Georgia’s 1st President Gamsakhurdia would have turned 87

Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Georgia’s first president and a leading figure of the national liberation movement, would have marked his 87th birthday on 31 March.

A philologist, writer, translator and dissident, Gamsakhurdia was born on 31 March 1939 into the family of renowned Georgian writer Konstantine Gamsakhurdia and Miranda Palavandishvili. He later became one of the most prominent leaders of Georgia’s national movement during the final decades of Soviet rule, alongside Merab Kostava.

In a landmark moment for the country, Gamsakhurdia was elected president on 26 May 1991 with the support of 86% of voters. His presidency followed a nationwide referendum held on 31 March 1991, in which 98% of participating voters backed the restoration of Georgia’s independence based on the 1918 Act of Independence. The result led to the formal declaration of independence by the Supreme Council on 9 April 1991.

Gamsakhurdia’s time in office was short-lived. On 6 January 1992, following a military coup, he and members of his government fled the country after escaping from a besieged government building.

He spent a period in exile before returning to Georgia on 24 September 1993. Later that year, on 31 December, he died in the village of Khibula in western Georgia. The exact circumstances of his death remain unclear, with multiple, unconfirmed accounts surrounding the incident.

His remains were transferred to Grozny in February 1994. More than a decade later, in 2007, they were returned to Georgia and reburied at the Mtatsminda Pantheon in Tbilisi, where thousands gathered to pay their respects.

In 2013, Georgia’s then president Mikheil Saakashvili posthumously awarded Gamsakhurdia the title of National Hero.