Poet. He was a Georgian poet, literary scholar and politician. In 1931 he graduated from Tbilisi State University with a degree in philology and attended the 1st Congress of the USSR Union of Writers in 1934, when socialist realism was implemented as the cultural orthodoxy. The isolation of the Communist Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union prevented his poetry from being commonly recognized worldwide. He was the editor of the magazine "Cheveni Taoba" from 1938 for one year and "Mnatobe" from 1946 to 1953. From 1953 to 1967, he chaired the Union of Georgian Writers. In 1970, he also became a vice-president of the Georgian Academy of Sciences. During the 1950s and 1960s, he was allowed to travel for scientific research to India and Palestine. In 1960 he organized with the Georgian Academy of Sciences an expedition to the Georgian-built Monastery of the Cross at Jerusalem where his team rediscovered a fresco of Shota Rustaveli, a medieval Georgian poet. Since 1967, he chaired the special academic commission for the Rustaveli. This resulted in his book "Palestine, Palestine." The Shota Rustaveli State Prize, which was created in 1965, is the highest prize awarded by Georgia in the fields of art and literature. The 1966 first prize-recipient in the category of poetry was awarded to Irakli Abashidze. After his trip to India, he published the books "Mtsvel Indotshi" and "Indoetis Gzebeze," which resulted, according to the text "Historical Dictionary of Georgia," in the Jawaharlal Nehru Prize in 1972. Serving on this project from 1966 to 1992, he was the founder and became an editor-in-chief in 1967 of the multi-volume text of "The Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia." His poems are viewed as classical works of Georgian literature. His poetry, which was mostly patriotic, is based on Georgian cultural and religious values, but normally loyal to Soviet ideology. His earlier poems are merry and joyful with melody. Besides these poems, he wrote "Death of Tsulukidze," with a main character resembling Joseph Stalin. Covering the subject of a hero of war, he wrote "Captain Bukhaidge." Politically, he welcomed Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika and supported the Soviet-era dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who became the first President of the Republic of Georgia. Abashidze died in the Georgian capital city of Tbilisi in 1992 and was afforded a state funeral. In recent years post-Soviet Union, many of his poems have been translated to other languages. A street was named in his honor in Tbilisi and located on this street is his home, which has become a museum.