Vera Bardavelidze

1899-1970 / academic

This famous academic was key in establishing Georgian ethnography as a branch of study. Apart from her research, Vera also taught several generations of ethnographers. The focus of her study was issues of Georgian daily life and spiritual culture, such as: cosmological beliefs and ideas, the pantheon of divinities, fertility cults and rituals, Georgian folk holidays, folk ornaments and graphic arts.

Worthy of special mention is her discovery of the theocratic organization of society in Mtiuleti, in eastern Georgia, in the early class-based period. Prior to that, it was presumed that society in Georgia's mountainous regions had always been clan-based.