Abstract:
The political changes that began in the USSR in the second half of the 1980s
(“Perestroika”, “Glastnost”) led to the activation of the National-Liberation Movement.
When talking about this period, two events are mainly mentioned. The fi rst
being April 9, 1989 and the next November 1988 hunger strike.
Apart from them, there were several other important events in the second half of
the80s. AmongthemisFebruary25, 1989. Thisdaybytheiniti ativeoftheNational
Liberation Movement was marked as a day of mourning in the latt er year .
February 25 was one of the most solemn days in Soviet Georgia, the date of
establishment of the Soviet rule in Georgia. The society was celebrating together
with the government, at least in appearance, ostensibly. Perhaps some individuals
perceived this day in rather diff erent light than the Soviet authorities, but obviously
this was not happening in public.
This very day as a day of mourning, as a day of Georgia’s loss of independence,
was celebrated in public, for the fi rst time with a mass anti-Soviet demonstration in
1989. The government tried to terrorize the public and supposedly this led to the incident
of February 18, 1989, the dispersion of peaceful protesters by “Komsomol”
activists.
On February 25, the city center was full of “militia”. The demonstrators gathered
in diff erent places and marched to the yard of the fi rst building of TSU, the main
gathering location. By 10-11 a.m. the yard and the surrounding area was crowded
with demonstrators. Some groups had to break through a “militia” cordon on the
way. Several buses were parked on the streets surrounding the university, where the
soldiers of the 8th Regiment of the Internal Troops were waiting in the full preparation
(equipped with the helmets, the shields etc). But the government could not dare
to use force.
What was the government doing? It was traditionally celebrating _ on the evening
of February 24, a solemn gathering and then a solemn concert was held at the
Opera House. This was happening when, even in the pages of the fl agship of the Soviet
Georgian press, the newspaper “Communist” was addressing the events of February
25, 1921 as an occupation. It was obvious that the government and the society
were on diff erent confl icting sides. The government was becoming more and more
alienated from the society, it could no longer perceive reality and I suppose this was
the reason for the development of the events a month and a half later.
