Leo Kereselidze

Who was Leo Kereselidze?

Leo Kereselidze was a Georgian military figure, politician and journalist involved in the Georgian national movement against the Russian and later Soviet domination.

Early in his twenties, Keresselidze was involved in the Russian Revolution of 1905 and took part in attacks against Russian officials and military as well as in the running of a cargo of guns to the port of Sukhum-Kale. He subsequently moved to Western Europe and obtained a Ph.D. degree from the University of Geneva. In 1913, he joined a group of Georgian patriots in the Committee of Independent Georgia, and engaged in journalism, co-editing with his brother Georges Keresselidze a Geneva-based Georgian newspaper Tavisupali Sakartvelo from 1913 to 1914, and then working for a Berlin-based Kartuli Gazeti from 1916 to 1918. In 1914, at the eve of World War I, the Committee moved to Germany and sought the German aid in restoring the independence of Georgia from Russia. Keresselidze led a military unit of Georgian volunteers, the Georgian Legion, which fought on the German side and was transferred to the Ottoman-Russian Caucasus front.