Levan Berdzenishvili

Levan Berdzenishvili is a Georgian politician, author and academic, and served as the director of the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia from 1998 until 2004.[1]

Berdzenishvili was born in Batumi in 1953, and is the older brother of David Berdzenisvhili, also a politician.[2] On May 21, 1978, Berdzenishvili and his brother David, together with Vakhtang Dzabiradze and Vakhtang Shonia, founded the Republican Party of Georgia.[2] In June 1983, he was arrested and served several years in prison, as a dissident.[3] Berdzenishvili has described his experiences in an autobiographical novel, Sacred Darkness: The Last Days of the GULAG, published in English in 2019.[4] In the book, Berdzenishvili describes the years in prison as his "best years" because of the "people that surrounded me, people the KGB had so zealously brought together.”[3] His book includes short sketches of fellow dissidents that he was imprisoned with, including Vadim Yankov, Rafael Papayan (later member of the Constitutional Court of Armenia), Henrikh Altunyan, and others.[2] In February 2020, Sacred Darkness was nominated for the EBRD literature prize.[5]

Berdzenishvili served as a member of parliament, from 2012–2016, as part of the Georgian Dream coalition. In this capacity, he also served on various committees, briefly heading up the committee of European integration.[6] He previously served as an MP from 2004 to 2008, as part of the National Movement – Democrats.[6] Berdzenishvili was among the supporters of the Rose Revolution, as a member of the National Movement, which he joined in 2002.[7] Shortly after the Rose Revolution, Berdzenishvili and the Republican Party split from the governing faction, in June 2004.[8]

Berdzenishvili has written on Greek and Latin comedies, and teaches at various universities in Georgia. Berdzenishvili also is a frequent commenter on public and social affairs in Georgia.[9]