Stanislav Lakoba
Stanislav Lakoba (23 February 1953 – 20 September 2025) was an Abkhazian academic, historian, and politician. He served as Sergei Bagapsh’s Vice-Presidential candidate in the 2004 presidential election and held the post of Secretary of the Security Council from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2011 to 2013. Lakoba was also a Professor of Archaeology, Ethnology, and History at the Abkhazian State University.
Born on 23 February 1953 in Sukhum, the capital of Abkhazia, Lakoba was partially Afro-Abkhazian through a paternal great-grandfather from Pichori. He graduated from the Faculty of History of the Sukhum State Pedagogical Institute.
He was the author of the 1989 Lykhny Declaration. During the 1992–1993 war with Georgia, Lakoba served as a member of the Abkhazian Supreme Soviet. From 1993 to 1994 he was First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council, and from 1994 to 1996 he served as First Deputy Speaker of the Supreme Soviet.
During the October 1999 presidential election, Lakoba published the controversial article Выборы по Хичкоку (Hitchcock’s Election), in which he criticised the fact that incumbent President Vladislav Ardzinba ran unopposed.
From 2000 onwards, Lakoba became first Acting Professor and later Professor of Archaeology, Ethnology, and History at the Abkhazian State University. Between 2000 and 2004 he was a Visiting Professor at the Hokkaido University Centre for Slavic Studies.
A prolific scholar, Lakoba authored more than a hundred books, monographs, and articles on the history, politics, and culture of Abkhazia and the wider Caucasus. He lectured internationally, including at Hokkaido University’s Slavic Research Centre and Tokyo’s Hosei University, and published two books in Japan analysing Abkhazia’s post-Soviet experience. He also participated in numerous international and regional conferences devoted to the political history and culture of Abkhazia.
Lakoba was the chief editor of the textbook History of Abkhazia, published in Sukhum in 1991 and republished in Gudauta in 1993. In 2006 and 2015 he co-authored, together with Academician O. Bgazhba, the textbook History of Abkhazia from Ancient Times to the Present Day for 10th–11th grade students.
Among Lakoba’s best-known works are: The Militants of Abkhazia in the 1905–1907 Revolution (Sukhum, 1984); The Days Flew By in Sukhum-Kale: Historical and Cultural Sketches (Sukhum, 1988); Essays on the Political History of Abkhazia (Sukhum, 1990); Georgia’s Hundred-Year War Against Abkhazia (Gagra, 1993); Reply to Historians from Tbilisi (Sukhum, 2001); The Abkhazian Archive (Moscow, 2002); several sections on history in The Abkhazians, edited by G. Hewitt (London; New York, 1999); chapters in the monograph Abkhazians (Moscow, 2012); and The Great Terror in Abkhazia: 1937–1938 (Council of Europe, 2017), among others.
Lakoba also contributed to AbkhazWorld.com and its projects, sharing articles, commentary, and insights that enriched international understanding of Abkhazia’s history and culture.
Lakoba was a member of the socio-political movement Amtsakhara. In the run-up to the 3 October 2004 presidential election, Amtsakhara entered into an alliance with the opposition party United Abkhazia. On 20 June, the two movements announced that they would nominate United Abkhazia’s Sergei Bagapsh for President and Lakoba for Vice President.
Bagapsh and Lakoba narrowly won in the first round with 50.08% of the vote, but the result was contested by supporters of Raul Khajimba. The ensuing political stand-off continued until 5 December, when Bagapsh and Khajimba reached an agreement to run on a joint ticket in a new election.
As part of this arrangement, Lakoba did not assume the vice-presidency. Following the new election on 12 January 2005, he was instead appointed Secretary of the Security Council on 17 February.
When Khajimba resigned as Vice President on 28 May 2009, he stated that Lakoba had been his strongest supporter within the government. However, on 18 August 2009, Lakoba tendered his own resignation over the Abkhazian citizenship crisis, which was ratified on 25 August by President Bagapsh. On 17 September, his deputy, Aleksandr Voinskiy, was appointed Acting Secretary of the Security Council.
In an interview with Caucasian Knot on 3 September 2009, Lakoba stated that he would not participate in the December presidential election and called “absurd” the notion that he would join the opposition. Nevertheless, in a Nuzhnaya interview on 17 November, he expressed private support for Khajimba’s candidacy and praised his previous work in the Security Council.
After the death of Sergei Bagapsh in 2011, President Alexander Ankvab reappointed Lakoba as Secretary of the Security Council on 7 December. However, on 28 October 2013, Ankvab dismissed him over the same issue that had prompted his earlier resignation — the issuing of passports to Georgian residents of Abkhazia.
Stanislav Lakoba passed away on 20 September 2025, at the age of 73, after suffering a heart attack while driving. According to reports, he experienced the attack moments before his vehicle collided with a roadside pole. His wife, who was also in the car, was hospitalised but her condition was not life-threatening.
+ Thirty years of "guilt" (1877-1907), by Stanislav Lakoba
+ Abkhazia is Abkhazia, by Stanislav Lakoba
+ A response to historians from Tbilisi (Documents and facts) by Stanislav Lakoba
+ History: 18th Century-1917, by Stanislav Lakoba
+ An Abkhazian Prince on the Russian Throne? By Stanislav Lakoba
+ Today many things are becoming known": Interview with Stanislav Lakoba
+ Abkhazia should receive an answer to the question about the fate of David Sigua - Stanislav Lakoba
+ Abkhazia, Georgia and the Caucasus Confederation, by Stanislav Lakoba