146 Ë The Caucasus Group and Japan
(1918–1921); and Mikheil Tsereteli and Alexander Manvelishvili, leaders of the Geor-
gian patriotic organization Thethri Giorgi. In view of the activity of the Soviet secret
police in Istanbul, however, the Japanese transferred the matter to Berlin.⁷¹In Berlin,
Shalva Karumidze, who, as noted earlier, was a founder of the Union of Georgian Na-
tionalists in Germany, assembled Georgian rightist émigrés under the journalKlde.
This journal came to be nanced by Japan. In Berlin another link was made as well be-
tween Japan and the Caucasians: Roman Mkurnali (1887–1946), a Georgian National
Democrat and former colonel in the Intelligence Department of the Georgian Army
General Sta⁷²who maintained contact with German intelligence, introduced Haidar
Bammat and Karumidze to a Japanese intelligence o cer named Matsui (“married to
a Russian” who was close to Mkurnali’s wife).⁷³This event appears to have taken place
in 1935, although it may have been the previous year.
In January 1934, Bammat (who had been given Afghanistan citizenship in 1925 by
the Afghan king whom he had impressed with his erudition) began publishing in Paris
the political monthlyKavkaz(Caucasus) in Russian, with an initial print run of seven
hundred copies. Originally nanced by wealthy Caucasian patrons (such as Georgian
Alexis Mdivani married to the American millionaire Barbara Hutton, and the wealthy
family of Tapa Chermoev, whose niece Bammat had married), by 1935 the monthly
came to be nanced exclusively by Japan; in fact, the Japanese embassy in Paris is said
to have been the source of the nance.⁷⁴The monthly became a pan-Caucasian politi-
cal organ whose goal was to unite rightist Caucasian political groups under the idea of
a Caucasian confederation.⁷⁵Armenians, however, refused to cooperate with the Cau-
71 Mamoulia,Les combats indépendandistes des Caucasiens, 193–94.
72 G. Kvinitadze. Colonel-lieutenant Roman Mkurnali. Certi cat. Kvinitadze Family Archive (Chatou,
France).
73 In an earlier essay, Mamoulia concluded, based on Hiroaki Kuromiya’s earlier suggestion, that this
o cer was Iwane Matsui. See Georges Mamoulia, “L’histoire du groupe Caucase (1934–1939).”Cahiers
du monde Russe48, no. 1 (January-March 2007), 46. Matsui indeed worked in Europe brie y in the rst
half of the 1930s. Subsequently we came to believe that “Matsui” was probably a code name and that
the o cer was likely to be Lieutenant Colonel Shigeki Usui. A Soviet specialist previously stationed
in Moscow and Warsaw, Usui worked in Berlin in 1935–37, where he ran secret operations. Usui and
Bammat maintained a close personal relationship. In December 1937 Usui left the Berlin subversion
organ mentioned in the text to Colonel Takanobu Manaki. What Usui did in Europe thereafter is not
known. After returning to Tokyo in July 1938, he headed the subversion department of the general sta.
Strangely, however, he does seem to have had a Russian mistress in Moscow. See Hiroaki Kuromiya,
“The Mystery of Nomonhan, 1939.”The Journal of Slavic Military Studies24, no. 4 (December 2011), 664.
According to an émigré Russian medical doctor in Tokyo, Iwane Matsui was an Orthodox Christian,
and “Iwane” derived from the Russian name “Ivan.” (see Sergei Bunin, “Samyi znamenityi russkii
v Tokio,” http://www.sovsekretno.ru/magazines/article/2989, accessed 23 November 2012). If this is
true, “Matsui” may well have been Iwane Matsui, but this story cannot be con rmed.
74 Patrick von zur Mühlen,Zwischen Hakenkreuz und Sowjetstern. Der Nationalismus der sowjetischen
Orientvölker im Zweiten Weltkrieg(Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1971), 29.
75 See Mamoulia,Les combats indépendandistes des Caucasiens, 194, 198, 200.