Vasilii Kikvidze

Born Feb. 28 (Mar. 12), 1895, in Kutaisi; died Jan. 11, 1919, near the Zubrilov farmstead, now Kikvidze, Novonikolaevskii Raion, Volgograd Oblast. Hero of the Civil War of 1918–20. Son of a petty official.

Kikvidze took part in World War I (1914–18), serving in the cavalry as a volunteer. He was a Left Socialist Revolutionary and was repeatedly arrested for his revolutionary work in the army. In 1917 he was elected chairman of the soldiers’ committee of the 6th Cavalry Division and deputy chairman of the military revolutionary committee of the Southwestern Front. From December 1917 to May 1918, Kikvidze commanded the Rovno Red Guard Detachment in fighting against troops of the counterrevolutionary Central Rada in the Rovno and Dubno regions and against the German occupying forces in the Ukraine. He formed a division in May 1918 in Tambov, which later received the name 16th Rifle Division. Kikvidze was the commander of the division. He took part in fighting against the troops of General P. N. Krasnov from June 1918 to January 1919 and was killed in combat. He was buried in Moscow. Monuments were erected to Kikvidze in Kutaisi and Tbilisi in 1959. Kikvidze’s name has been given to the 16th Rifle Division and to the stanitsa (large cossack village) of Preobrazhenskaia in Volgograd Oblast.