In the 1940s, Joseph Stalin’s wartime propaganda established Saakadze as a major symbol of Georgian patriotism. In October 1940, Stalin commented on Saakadze, proclaiming that the Grand Mouravi’s hopes for Georgia’s "unification into one state through the establishment of royal absolutism and of the liquidation of the power of the princes" had been progressive. In an apparent move to encourage Georgian nationalism in order to gain the loyalty of the population during the war with Germany, Stalin himself was involved in modifying the script for an epic movie, "Giorgi Saakadze", commissioned from the Georgian film director Mikheil Chiaureli in 1942-1943. Stalin dismissed a script by the Georgian writer Giorgi Leonidze and approved the one by Anna Antonovskaya and Boris Chenry, adopted from Antonovskaya's 1942 Stalin Prize-winning six-volume novel, "The Great Mouravi" ().