Georgii Samsonovich Dzotsenidze

Feb. 10 (23), 1910, in Kutaisi. Soviet government and party figure. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1968). Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR (1955). Member of the CPSU since 1940.

Dzotsenidze was the son of a peasant. In 1929 he graduated from the University of Tbilisi. From 1933 to 1934 he was head of the subdepartment of mineralogy and petrography at the pedagogical institute in Kutaisi. From 1934 to 1959 he was a professor, subdepartment chairman, dean, and rector (1958-59) at the University of Tbilisi. From 1951 to 1955 he was acting academician-secretary, and from 1955 to 1958 first vice-president of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR. His main works deal with problems of paleovolcanology and the connection between magmatism and tectonics. Dzotsenidze was one of the creators of the theory of volcanogenic-sedimentary lithogenesis. From 1959 he was the president of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR, and from 1960 the deputy president of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was elected a member of the Central Auditing Commission at the Twenty-second through Twenty-fourth Congresses of the CPSU. He was a deputy to the fifth through ninth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Dzotsenidze received the State Prize of the USSR in 1950. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and medals.