Abstract

This article documents a forty‑two‑year campaign to repatriate Captain Mirza Gelovani (1917–1944), a Georgian poet and Second World War hero killed in Belarus. Combining archival research, eyewitness interviews and the author’s 1979 documentary fieldwork, the study reconstructs Gelovani’s wartime service, the discovery of his grave by Belarusian villagers in 1963, and repeated refusals by local authorities to permit exhumation. Placing Gelovani’s fate within Georgia’s wider wartime losses, the research argues that returning his remains would serve as a national symbol for hundreds of thousands of Georgian soldiers buried abroad. The article highlights competing claims of belonging, bureaucratic obstacles and the moral imperative of commemorative justice.