Opening Remarks by Andro Bitsadze’s Son at the Symposium Commemorating His 100th Anniversary

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear relatives,

First of all, I ask you to kindly forgive my physical absence. The only explanation I can offer is that fate has carried me very far from Georgia—so far that even the most modern means of communication cannot fully overcome this distance.

Nevertheless, I am deeply grateful to all of you for gathering here today to honor the memory of my father, Professor Andro (Andrei) Bitsadze. Though absent in body, I am present with you in spirit and in heart at this very moment.

Not long ago, one hundred years passed since the day of his birth. This is a remarkable span of time. And so it is natural to ask: who was Professor Andro Bitsadze, and what does his life mean to us today?

He was a farm boy, born and raised in a small village hidden in the mountains of western Georgia—a place that, until quite recently, had no proper road leading to it. From that remote beginning emerged a scholar of international stature, an outstanding scientist in the theory of hyperbolic, elliptic, and quasilinear equations, as well as systems of partial differential equations. His lectures were heard in Moscow, London, Paris, Beijing, Tokyo, and many other cities across the world.

He was a brilliant teacher and mentor who supervised more than forty PhD students in mathematics and who was able to lecture fluently in four languages. He was the author of two dozen books and numerous scholarly articles, published in different countries and in different languages. He is still remembered by graduates of Moscow State University and the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, and his books continue to educate students on three continents.

And yet, despite all this, he remained the same farm boy from the Georgian mountains—one whose life led him, at various times, to sit at the same table with Nikita Khrushchev, Zhou Enlai, Chairman of the Government of China, and even Mikheil Tsereteli, one of the prominent figures of the Georgian émigré community.

Of course, much can be said about my father’s contribution to world science, but his distinguished colleagues are far better equipped than I am to speak on that subject. I am not a mathematician, and I would like to speak of something else.

My father lived a long and not an easy life.

It began one hundred years ago on a sturdy peasant homestead in Imereti—one of Georgia’s provinces—where the future Professor Bitsadze absorbed the air, the heart, and the spirit of his native land. Later came secondary school in the town of Chiatura, where teachers instilled in a gifted rural boy a love of books, learning, and bold experimentation. I deeply regret that the names of those teachers have not been preserved in my memory—teachers who, in the distant 1920s, working in a small provincial school, subscribed to the most advanced scientific journals from around the world and taught their pupils in such a way that ordinary peasant boys and girls could invent batteries, solve geometric problems in new ways, and devise original formulas.

From my father’s own words I know that this was indeed so. Modest district teachers nurtured future scholars, carefully cultivating talent.

Later, the city of Tbilisi entered my father’s life. There, at one of the youngest universities in Europe—the University of Tbilisi—an outstanding academic, Prince Muskhelishvili, helped a young, passionate, still unknown, and perhaps, from some perspectives, overly straightforward Imeretian youth become a student of the Faculty of Mathematics. In the years that followed, other remarkable professors of Tbilisi University refined and shaped the talent of the young scientist.

Then came the years of work at the Tbilisi Mathematical Institute. And in 1948, by decision of higher authorities, my father was sent to Moscow—the center of the Soviet empire, of which Georgia was then a part. Russia needed Georgian talent, and it received it.

From that point on, my father’s life was, to a significant degree, intertwined with Russia.

In 1959, he was sent to Siberia to help—together with Professor Mikhail Lavrentyev and other eminent scholars—build from scratch the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. And build it they did. They created a scientific center that impressed many distinguished foreign visitors to Novosibirsk—among them, even the President of the United States, Richard Nixon.

Later, in the late 1970s, my father attempted to return home, to his native Georgia—but this attempt proved unsuccessful. By then, the country had changed profoundly: it was already a deeply Sovietized Georgia, with a different way of life, different attitudes toward work, and altered human relations. To his great regret—above all his own—my father was unable to fit into this new society.

Why did this happen? For many reasons, but above all because he devoted himself to resisting the gradual erosion of both science and morality in the Soviet society of his time—and especially in Soviet Georgia. He categorically refused to accept such phenomena as careerism, empty pedantry, falsehood, denunciation, servility, hypocrisy, cynicism, corruption, nepotism, and favoritism.

Such an attitude toward life was unwelcome neither in Soviet Georgia nor in the Soviet Union as a whole. Men like my father were distrusted by the communist leadership, and they earned little favor with the corrupted Soviet “intelligentsia” and the scientific bureaucracy. They were considered inconvenient, uncontrollable—and treated accordingly.

Some colleagues and friends deeply respected my father’s principled approach to life and work; others allowed themselves to mock it and actively persecute the “inconvenient” Professor Bitsadze. Yet life itself has shown who was right. Everything my father refused to accept ultimately contributed to the collapse of the USSR—a state that revealed its utter unviability when it sank in 1991 like a rotting vessel.

And thank God for that—though, regrettably, it came far too late.

But in any case, without delving into all the details, I must say that Soviet Georgia proved exceedingly harsh toward its remarkable son and ultimately pushed him back to Russia. Upon returning to Moscow, my father composed several poignant poems about a traveler who returned to his ancestral land only to be rejected by it. Yet he was neither the first nor the last outstanding Georgian to be unaccepted by his homeland, which at that time lay under foreign domination.

And “stepmother Russia” did not exactly indulge him either. Nevertheless, after decades of living in Russia, my father always remained a Georgian—a devoted son of his homeland. From my earliest childhood, he imparted to me detailed knowledge of Georgian history. I came to know names such as Bagrat III and David Agmashenebeli, Ilia Chavchavadze and Noe Zhordania—all that which Soviet schools, both in Russia and in Georgia, neglected to teach, aiming instead to make people forget who they were, where they came from, and where their roots lay.

And more… On one occasion, in the company of friends, my father said: “Do not believe anyone who tells you that a Georgian can prefer life outside his homeland!”

As an older émigré, I can now confirm—and this is not merely my personal view—that there is no paradise in a foreign land. Even when a person is financially comfortable, a home is a home, and a foreign land remains a foreign land. One can live well in another country. Even very well. But it never ceases to be foreign. Moreover, in Russia, my father’s circumstances were hardly ideal, neither materially nor personally.

I would even go further… Professor Bitsadze drank to the dregs the bitter cup of what it meant to be Georgian in Russia—at least after 1953. Today, many of us are aware of the unlawful arrests of Georgians and people of Georgian origin in Russia, of the ugly anti-Georgian campaigns in the Russian press. But none of this appeared suddenly or out of nowhere. As someone who lived for many years in Russia, and as the son of my father, I can say: it all began in 1953, when the Bolsheviks redirected the hatred of the Russian people toward the country from which the dictator Stalin had come. Many of those who had bowed servilely to the tyrant until his death went on, after his passing, to cruelly punish his “compatriots.” Alas, there was nothing to be done… such is the psychology of slaves.

The Kremlin eagerly drew upon the knowledge, skills, and intellectual potential of Georgians, giving nothing in return—not even the most basic respect. In this regard, Soviet Russia differed starkly even from tsarist Russia.

My father witnessed all of this and was deeply affected by what transpired. He was especially pained by the tragic events in Georgia during the first years after the long-awaited independence: the civil war, the national catastrophe of 1992–1993, the loss of territories, and the ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia, carried out with active assistance from Russia—a country to which he and many of his colleagues had devoted their knowledge and labor. The only solace my father found was in his science, in his work, and in his students.

His mind was constantly generating new ideas and original solutions to the most complex problems. He authored numerous books and mentored dozens of PhDs and professors in mathematics and related disciplines. I was always struck by the extraordinary amount of time he devoted to his graduate students and doctoral candidates. Often, they would spend entire days at his home, working through theory with him, pausing only for meals and short walks in the forest. At times, he could be stern, scolding them for mistakes or tardiness, yet after these sessions, they would swiftly defend their dissertations with distinction and go on to successful careers.

He never ceased his scientific experiments. Even in the most difficult times, while battling the final stages of a serious illness, my father planned new theoretical works and the publication of new books.

My father was a man of encyclopedic knowledge. Beyond his primary field of mathematics, he possessed an exceptional command of history and literature, wrote poetry, and had a keen understanding of painting and architecture. He was a polyglot: in addition to his native Georgian, he was fluent in Russian and French, and by the end of his life, he was also able to lecture in English.

I have already spoken at length about what my father knew and could do. In fairness, I must now mention what he could not do. He could not steal ideas. He never learned—and never would learn—to take or give bribes and other favors. He could not ingratiate himself with those in power or offer the timely compliments expected by the “right” people. Many of his colleagues could do all of this. They had learned not only to accept bribes but even to steal ideas from their own students, creating, among some of today’s younger generation, a distorted image of what a scholar should be. Unlike many Soviet citizens of his time, he never informed on his colleagues to the secret police, never wove intrigues, staged vile provocations, or struck from behind.

Speaking of the secret police and informing, it is worth noting that Andro Bitsadze was not a sincere adherent of communist ideology—he knew its value too well—but he was not a “dissident” either. He clearly saw the falseness and hypocrisy of certain figures who had gained a reputation as “fighters against the system,” and with whom life brought him into contact. I know for certain that my father repeatedly refused offers of cooperation from the KGB (the Committee for State Security, the Soviet secret police), which ultimately cost him the position of full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

At the same time, when in 1958, during the Edinburgh Congress of Mathematicians, he was offered permanent residence in the United Kingdom, he declined. What is remarkable is that Professor Bitsadze , even living behind the “Iron Curtain,” somehow managed not to separate himself from the West, and indeed remained connected to the broader intellectual world.

I would also like to say a few words about my father’s relationship with the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Everyone present here knows that the world-renowned Professor Andro Bitsadze never became a full member of the Academy of Sciences (now known as the Russian Academy of Sciences). However, I do not believe this in any way diminishes his legacy. Especially if one considers, frankly, what the Academy itself was. Many people are well aware of how admissions were made—and how certain people were systematically excluded.

In this regard, a textbook example is the December 1984 elections to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR—the last elections in which my father participated. He failed to be elected at the general assembly for two reasons: malicious slander by Sergey Novikov and vote manipulation. Yes, gentlemen! Manipulation! Mr. Primakov—one of the high-ranking Soviet officials of that time—was aware of this fact, yet, naturally, he took no action…

Such, then, was—and is—that “academy.” And it is viewed in modern Russia with fully deserved skepticism, as the country has set a course for its eventual dissolution. As Patriarch Tikhon—the last true patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church—said in 1925: “So are the relics and so is the holy oil!” He said this when, due to an accident, the Lenin Mausoleum was flooded with sewage water contaminated with feces (a wry smile)…

I mention this to suggest that perhaps an even greater honor for a true scholar is not to be a member of such an “academy.” However, that is a matter for scientists themselves to decide… not me.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today we remember my father on his centenary. I know that he is being remembered in many countries around the world. As his son, I can say—and I know this for certain—that the greatest tribute to my father, the most meaningful act of respect we can offer him, would be to ensure that his beloved and only homeland, Georgia, and in particular its scientific and intellectual elite, are able to overcome all that was negative in the past and continue forward on a bright and hopeful path.

In conclusion, I would like to read a short poem written by my father exactly forty-five years ago, in the summer of 1971:

If I should not return one day

To the land my forebears tilled,

To the breast that gave me life’s first stay,

Where, as a child, my dreams were stilled,

And if upon the northern plain

My spirit must take flight,

O homeland, hear my humble strain:

My plea, my heart’s sole rite.

Know that for your enduring fame,

Along the path I had to tread,

This heart, though weary, bore your name,

And beat for you, my native land.

Once again, I thank everyone present here for honoring the memory of my father, and I ask your forgiveness for taking so much time with this long speech.

Thank you!

May 22, 2016