Chabua Amirejibi

Mzechabuk "Chabua" Amirejibi, (often written as "Amiredjibi", 1921 –2013) was a Georgian novelist and Soviet-era dissident notable for his magnum opus, Data Tutashkhia, and a lengthy experience in Soviet prisons.

Chabua Amirejibi with tattoo of Saint George, which he believed kept him alive during prison 

His family, once a princely house, was heavily repressed during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge: his father was shot in 1938 and mother sent to a Gulag camp. During World War II, he was recruited into the Red Army, but was soon sacked due to his family background. Subsequently, he became involved in anti-Soviet activities, being a member of the underground political organization Tetri Giorgi.

In April 1944, he was arrested on coup plot charges and sentenced to twenty-five years of imprisonment in Siberia. After fifteen years in prison, three prison escapes, and two death sentences, he was ultimately rehabilitated in 1959 and began his literary career in his late thirties with short stories.