1. Zviad Konstantines dze Gamsakhurdia was a Georgian politician, human rights activist, dissident, professor of English language studies and American literature at Tbilisi State University, and writer who became the first democratically elected President of Georgia in May 1991.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia's activities attracted attention of authorities in the Soviet Union and Gamsakhurdia was arrested and imprisoned numerous times.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia organized numerous pro-independence protests in Georgia, one of which in 1989 was suppressed by the Soviet Army, with Gamsakhurdia being arrested.
In early 1992 Zviad Gamsakhurdia was overthrown by warlords Tengiz Kitovani, Jaba Ioseliani and Tengiz Sigua, two of which were formerly allied with Zviad Gamsakhurdia.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was forced to flee to Chechnya, where he was greeted by Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia's supporters continued to fight the post-coup government of Eduard Shevardnadze.
In September 1993, Zviad Gamsakhurdia returned to Georgia and tried to regain power.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was found dead in early 1994 in controversial circumstances.
Zviad Konstantinovich Gamsakhurdia was born in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on 31 March 1939; his father, Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, was a prominent Georgian writer during the 20th century.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was raised in an intellectual setting, which encouraged attention to traditional Georgian history, culture and national identity.
At 16, Zviad Gamsakhurdia established an underground nationalist youth group called Gorgasliani.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was arrested again in 1958 for distributing anti-communist literature and was confined to a mental hospital in Tbilisi for six months, although his familial status protected him from further sanctions.
In mental hospital, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was diagnosed as suffering "psychopathy with decompensation", becoming an early victim of the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia found employment at the Institute of Literature of the Georgian Academy of Sciences, and joined the Georgian Writers' Union in 1966.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was active in the underground network of samizdat publishers, contributing to a wide variety of underground political periodicals.
Later that month, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was arrested along with Kostava; they were accused of anti-Soviet activities, including illegal distribution of books and periodicals.
In 1978, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Unlike Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Kostava did not recant and remained in prison until 1987, and Zviad Gamsakhurdia's reputation suffered.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia continued his dissident activity, contributing to samizdat periodicals and campaigning for the release of Kostava.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was arrested again in October 1981 after attending a human-rights demonstration in Mtskheta.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was attacked in the press as the authorities attempted to undermine the nationalist movement.
In 1988, Zviad Gamsakhurdia became one of the founders of the Society of Saint Ilia the Righteous, a religious-political organization which became the basis for his own political movement.
In recognition of his enormous popularity, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was brought into negotiations with the new Soviet Georgian leader Givi Gumbaridze over impeding legislation in the Georgia's Supreme Soviet.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia campaigned tirelessly, often travelling to distant parts of Georgia in one day and holding large rallies at sports arenas.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia himself won his own race in a Tbilisi district with over 70 percent of the vote.
On 14 November 1990, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was elected by an overwhelming majority as chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia, which made him de facto head of Georgia, albeit not a sovereign country yet.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was voted as Georgia's new leader with 238 votes in favor to 5 against.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia favored regional cooperation between peoples of the Caucasus and considered concepts such as a common economic zone, a "Caucasian Forum" and an alliance against foreign interference.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia supported social market economy, a model which would synthesize "free labor and guarantees of social rights, respect for private property and social utility, free entrepreneurship and honest competition".
Zviad Gamsakhurdia supported price controls for certain and the most basic products.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia believed that existing societal problems, including crime, resulted from the destruction of faith, decline of morality, and the abandonment and degradation of spiritual ideals.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia thought that Georgia's political struggle for independence involved not only "national and political goals", but "a moral revival based on religious faith and conscience".
In one of his interviews, Zviad Gamsakhurdia cited Charles de Gaulle as his "political ideal".
Zviad Gamsakhurdia made efforts to root out the influence of mafia from the Soviet-era institutions like KGB, military and police.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia took steps to create a new military structure independent from the Soviet control.
On 3 May 1991, Zviad Gamsakhurdia issued a decree implementing fixed prices for some basic goods and lifting the national 5-percent sales tax on some food and services.
Georgia under Zviad Gamsakhurdia was among six Soviet republics, along with Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, and Armenia, that rejected the New Union Treaty in July 1991.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia called for a boycott of the 1991 Soviet Union referendum on preserving the Union and the Georgia's Supreme Council voted to do so.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia remarked that "the USSR law on referendum violates the sovereignty of the Republic of Georgia, because with this law the destiny of Georgia would be decided not by its citizens, but by citizens of all union republics in the Soviet Union".
On 15 June 1991, in an interview to Saarlandischer Rundfunk, Zviad 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.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia said that he would believe that the Gorbachev's reforms were real only if Gorbachev amended the USSR Law on Secession and made it more "fair".
On 3 July 1991, during a press conference, President Zviad Gamsakhurdia rejected that Georgia was considering a NATO membership.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia met with Chechen leader Dzokhar Dudayev during the spring of 1991 in Kazbegi, the meeting being arranged by the leader of Adjarian Autonomous Republic Aslan Abashidze.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia welcomed Chechnya's declaration of independence in November 1991 and attended inauguration of Dzokhar Dudayev as Chechnya's president in Grozny.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia's rule began with heavy opposition from the National Congress.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia always maintained he had no intention of disbanding the National Guard.
The demonstrations demanding Zviad Gamsakhurdia's resignation were joined by the rebel units of the National Guard.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia reacted angrily, accusing shadowy forces in Moscow of conspiring with his internal enemies against Georgia's independence movement.
On 22 December 1991, armed opposition supporters launched a violent coup d'etat and attacked a number of official buildings including the Georgian parliament building, where Zviad Gamsakhurdia himself was sheltering.
In order not to complicate tense relations with Georgia, Armenian authorities allowed Zviad Gamsakhurdia to move to the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya, where he was granted asylum by the rebel government of General Dzhokhar Dudayev.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia's supporters continued to hold rallies to support the ousted President.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was still recognized as such by some governments and international organizations, although as a matter of pragmatic politics the insurrectionist Military Council was quickly accepted as the governing authority in the country.
Zviad 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.
On 31 December 1993, Zviad Gamsakhurdia died in circumstances that are still unclear.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia's death was announced by the Georgian government on 5 January 1994.
Some refused to believe that Zviad Gamsakhurdia had died at all but the question was eventually settled when his body was recovered on 15 February 1994.
However, the investigation failed to reach any conclusion to this day, with numerous theories about Zviad Gamsakhurdia's death floating in public discourse.
The Russian media reported that his bodyguards heard a muffled shot in the next room and found that Zviad Gamsakhurdia had killed himself with a shot to the head from a Stechkin pistol.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia accused Gamsakhurdia's finance minister Guram Abasnadze of masterminding his murder.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia later alleged that Gamsakhurdia's prime minister, Besarion Gugushvili ordered one of Gamsakhurdia's bodyguards to kill him.
The Georgian news agency, citing a member of the Mkhedrioni paramilitary, reported that Zviad Gamsakhurdia died in Grozny after being wounded in a fight with his own associates.
Mumladze even claimed that Zviad Gamsakhurdia could have been murdered by his supporters to "turn him into a martyr" and suggested that it could be linked to him falling out with his former chief commander, Loti Kobalia.
Eduard Shevardnadze, after himself questioning Zviad Gamsakhurdia's suicide, sent a group of investigators to Grozny.
On 8 January 1994, they reported that Zviad Gamsakhurdia committed a suicide.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was initially buried in the village of Dzveli Khibula and later re-buried in the village of Jikhashkari.
Chechen officials asked the government of Shevardnadze to allow Zviad Gamsakhurdia's remains to be buried in his family's cemetery next to his home in Tbilisi or, in case of refusal, to transfer his body to be buried in Chechnya.
In February 1994, Zviad Gamsakhurdia's body was discovered by a joint commission from Georgia and Chechnya, which led to the Georgian government confirming Zviad Gamsakhurdia's death.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia's remains were identified by Russian experts in Rostov-on-Don, and arrived in Georgia on 28 March 2007, for reburial.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was interred alongside other prominent Georgians at the Mtatsminda Pantheon on 1 April 2007.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was a devout adherent of the Georgian Orthodox Church his entire life.
On 26 January 2004, in a ceremony held at the Kashueti Church of Saint George in Tbilisi, the newly elected President Mikheil Saakashvili officially rehabilitated Zviad Gamsakhurdia to resolve the lingering political effects of his overthrow in an effort to "put an end to disunity in our society", as Saakashvili put it.
In 2013, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was posthumously awarded the title and Order of National Hero of Georgia by President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Saakashvili called Zviad Gamsakhurdia "a leading light of the national idea" who fought for his country's freedom "when no one could even image it".
In 2014, the Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili announced a scholarship dedicated to Zviad Gamsakhurdia, awarded to an outstanding student studying historic literature.
The museum honoring the life of the Zviad Gamsakhurdia is located in the village of Dzveli Khibula, where Zviad Gamsakhurdia spent the last days of his life.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia is acknowledged as a symbol of Georgian nationalism and Georgia's national liberation in 1990s.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was voted as the best Georgian president in the 2019 poll by the Edison Research.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia published important scientific works on issues of Russian history, history of Georgian culture, history of Georgian literature, theology, and history of American poetry.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia translated into Georgian language the works of William Shakespeare, Charles Baudelaire, Nikolai Gogol and others.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia wrote poems and fables, which have been published.
In 1970, Zviad Gamsakhurdia became a member of the Writers' Union of Georgia, but later was expelled in 1977 for his anti-Soviet dissident activity.
Zviad Gamsakhurdia was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Georgian National Academy of Sciences for his work The Language of the Forms of the Knight in a Lordly Skin.