About Center for Research of Kartvelian Civilization
History
The Center for Research of Kartvelian Civilization (CRKC) was legally established on April 26, 2006; however, since 1995, the actual work on various projects by the founding members has been steadily moving forward. It was their common goals and dedication to the investigation of the Kartvelian languages and culture that finally brought them together to achieve more effectiveness in their endeavors and embrace the wider public.
Valida (Nukri) Tsertsvadze, a biologist and endocrinologist, worked on her concept, Renewed Cycle of Knowledge, for 30 years and later published it under the title of The Time Factor - Wisdom of Love. This work is an entire system for an elite school based on completely different principles of education required for the 21st Century. She first began work in this area of education when she realized her children were not receiving the type of education deemed for success, and so she home-schooled her children. The problems she faced in home-schooling, and later the solutions she devised, became the foundation for her work on a new educational system.
Merab Mikeladze, Jr., specialist in French and Italian languages and literature, is developing one of the topics of The Totem and the Old World: The Caucasus, The Mediterranean, The Pyrenees written by his father. The wolf totem in Kartvelian and ancient Mediterranean civilizations forms the topic of his doctoral dissertation. He decided to follow and continue in his family tradition, not of natural sciences, but in the study of ancient contacts of the Kartvelian languages and culture in the ancient world. This subject was the line of research that became the true passion of his father, Merab Mikeladze, a Doctor of Technical Sciences and who held the highest title in the Academy of Sciences of Georgia and founder of the theory of thin anisotropic plastic layers. Equally titled in the Natural Sciences was his grandfather, Shalva Mikeladze, an expert mathematician.
While the founding members are substantial contributors to this body of work and to the Center as a whole, it was the perseverance and willpower of the Center's Founder that this much needed research Center was launched. Anna Meskhi, Ph.D. in Germanic Languages and Theory of Linguistics, a scholar and teacher of English, noticed surprising language similarities when researching Kartvelian and Old English language material. Soon, her interest grew to embrace Sumerian and Egyptian languages and cultures. Today, Anna Meskhi’s research interests cover comparative studies of linguistics, paleography, religions, and mythologies of Kartvelian, Indo-European (basically English and Germanic), Sumerian and Egyptian.
Ethnology has been another area in which Dr. Meskhi toiled and amassed video-recordings of several religious rites. This work would have been impossible without the disinterested assistance of Iagor (Giorgi) Kontridze, a professional cameraman and founding member of the Center.
In addition to ethnographic activities, she translated and sponsored publication of works revealing the Kartvelian contribution to world civilization. Help for computer design and various computer services came from, Giorgi Grigolashvili, Doctor of Technical Sciences and a founding member of the Center.
Now, the rescue of ethnographic manuscripts, kept in desperately poor conditions at the Research Institute of History and Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of Georgia, is the latest ongoing undertaking of Dr. Meskhi. For over four years now, Vera Gelashvili, Dr. Meskhi's sister, has been entrusted with this delicate enterprise. The digitized ethnographic material will be the first vestiges of the electronic library of the Center. And finally last, but certainly not least is Mirian Meskhi, Dr Meskhi’s husband and life-companion, a liaison whose dedicated assistance made this entire effort possible.
These seven people with a lifetime dedication to their native history and culture are the founders of the Center for Research of Kartvelian Civilization.
