1989 წლის 25 თებერვალი. საზოგადოება და ხელისუფლება
FEBRUARY 25, 1989. SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT

Summary/Abstract: The political changes that began in the USSR in the second half of the 1980s ("Perestroika", "Glastnost") led to the activation of the National-Liberation Movement. When talking about this period, two events are mainly mentioned. First one being April 9, 1989 and the subsequent November 1988 hunger strike. Apart from them, there were several other important events in the second half of the 80s. Among them is February 25, 1989. This day by the initiative of the National Liberation Movement was marked as a day of mourning in the latter year. February 25 was one of the most solemn days in Soviet Georgia, the date of establishment of the Soviet government in Georgia. The society was celebrating together with the government, at least in appearance, ostensibly. Perhaps some individuals perceived this day in rather different light than the Soviet authorities, but obviously this was not happening in public. This very day as a day of mourning, as a day of Georgia's loss of independence, was celebrated in public, for the first time with a mass anti-Soviet demonstration in 1989. The government tried to terrorize the public and supposedly this led the incident of February 18, 1989, the dispersion of peaceful protesters by "Komsomol" activists. On February 25, the city center was full of "militia". The demonstrators gathered in different places and marched to the yard of the first building of TSU, the main gathering location. By 10-11 a.m. the yard and the surrounding area was crowded with demonstrators. Some groups had to break through a "militia" cordon on the way. Several buses were parked on the streets surrounding the university, where the soldiers of the 8th Regiment of the Internal Troops were waiting in the full preparation (equipped with the helmets, the shields etc). But the government could not dare to use force. What was the government doing? It was traditionally celebrating _ on the evening of February 24, a solemn gathering and then a solemn concert was held at the Opera House. This was happening at the same time when even in the pages of the flagship of the Soviet Georgian press, the newspaper "Communist" was addressing the events of February 25, 1921 as an occupation. It was obvious that the government and the society were on different conflicting sides. The government was becoming more and more alienated from the society, it could no longer perceive reality and I suppose this was the reason for the development of the events a month and a half later.

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