Zviad Konstantines dze Gamsakhurdia[a] (Georgian: ზვიად კონსტანტინეს ძე გამსახურდია; Russian: Звиа́д Константи́нович Гамсаху́рдия, romanized: Zviad Konstantinovich Gamsakhurdiya; 31 March 1939 – 31 December 1993) was a Georgian politician, human rights activist,[1] dissident, professor of English language studies and American literature at Tbilisi State University,[2] and writer who became the first democratically elected President of Georgia in May 1991.

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.

Gamsakhurdia and his followers argued that opposition had to come to power first through winning official elections to the Supreme Soviet and then declare independence through peaceful means, using existing legal procedures.

He believed that existing societal problems, including crime, resulted from the destruction of faith, decline of morality, and the abandonment and degradation of spiritual ideals.

[50] The first military parade was held on Independence Day in 1991, with 10,000 soldiers of the National Guard taking their oath of service in front of President Zviad Gamsakhurdia at Boris Paichadze Stadium.

The official newspaper of the Soviet Army, Krasnaya Zvezda, published an article mocking the National Guard entitled "Mr. Prefects and Mr.

In September 1991, the law on privatization was passed after long discussions on how to prevent "party-economic mafia" (a term used by Gamsakhurdia to refer to Communist Party leaders and administrators at various levels who controlled shadow economy of the Soviet Georgia) from becoming the primary beneficiary.

On 3 May 1991, Gamsakhurdia issued a decree implementing fixed prices for some basic goods and lifting the national 5-percent sales tax on some food and services.

[58][59] The first steps towards the abolition of death penalty in Georgia came during the government of Gamsakhurdia on 20 March 1991, when the Georgian Supreme Council removed this possible punishment for four economic offences not involving the use of violence.

[64] On 15 June 1991, in an interview to Saarländischer Rundfunk, Gamsakhurdia said that Georgia sought an eventual membership in the European Community and the United Nations, while it would develop relations with the USSR as a foreign state.

[65] In response to the Soviet crackdown on the pro-independence movement in Lithuania in January 1991, Zviad Gamsakhurdia led a pro-Lithuania rally in Tbilisi, saying that "it is impossible to preserve an empire by democratic means" and urging the opposition to Kremlin.

In an attempt to debunk the claim that "Gorbachev's Perestroika and democratic reforms would change situation in the Soviet Union", Gamsakhurdia said that they were just a façade "to preserve the neocolonialism and the imperial structures".

[64] In an attempt to regulate the South Ossetia conflict, Gamsakhurdia met with Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR Boris Yeltsin in March 1991 in Kazbegi.

[74] As a sign of moral support, on 11 November 1991 Gamsakhurdia wrote a letter to the United Nations and Russian President Boris Yeltsin, condemning his declaration of the state of emergency in Chechnya amid its proclamation of sovereignty as "a show of force against the Chechen people".

[75][76] On 13 March 1992, the President of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia, at the time removed from power as a result of the coup, while in Grozny, signed a decree recognizing the independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

The rebellious members of the National Guard captured the city television center in Tbilisi and clashed with the police near the central power station which left four people dead and four wounded.

In a rally in early September, he told his supporters: "The infernal machinery of the Kremlin will not prevent us from becoming free.... Having defeated the traitors, Georgia will achieve its ultimate freedom."

Giorgi Chanturia, whose National Democratic Party was one of the most active opposition groups at that time, was arrested and imprisoned on charges of seeking help from Moscow to overthrow the legal government.

In order not to complicate tense relations with Georgia, Armenian authorities allowed Gamsakhurdia to move to the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya, where he was granted asylum by the rebel government of General Dzhokhar Dudayev.

On 15 December 1992 the Russian newspaper Moskovskiye Novosti printed a letter claiming that the former Vice-Commander of the Transcaucasian Military District, Colonel General Sufian Bepayev, had sent a "subdivision" to assist the armed opposition.

Gamsakhurdia himself refused to accept his ouster, not least because he had been elected to the post with an overwhelming majority of the popular vote (in conspicuous contrast to the undemocratically appointed Shevardnadze).

In both countries, he held press conferences and meetings with parliamentarians and government officials[98] On 31 December 1993, Zviad Gamsakhurdia died in circumstances that are still unclear.

[101] On 21 December, newly inaugurated President Salome Zurabishvili formally endorsed the request to expand the statute of limitations,[101] a move supported by opposition and ruling party members of Parliament.

[104] In January 1994, Gamsakhurdia's widow Manana Archvadze-Gamsakhurdia told the Interfax news agency that her husband shot himself on 31 December after being surrounded by forces of the pro-Shevardnadze Mkhedrioni militia.

[113] According to former deputy director of Biopreparat Ken Alibek, that laboratory was possibly involved in the design of an undetectable chemical or biological agent to assassinate Gamsakhurdia.

During his burial in Grozny in February 1994, Dudayev stated: "We are gathered here today to give back to the earth a brave son of the Caucasus, a man who believed in freedom.

"[121] On 3 March 2007, the newly appointed president of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov announced that Gamsakhurdia's grave – lost in the debris and chaos of a war-ravaged Grozny – had been found in the center of the city.

[129] In parallel, in March 2005 the Parliament of Georgia passed resolution "About the Legal Assessment of the Events of December–January 1991-92", which denounced the overthrow of Gamsakhurdia as an "unconstitutional armed coup".

[131][132][133] [134] In 2014, the Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili announced a scholarship dedicated to Zviad Gamsakhurdia, awarded to an outstanding student studying historic literature.

[140][141] According to the Cambridge University study, Gamsakhurdia is seen as one of the main Georgian national heroes of the 20th century, while his arch enemy Eduard Shevardnadze is perceived as a villain.