Preliminary Inventory to the Dimitri Shalikashvili writings
Finding aid prepared by Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Hoover Institution Library and Archives
© 1999
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Stanford University
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Title: Dimitri Shalikashvili writings
Date (inclusive): 1920-1960
Collection Number: 80121
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material: In Russian with English translation
Physical Description:
3 manuscript boxes
(1.2 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Diary and memoirs, relating to Georgian relations with Turkey, 1920- 1921; Georgian refugee life in Turkey and Poland; the
Polish Army in the interwar period, and its defeat in 1939; the Georgian Legion in the German Army during World War II; and
Georgian prisoners in British prison camps at the end of the war. Includes translations
Creator:
Shalikashvili, Dimitri, 1896-
Access
The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual
or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.
Use
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquisition Information
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 1980.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Dimitri Shalikashvili writings, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Biographical Note
Dmitri Shalikashvili was born in 1896 into a princely Georgian family of imperial Russia and was educated in the elite Imperial
Alexander Lyceum in St. Petersburg. He spent most of his last year of school on horseback in an Imperial Horse Guard regiment
mobilized for war against the Central Powers. Following the Russian Revolution and Georgia's declaration of independence in
May 1918, Shalikashvili, by then a lieutenant in the Georgian cavalry, fought in the war against Armenia, the Russian Whites,
and the invading Bolsheviks. In 1920 he was appointed to the Georgian military mission in Ankara, Turkey. When the Moscow-directed
communist government took power in Georgia in early 1921, Shalikashvili remained in Constantinople. He and about a hundred
other Georgian officers stranded in Turkey were soon recruited by the government of newly independent Poland as "contract
officers." Their Polish hosts saw them as allies and potential cadres in a new Georgian army in what they saw as an inevitable
future conflict with Bolshevik Russia.
The Polish years in Shalikashvili's life (1921-1939) were, in his own words, "happy, interesting, productive years." Eventually
sent to the Warsaw War College and promoted to major and squadron commander in the most elite of prewar Poland's cavalry units,
the First Lancer Regiment of Marshal Pilsudski, Shalikashvili was a highly respected officer and prominent member of the Georgian
émigré colony in Warsaw. He became fluent in Polish and met his future wife in Warsaw; after they married, all their children
were born there.
At the start of World War II, which began in September 1939 with a coordinated Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland, Major Shalikashvili
and his lancer regiment fought until the final days of that September against overwhelming odds. Beginning with an abortive
raid toward East Prussia, followed by a long retreat south through central Poland, the survivors, without ammunition or food,
found themselves trapped by superior German and Soviet units. The only sensible option was capitulation. The regimental commander
gave his officers a choice of surrendering to either the Germans or to the Soviets; Shalikashvili chose the Germans.
The next several years were the most difficult and controversial in Shalikashvili's life. After brief imprisonment in a German
camp, his wife's German relatives won his release. He then moved back to Warsaw and rejoined the Georgian colony there. The
Warsaw Georgians were divided: most were in complete solidarity with their Polish friends; others, especially after Hitler's
attack on Soviet Russia, saw in the conflict a glimmer of hope of restoring Georgian independence. In early 1943, Shalikashvili
volunteered to join the Georgian Legion, one of some two dozen "foreign legions" organized to help the German war effort.
Shalikashvili and the other Georgians, mostly former Soviet POWs, were, however, disappointed when they realized that the
Germans would not trust them to fight on the Soviet front but assigned them mostly to Western Europe. The end of the war found
Shalikashvili in northern Italy, where he surrendered to the British in the final days of the war. His family was fortunate
to survive the horrors of Nazi "total war" during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and to escape the advancing Red Army. Unlike
most of the surrendering soldiers of the "eastern formations," Shalikashvili was not handed over by the British to the Soviets,
who routinely murdered the officers and sent the rest into the GULAG. Released from a POW camp in 1946, Shalikashvili lived
for several years with his family in Germany and later moved to the United States, where he wrote his memoirs, and died in
1978.
Shalikashvili's two Warsaw-born sons followed their father's example by choosing military careers. The older, Colonel Othar
Joseph Shalikashvili (born 1933), commanded the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment in the Vietnam War, and later the Tenth
Special Forces Group. The younger, a four-star general, John Malchase Shalikashvili (1936-2011), "General Shali," was the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1993 until 1997. In May 1995, John and Joseph brought their father's remains to
the family's ancestral village of Gurjaani for reburial.
Scope and Content Note
Dmitri Shalikashvili's multivolume, unpublished reminiscences cover almost an entire half-century, from before World War I
until the 1950s. The memoirs are written in legible Russian longhand, with key portions available also in excellent English
translation by Dmitri's wife Maria.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons
Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
World War, 1939-1945 -- Collaborationists
Prisoners of war
World War, 1939-1945 -- Campaigns -- Eastern Front
Refugees
Georgia (Republic) -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
Georgians (South Caucasians) -- Poland
Georgians (South Caucasians) -- Turkey
Russkai͡a osvoboditelʹnai͡a armii͡a
box 1
Bagrationy (The Bagrations), Typescript of an article,
La Nation Georgienne, No. 20
1957. December 1957.
box 1
The Beginning of World War One,
n.d.
General Physical Description note: Typescript (photocopy).
box 1
Blistatel'noe 26 Maia (The Glorious 26th of May), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri, No. 38
1960. May 1960.
box 1
The Bright Days of Our Independence,
n.d.
General Physical Description note: Typescript (photocopy).
box 1
Constantinople,
n.d.
General Physical Description note: Typescript (photocopy).
box 1
Georgian Mission in Angora, 1920-21,
1956.
General Physical Description note: Typescript.
box 1
Gruziia 26-go Maia (Georgia on the 26th of May), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri, No. 32
1959. May 1959.
box 1
Gruzino-Russkie Vzaimootnosheniia (Georgian-Russian Relations), Typescript of an article,
Osvobozhdenie, No. 5
1954. March 1, 1954.
box 1
Gruzinskii Legion (The Georgian Legion), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri, No. 28
1958. October 1958.
box 1
Istoriia (History), Typescript of an article,
La Nation Georgienne, No. 36
1959. September/October 1959.
box 1
Iz Proshlago (From the Past), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri, No. 26
1958. May 1958.
box 1
Komandirovka - V Sostave Gruzinskoi Missii v Angore (Mission - On the Staff of the Georgian Mission in Angora)
n.d.
General Physical Description note: Handwritten (carbon copy).
box 1
Konstantinopol' (Constantinople)
n.d.
General Physical Description note: Typescript (carbon copy).
box 1
Krivye Puti Kavkazskoi Politicheskoi Mysli (The Crooked Ways of Caucasian Political Thought), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri, Nos. 31-32
1959. 1959.
box 1
Molodoe Pokolenie (The Young Generation), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri, No. 15
1957. April 1957.
box 1
Obzor Pechati (A Survey of the Press), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri, No. 35
1959. November 1959.
box 1
Pamiati Generala Chkheidze (In Memory of General Chkheidze), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri, No. 41
1960. December 1960
box 1
Po Povodu Odnoi Stat'i (Concerning One Article), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri, No. 39
1960. July 1960.
box 1
Poland,
n.d.
General Physical Description note: Typescript (photocopy).
box 1
Politicheskoe Obozrenie (Political Review), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri, No. 36
1960. January 1960.
box 1
Pol'sha (Poland)
undated
General Physical Description note: Handwritten (photocopy). Pages 1-75.
box 2
Pol'sha (Poland)
n.d.
General Physical Description note: Handwritten (photocopy). Pages 76-238.
box 2
Raztsvet Natsional'noi Idei (The Blossoming of the National Idea), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri, No. 37
1960. March 1960.
box 2
The Regiment of the Horse Guards
1956.
General Physical Description note: Typescript (photocopy).
box 2
The Strategic Importance of the Caucasus, reprint,
The Voice of Free Georgia, No. 3
September 1953.
box 2
Tam Nashe Mesto (There Is Our Place), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri,
1960. October 1960.
box 2
Voprosy Interesuiushchie Nas Vsekh (Questions Which Interest All of Us), Typescript of an article,
Osvobozhdenie, No. 13 (35)
1954. July 15, 1954.
box 2
Vospominaniia - Chast' Pervaia (Reminiscences - Part 1)
1957.
General Physical Description note: Holograph and typescript.
box 2
Vospominaniia - Chast' Vtoraia (Reminiscences - Part 2)
1959.
General Physical Description note: Handwritten (photocopy).
box 3
Vtoraia Mirovaia Voina, A Gruziia (The Second World War and Georgia), Typescript of an article,
Kartuli Azri, No. 34
1959. September 1959.
box 3
Warsaw - Poland, September 1939 to January 1943,
n.d.
General Physical Description note: Typescript (photocopy).
box 3
World War Two - Georgian Legion,
n.d.
General Physical Description note: Typescript (photocopy).
box 3
World War Two - Polish Campaign of September 1939,
n.d.
General Physical Description note: Typescript (photocopy).
box 3
The Years I Spent in Germany After World War II,
n.d.
General Physical Description note: Typescript (photocopy).
