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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.
Despite (or perhaps because of) the country's association with Stalin, Soviet rule in Georgia was particularly harsh during the 1950sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Years: 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 Events and trends Technology United States tests the first fusion bomb. and sought to restrict Georgian cultural expression. In 19551955 is a common year starting on Saturday. see link for calendar) Events January events January 2 Panama president Jose Antonio Remon is assassinated. January 19 The Scrabble board game debuts. February events February 8 Nikolai Bulganin ousts Georgi Mal, 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 19561956 is a leap year starting on Sunday. see link for calendar) Events January January 1 End of Anglo- Egyptian Condominium in Sudan. January 16 President Gamal Abdal Nasser of Egypt vows to reconquer Palestine January 26 1956 Winter Olympic Games open in, he was arrested during demonstrations in Tblisi against the SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR ( Russian: ; tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (SSSR) also called the Soviet Union ( ; tr. Sovetsky Soyuz , was a state in much of the northern region of Eurasia that existed from 1922 until 1 policy of russificationThis article is about the political term. For localization of computers and software, see Russification (computers). Russification refers to both official and unofficial policies of Imperial Russia and Soviet Union with respect to their national constitue and was arrested again in 1958Events January January 1 Treaty of Rome founding the EU is implemented January 4 Sputnik 1 falls to Earth from its orbit (launched on October 4 1957) January 8 14 year old Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship January 18 Armed Lumbee Nat 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 psychiatryPsychiatry is a branch of medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see mental illness). The term alienist is an old term for a psychiatrist, and the term shrink (from "head shrinker") is a (sometimes offensive) slang term for a psy for political purposes.
He achieved wider prominence in 19721972 is a leap year starting on Saturday (click link for calendar). Events January events January 2 the Pierre Hotel Heist Six men rob the safety deposit boxes of the Pierre Hotel in New York City. Loot is at least $4 million January 5 President of the Un 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).
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.
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 for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978. Kostava was sent to Siberia, while Gamsakhurdia was sent to the Russian autonomous republic of Dagestan.
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. [1] 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.'"
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 ... [because] 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." [2]
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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