[1] Kostava was born in 1939 in Tbilisi, of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR (the current capital of Georgia).

[citation needed] In 1973, Kostava and Gamsakhurdia established the Initiative Group for defence of Human Rights.

[citation needed] In 1977, Kostava and Gamsakhurdia were arrested and jailed, charged with spreading anti-Soviet propaganda, the result of them raising awareness about the systemic pillaging of Georgian church artifacts and the deportation and subsequent treatment of the Georgian Muslims.

He was sent to Irkutsk to serve his sentence and began the hunger strike in protest, which in overall lasted for 13 monthes.

[citation needed] On October 13, 1989, Merab Kostava died in a car crash near Boriti under suspicious circumstances.