Born near the town Abasha, he was educated at the Kutaisi Realschule and Tbilisi State University from which he graduated in 1922.

In 1924, was arrested and nearly shot on a walking-tour to Kakheti during the Red Terror that followed the Georgian rebellion against the Soviet rule.

In the words of modern British scholar Donald Rayfield, "most are energetic and provocative Whitmanesque heckling and satirising of the older generation of poets: Chikovani sported Mayakovsky’s mantle.

"[1] Since 1924, he edited the notorious Futurist journal H2SO4 and directed his attacks against his former associates from the Blue Horns group, chiefly Titsian Tabidze and Paolo Iashvili.

He went on to serve as a secretary of the Georgian Union of Writers from 1930 to 1932, its president from 1944 to 1951, and finally as deputy of the Supreme Soviet from 1950 to 1954.