The paper deals with the discussions within different social groups in the first Republic of Georgia (1918-1921) that focused on the selection of the best model for social, cultural and academic developments in the newly established Georgian state. According to the yet understudied archival evidence, various groups gave preference to the German “stoicheion” as a model to be applied in different areas of social life, including education. Cf.The Republic of Georgia (a newspaper), 1918, N. 181: “The only path towards cultural and academic revival is West-bound, and of the Western school models, German will be the most appropriate for us. The Georgians as a nation have much in common with Romance nations. However, schools should help our young generation progress towards the German stoicheion and acquire what they seem to lack.”
Having studied the authentic material documented in the prosopographical base of the first Republic of Georgia (http://prosopography.iliauni.edu.ge/) and Georgians in Germany (http://qakuna.ge/), the paper aims to bring to light some details relating to an attempt to integrate the German model into the Georgian education system. The questions discussed include but are not limited to the following: German as the first foreign language with the largest number of hours in the curriculum grid, German literature and philosophy as the most important school subjects, the teaching of the Gothic script at schools, education of congregation at German churches in Georgia, the majority of teachers at Georgian schools having received higher education in Germany.