Zviad Gamsakhurdia

Zviad Konstantines dze Gamsakhurdia (Georgian: ????? ???????????? ?? ???????????) (March 31, 1939 - December 31, 1993) was a dissident, scientist and writer, who became the first democratically elected President of the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet era. (Particularly in Soviet-era sources, his patronymic is sometimes given as Konstantinovich in the Russian style.)

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Early career

Zviad Gamsakhurdia was born in the Georgian capital Tbilisi in 1939. He was a member of a distinguished Georgian family; his father, Academician Konstantine Gamsakhurdia (1893-1975), was one of the most famous Georgian writers of the 20th century. Zviad was a philologist by training and began a professional career as a translator and literary critic.

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Despite (or perhaps because of) the country's association with Stalin, Soviet rule in Georgia was particularly harsh during the 1950s and sought to restrict Georgian cultural expression. In 1955, Zviad Gamsakhurdia established a youth underground group which he called the Gorgasliani (a reference to the ancient line of Georgian kings) which sought to circulate reports of human rights abuses. In 1956, he was arrested during demonstrations in Tblisi against the Soviet policy of russification and was arrested again in 1958 for distributing anti-communist literature and proclamations. He was confined for six months to a mental hospital in Tbilisi where he was diagnosed as suffering from "psychopathy with decompensation", thus perhaps becoming an early victim of what became a widespread policy of using psychiatry for political purposes.

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Human rights activism

He achieved wider prominence in 1972 during a campaign against the corruption associated with the appointment of a new Katolikos of the Georgian Orthodox Church. He co-founded the Initiative Group for the Defence of Human Rights in 1973, became the first Georgian member of Amnesty International in 1974 and co-founded the Georgian Helsinki Group in 1976 (renamed the Georgian Helsinki Union in 1989). Gamsakhurdia was Chairman of this human rights organization. He was very active in the underground network of samizdat publishers, contributing to a wide variety of underground political periodicals including Okros Satsmisi ("The Golden Fleece"), Sakartvelos Moambe ("The Georgian Herald"), Sakartvelo ("Georgia"), Matiane ("Annals") and Vestnik Gruzii. He participated in the Moscow underground periodical "The Chronicle of Current Events", edited by Sergey Kovalev. Gamsakhurdia was also the first Georgian member of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR-IGFM).

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Perhaps seeking to emulate his father, Zviad Gamsakhurdia also pursued a distinguished academic career. He was a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Georgian Literature of the Georgian Academy of Sciences (1973-1977, 1985-1990), Associate Professor of the Tbilisi State University (1973-1975, 1985-1990) and member of the Union of Georgia's Writers (1966-1977, 1985-1991), PhD in the field of Philology (1973) and Doctor of Sciences (Full Doctor, 1991). He wrote a number of important literary works, monographs and translations of British, French and American literature, including translations of works by T. S. Eliot, William Shakespeare and Charles Baudelaire. He was also an outstanding Rustvelologist (Shota Rustaveli was a great Georgian poet of the 12th century) and researcher of history of the Iberian-Caucasian culture.

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Although he was frequently harassed and occasionally arrested for his dissidence, for a long time Gamsakhurdia avoided serious punishment, probably as a result of his family's prestige and political connections. His luck ran out in 1977 when the activities of the Helsinki groups in the Soviet Union became a serious embarrassment to the Soviet government of Leonid Breznev. A nationwide crackdown on human rights activists was instigated across the Soviet Union. In Georgia, the government of Eduard Shevardnadze (who was then First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party) arrested Gamsakhurdia and his fellow dissident Merab Kostava. The two men were sentenced to three years' hard labour plus three years' exile for "anti-Soviet activities". Their imprisonment attracted international attention, leading to members of the United States Congress nominating Gamsakhurdia and Kostava for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 (though it went to Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin instead). Kostava was exiled to Siberia, while Gamsakhurdia was exiled to the Russian autonomous republic of Dagestan.

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At the end of June 1979, Gamsakhurdia was released from jail and pardoned in controversial circumstances after serving only two years of his sentence (Kostava remained in prison until 1987). The authorities claimed that he had confessed to the charges and recanted his beliefs; a film clip was shown on Soviet television to substantiate their claim. http://www.bhhrg.org/Print.asp?ReportID=139&CountryID=10 According to a transcript published by the Soviet news agency TASS, Gamsakhurdia spoke of "how wrong was the road I had taken when I disseminated literature hostile to the Soviet state. Bourgeois propaganda seized upon my mistakes and created a hullabaloo around me, which causes me pangs of remorse. I have realised the essence of the pharasaic campaign launched in the West, camouflaged under the slogan of 'upholding human rights.'"

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His supporters, family and Merab Kostava claimed that his recantation was coerced by the KGB, and although he publicly acknowledged that certain aspects of his anti-Soviet endeavors were mistaken, he did not renounce his leadership of the dissident movement in Georgia. Perhaps more importantly, his actions ensured that the dissident leadership could remain active. Kostava and Gamsakhurdia later both independently stated that the latter's recantation had been a tactical move. In an open letter to Shevardnadze, dated April 19, 1992, Gamsakhurdia claimed that "my so-called confession was necessitated ... if there was no 'confession' and my release from the prison in 1979 would not have taken place, then there would not have been a rise of the national movement." http://www.geocities.com/shavlego/ZG_Letter_SH.htm

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Gamsakhurdia returned to dissident activities soon after his release, continuing to contribute to samizdat periodicals and campaigning for the release of Merab Kostava. In 1981 he became the spokesman of the students and others who protested in Tbilisi about the threats to Georgian identity and the Georgian cultural heritage. He handed a set of "Demands of the Georgian People" to Shevardnadze outside the Congress of the Georgian Writers Union at the end of March 1981, which earned him another spell in jail.

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Moves towards independence

When the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev initiated his policy of glasnost, Gamsakhurdia played a key role in organising mass pro-independence rallies held in Georgia between 1987-1990, in which he was joined by Merab Kostava on the latter's release in 1987. In 1988, Gamsakurdia became one of the founders of

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the Society of Saint Ilia the Righteous (SSIR), a combination of a religious society and a political party which became the basis for his own political movement. The following year, the brutal suppression by Soviet forces of a large peaceful demonstration held in Tbilisi in April 4-9, 1989 proved to be a pivotal event in discrediting the continuation of Soviet rule over the country. The progress of democratic reforms was accelerated and led to Georgia's first democratic multiparty elections, held in October 28, 1990. Gamsakhurdia's SSIR party and the Georgian Helsinki Union joined with other opposition groups to head a reformist coalition called "Round Table - Free Georgia" ("Mrgvali Magida - Tavisupali Sakartvelo"). The coalition won a convincing victory, with 64% of the vote, as compared with the Georgian Communist Party's 29.6%. On November 14, 1990, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was elected by an overwhelming majority as Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia.

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Georgia held a referendum on restoring its pre-Soviet independence on March 31, 1991 in which 90.08% of those who voted declared in its favour. The Georgian parliament passed a declaration of independence on April 9, 1991, in effect restoring the 1918-21 Georgian state. However, it was not recognised by the Soviet Union and although a number of foreign powers granted early recogition, universal recognition did not come until the following year. Gamsakhurdia was elected President in the election of May 26 with 86.5% per cent of the vote on a turnout of over 83%.

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Georgian: The adjective or noun Georgian may relate to:...

March 31: March 31 is the 90th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (91st in Leap years), with 275 days remaining, as the final day of March....

1939: 1939 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar)....