Mosulishvili Phore

Mosulishvili Phore (Chritephore) (1916-1944), National Hero of Italy, an active participant of Italian resistance, during WW II. He was born in Kvemo Machkhaani village of Georgia. In 1940 he was drafted into the army and fought in the USSR-Germany war (1941-45). In 1941 he was badly wounded and taken prisoner. He was kept at German concentration camps in Poland, France and Italy. In 1944 he escaped and joined the battalion named after Peppini of Italian guerrilla movement. When his guerrilla squad was encircled by German troops, the enemy offered to spare the lives of Italian fighters if they surrendered their commander. P. Mosulishvili passed himself off as the commander of the squad but preferred death to the new imprisonment and shot himself in front of the Nazis. P. Mosulishvili was posthumously awarded the highest military decoration of Italy– Golden medal ‘For Military Glory’ (1970) and the 1st degree Order of the Patriotic War (by the Decree of the Supreme Council of the USSR, 1972).

Ph. Mosulishvili was buried in Arona in Northern Italy.