8 აგვისტო 1992 წ. (Young Iverieli newspaper, Tbilisi, 8 August 1992) and managed a wave of diplomatic recognition of Georgia, the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations between Georgia and the countries of the world, and of the integration of Georgia into most international organizations. Chikvaidze undertook strenuous efforts to place the problems of Georgia's internal conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, that were raging at the time, on the international agenda, of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe and to have the United Nations Security Council ‘seized of the matter,’ while working closely with the Russian government to keep it engaged in helping Georgia find a solution to these conflicts.FBIS-SOV-93-163, 3 August 1993; Report of the Secretary-General in Pursuance of Security Council Resolution 849 (1993), S/26250, 6 August 1993; FBIS-SOV-93-163, 25 August 1993; FBIS-SOV-93-184, 24 September 1993; Department of State Dispatch, May 9, 1994 Chikvaidze opened Georgia's relationship with NATO by signing the Partnership for Peace Framework Document in March 1994. After leaving the foreign minister post, Chikvaidze served as Georgian ambassador to Greece,Greek Diplomatic Life, April 1996 to the Holy See,L’Osservatore Romano, venerdi, 16 maggio 2003 to Switzerland and as Permanent Representative of Georgia to the United Nations Office at Geneva, from 1996 to 2005.Who’s Who in Georgia 2006, p. 520 He retired from active diplomatic service in June 2005, almost two years into the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili.Diva, January 2005
Early life and family Chikvaidze was born on 19 January 1932, in Tbilisi, the capital of what was then the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union. He was the only child of Tamar Chikvaidze (née Kobiashvili), an economist and David Chikvaidze, a highly regarded performer of Georgian national choreography, in later years, serving as deputy director of the Georgian philharmonic.Чикваидзе, А., На изломе истории. СССР-Россия-Грузия, p 21
Chikvaidze's family was quite prestigious; his great uncle, Kalistrate Chikvaidze, was a well-known lawyer, political figure and philanthropist in Georgia's second largest city Kutaisi at the turn of the twentieth century.ქუთაისი, 28 დეკემბერი 1989 წ His maternal grandmother, Barbara Kobiashvili, and his maternal grandfather Joseph Kobiashvili, a judge whose honesty was reputed, were both graduates of St. Petersburg University, and played a huge role in his early education.Чикваидзе, А., На изломе истории. СССР-Россия-Грузия, p 22-23 Chikvaidze never knew his paternal grandfather Aleksandre, whom he was named after.Чикваидзе, А., На изломе истории. СССР-Россия-Грузия, p 23-24 As a senior member of the government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia during the country's brief period of independence in 1918–1921, he was persecuted by the new communist authorities and emigrated to France, where he died in 1937 without ever seeing his wife and two sons again.დამოუკიდებელი საქართველო, სექტ. და ოქტ. 1937 წ. No. 139; La Géorgie Indépendante, Revue Mensuelle, octobre 1937 – No. 139, Imprimerie de Leuville, Leuville-sur-Orge, Le Gérant : A. Largillière
Chikvaidze's family was of very modest means, despite which, his parents tightened their proverbial belts in order to have him take private lessons in English and in music, an unheard of luxury in the bleak days of the Second World War in the Soviet Union.Чикваидзе, А., На изломе истории. СССР-Россия-Грузия, p 21-22 In 1956, Chikvaidze married Zaira Mshvenieradze, a hydroelectric engineer, who loves literature, the movies, and speaks English and French. They had two sons, David (b. 1958) and Alexander (1963-2006), two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Education Chikvaidze graduated with honours from Tbilisi Secondary School No. 1 and went on to study law at Moscow State University, graduating in 1955 together with his classmate Mikhail Gorbachev.Чикваидзе, А., На изломе истории. СССР-Россия-Грузия, p 26 In the 1960s, he studied English at the Tbilisi Foreign Languages Institute, French at the Alliance française in Mumbai, India, and, in the 1980s, while ambassador at the Hague, also learned Dutch. Chikvaidze earned an advanced degree in history at the Moscow State Academy of Social Sciences in 1966. He earned a full doctorate in 1976 at Tbilisi State University and published his dissertation as a book “The British Cabinet on the Eve of the Second World War”, which he had based on the just declassified in 1969 archives of the Foreign Office in the pre-war years. In 1978, he took a special two-year international relations course for senior government officials at the Soviet Diplomatic Academy, graduating within one year and, in 1979, was named the Soviet Consul General in San Francisco.Who’s Who in Georgia 2001-2002, p. 368
Political and diplomatic career
Left without a job due to an oversupply of lawyers, following graduation from Moscow State, “and this in the planned society of the 1950s USSR”, as he recalls with irony in his memoire, Chikvaidze soon returned to Georgia, and was offered a succession of fairly boring, as he recalls, Komsomol jobs, in April 1956 as secretary of the Komsomol committee of Tbilisi Airport, in May 1956 as secretary of the Komsomol committee of Tbilisi Agricultural Institute and then, in June 1956, as Head of the student department of Ordzhonikidze district Komsomol committee in Tbilisi, followed by a promotion in 1961 to the post of first secretary of the Tbilisi city Komsomol committee.Чикваидзе, А., На изломе истории. СССР-Россия-Грузия, p 27
Following his postgraduate studies at the Soviet Academy of Social Sciences in Moscow in 1964–1966, Chikvaidze briefly returned to Tbilisi to his old job at the central committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, but soon thereafter in 1967, he left with his family for his first posting abroad – his true calling and interest – as vice consul in charge of cultural affairs at the Soviet consulate general in Bombay, India.Who’s Who in the World 1996, p. 236
In early 1969, for good work and due to the health of his family, Chikvaidze was transferred as First Secretary of the USSR Embassy in London, in charge of cultural affairs and public diplomacy. He returned to Tbilisi in September 1972 and was appointed in early 1973 to head the Department of Administrative and Commercial Authority of the Tbilisi city committee of the Communist Party.
In 1973–1977, Chikvaidze served as first secretary of the Tbilisi Ordzhonikidze district committee of the Communist Party and, from 1977 to September 1978 as minister for publishing, polygraphy and book trade of Georgia.
Chikvaidze renounced his ministerial portfolio in October 1978 in favour of a special two-year international relations course for senior government officials at the USSR Diplomatic Academy in Moscow, graduating within one year and, in 1979, was named USSR Consul General in San Francisco. His arrival in San Francisco in SeptemberSan Francisco Chronicle, November 1, 1979 was followed in December by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the final demise of US-Soviet détente that had marked the beginning of the 1970s. Despite this new spike in the Cold War, when Chikvaidze's tour of duty came to an end in 1983, he was given a farewell lunch by the City of San Francisco aboard the USS Coral Sea, a venerable aircraft carrier, known as ‘San Francisco’s Own’.Чикваидзе, А., На изломе истории. СССР-Россия-Грузия, p 77
In 1983, Chikvaidze was promoted to the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and assigned as the Soviet ambassador to Kenya and Permanent Representative of the USSR to the United Nations Environment Programme and to the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) where he served until 1985, returning to Moscow as Head of section in the department of diplomatic appointments of the USSR communist party central committee.
In 1988, Chikvaidze was assigned as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Soviet Union to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union as of 1 January 1992, Chikvaidze remained in post and presented his Credentials again to HM Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, this time as Ambassador of the Russian Federation.Чикваидзе, А., На изломе истории. СССР-Россия-Грузия, p 18
In February 1992, Chikvaidze was appointed Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia by acting Prime Minister Tengiz Sigua. From 1992 through 1995 Chikvaidze served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia. In 1996, Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze reassigned Chikvaidze as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Georgia to Greece and, then, in 2002, as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Georgia to Switzerland, to the Holy See and as Permanent Representative of Georgia to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations in Geneva.
Role of chess in his career and life Chikvaidze had a lifelong love affair with chess, so much so, that he often wondered if chess was a hobby of his, or a calling.Chikvaidze, A., Chess in My Life, p. 40 At the age of fifteen, he became champion of the Tbilisi ‘Pioneer Palace,’ a title held the previous two years by his friend and future world chess champion Tigran Petrosian. Chess was part of his political and diplomatic career. He would conduct simultaneous play tournaments on twenty and more boards, instantly becoming a celebrity in his country of posting.The Ohio State Lantern, May 1, 1963; The Times, April 25, 1970; The Daily Telegraph, April 28, 1970; The Standard (Nairobi), May 10, 1984; The Daily Nation (Nairobi), May 10, 1984; Algemeine Dagblab, januari 29, 1990; Limburgs Dagblad, februari 15, 1991 Chikvaidze was twice elected president of the Georgian Chess Federation, from 1973 to 1975 and again from 1992 to 1996.გურგენიძე, დ., ქართული ჭადრაკი 1877-2010, გამომცემლობა საქართველოს მაცნე, 2011/Gurgenidze, D., Georgian Chess 1877-2010, Publishing House ‘Sakartvelos Matsne’, 2011,
In 1986, he was elected President of the USSR Chess Federation and served in that position until 1988. This was unusual, a Georgian being selected for such a high-visibility position of very high responsibility and national prestige.Советский Спорт, 26 октября 1986 г.; Le Monde, 1 novembre 1986; Правда, 31 декабря 1986 г. Chikvaidze soon found himself tested precisely in that manner, when he had to manage Team USSR's precarious situation during the 27th International Chess Olympiad in Dubai, which he managed to turn around and have his team snatch victory.Le Monde, 15 novembre 1986; Khaleej Times, 2 December 1986; Chikvaidze, A., Chess in My Life, Tbilisi, 2017,