Georgia buries a president, but not the past

4/02/07

A EurasiaNet Photo Story: Text by Paul Rimple. Photos by Sophia Mizante

Thousands of Georgians attended ceremonies on March 31-April 1 to mark the reburial of Georgia's first president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a firebrand dissident and scholar who led the Caucasus country's independence drive, only to become a divisive figure during the post-Soviet era. Despite an attempt to smooth over past emotions, Gamsakhurdia's ambiguous legacy continues to generate controversy.

Although widely hailed as the father of Georgian independence, many Georgians still blame Gamsakhurdia for the civil war and ethnic divisions that followed his seven-month presidency, which was terminated by a coup d'état in January 1992. The effects of that period, which brought Georgia to the brink of collapse, persist to this day. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

"Of course, I thought Georgia should be independent and he was for independence," said Ramaz Natsvilishvili, who was a medical student at the time of Gamsakhurdia's 1991-1992 presidency. "But later he started dividing people; city people from the country, Kakhetians from Mengrelians, Georgians from Ossetians ... "

Gamsakhurdia's eldest son from his first marriage, Konstantine, who is chairman of the opposition political movement Freedom, admits that his father made some severe mistakes, but claims the former president's reputation as an extreme nationalist is exaggerated.

"He never actually said ‘Georgia for Georgians,'" Konstantine Gamsakhurdia maintained. "The Ossetia issue was political, not about nationality," he added in reference to his father's controversial attempts to stifle demands from the Georgian region of South Ossetia for greater autonomy. Gamsakhurdia's confrontational policies are now widely believed to have stoked Georgia's 1991-1992 conflict with the breakaway territory. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].

No in-depth public reexamination of those policies occurred amid Gamsakhurdia's reburial. Instead, emphasis was placed on Gamsakhurdia's status as a builder of an independent Georgia, and on paying the honors due to a deceased head of state.

The April 1 funeral was the first of a Georgian president. At the same time, it marked Gamsakhurdia's third burial since his mysterious death in 1993 in the western Georgian village of Jikhashkari. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and his wife, Sandra Roelofs, Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burjanadze, and Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava all attended a March 31 memorial service for Gamsakhurdia at Mtskheta's Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, seat of the Georgian Orthodox Church patriarchy.

In a speech at the ceremony, Saakashvili focused on the need to put aside the political or ethnic divisions of the past. Acknowledgement of the troubles experienced under Gamsakhurdia was limited to a statement that Georgia's inexperience "with political independence" had contributed to "our country experiencing great suffering."

"Georgia," Saakashvili added, "will respect those who struggled for its independence."

Together with fellow dissident Merab Kostava, the charismatic Zviad Gamsakhurdia led pro-independence rallies in the late 1980s and was elected chairman of the Supreme Council of Georgia in 1990. When a referendum for independence was held in 1991, an overwhelming majority of Georgians voted in its favor. Gamsakhurdia was elected president shortly afterwards with more than 80 percent of the vote.

After his 1992 overthrow, Gamsakhurdia relocated to Chechnya where he was granted asylum by the Russian republic's leader, Dzhokhar Dudayev, who was pursuing his own independence bid from Moscow. In September 1993, Gamsakhurdia returned to Georgia to lead forces against the government of former President Eduard Shevardnadze, but the attempt fell flat within a few months.

According to official records, Gamsakhurdia died on New Year's Eve 1993 from a self-inflicted single gunshot wound to the head. A later examination reported two bullet holes to the head, fueling speculation that the Georgian leader had been murdered.

To this day, few Georgians accept the official conclusion that Gamsakhurdia, a devout Georgian Orthodox believer, committed suicide. Many believe that either then President Eduard Shevardnadze or the Kremlin was involved in his death. Gamsakhurdia's body was unearthed in early March from a park in the Chechen capital of Grozny. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].

A recent investigation of the late president's remains by Russian forensic specialists has done little to clarify matters. The results have not been made public, other than the finding that a single bullet shot close to the head contributed to the president's death. Gamsakhurdia's widow, Manana Archvadze, has refused to allow Georgian or foreign experts to perform a separate autopsy. Thus, additional information concerning the death may never become public.

"For two weeks, I demanded that the FBI examine and analyze the remains," Konstantine Gamsakhurdia told EurasiaNet. "Now it's impossible. The government and the family weren't willing."

For the thousands of mourners who paid tribute to Gamsakhurdia over the weekend, these details were less important than the late president's reputation. Supporters, many carrying portraits of Gamsakhurdia or holding the burgundy, black and white national flag used during his presidency, chanted his name, "Zviadi!," or "Sakartvelo (Georgia)!," as they followed Gamsakhurdia's coffin from parliament to the Mtatsminda Pantheon overlooking the Georgian capital.

With a bouquet in her hands, musician Ia Darjania of Tbilisi termed Gamsakhurdia a "patriot for his family, his country and his people" who "died for his homeland." Gamsakhurdia was reburied next to Kakuta Cholokashvili, a leader of Georgian guerilla resistance against the Red Army in the early 1920s.

Yet some onlookers, like Zaur Gergedava, preferred to remember Gamsakhurdia as an intellectual, a "great" writer and a translator of e.e. cummings and the Iliad.

"He was a dissident," concluded Gergedava. "He didn't consider himself a politician."

Editor's Note: Paul Rimple is a freelance writer based in Tbilisi. Sophia Mizante is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi