Misplaced Pages

April 9 Tragedy
Part of Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, Revolutions of 1989, and Dissolution of the Soviet Union
Photos of the April 9, 1989 massacre victims, mostly young women, on a billboard in Tbilisi (2008)
Date	4 April 1989 – 9 April 1989
Location	Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union
Caused by	Political repressionNationalist sentiment
Goals	Civil rights Restoration of Georgian Independence Opposition to the Abkhaz separatism
Methods	Protest march, Picketing, Street protesters, Flag waving.
Resulted in	First multi-party elections, end of the communist rule Restoration of Georgian independence via referendum Recognition of Georgia’s membership of the Soviet Union as an illegal occupation
Parties
Soviet Union  Georgian SSR National Democratic Party All-Georgian Society of St. Ilia the Righteous [ka] Ilia Chavchavadze Society
Lead figures
Mikhail Gorbachev Igor Rodionov Jumber Patiashvili Merab Kostava Zviad Gamsakhurdia Giorgi Chanturiaand others
Casualties and losses
Deaths: 21 Injuries: 100+ Arrests: 100+

Part of a series on the
History of Georgia
Prehistoric Georgia Shulaveri–Shomu culture Kura–Araxes culture Legend of Kartlos Trialeti culture Colchian culture Diauehi Mushki
Ancient history Colchis Aryan Kartli Kingdom of Iberia Pharnavazid dynasty Georgia in the Roman era Artaxiad dynasty of Iberia Campaign of Pompey Iberian–Armenian War Lazica Arsacid dynasty of Iberia Sasanian Iberia Chosroid dynasty Christianization of Iberia
Middle Ages Iberian War Lazic War Principality of Iberia Umayyad invasion of Georgia Arab rule in Georgia Emirate of Tbilisi Duchy of Tao Duchy of Klarjeti Bagrationi dynasty Kingdom of Hereti Kingdom of the Iberians Kingdom of Abkhazia Theme of Iberia Duchy of Kldekari Unification of the Georgian realm Kingdom of Georgia Duchy of Racha Kingdom of Kakheti-Hereti Byzantine–Georgian wars Great Turkish Invasion Georgian–Seljuk wars Georgian Golden Age Mongol invasions of Georgia Kingdom of Eastern Georgia Kingdom of Western Georgia Armenia within the Kingdom of Georgia Timurid invasions of Georgia Turkoman invasions of Georgia Duchy of Aragvi Collapse of the Georgian realm
Early modern history Duchy of Ksani Samtskhe-Saatabago Kingdom of Kartli Kingdom of Kakheti Kingdom of Imereti Principality of Guria Principality of Svaneti Principality of Mingrelia Principality of Abkhazia Safavid Georgia Childir Eyalet Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti
Modern history Georgia within the Russian Empire 1832 Georgian plot Gurian Republic Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic Democratic Republic of Georgia Red Army invasion of Georgia Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic Georgia since 1991 Russo-Georgian War
History by topic Etymology Monarchs States Tbilisi Military history Wars Battles Chronology

Eastern Bloc
Republics of the USSR Armenia Azerbaijan Byelorussia Estonia Georgia Kazakhstan Karelia-Finland Kirghizia Latvia Lithuania Moldavia Russia Tajikistan Turkmenia Ukraine Uzbekistan
Allied and satellite states Afghanistan Albania (until 1961) Angola Benin Bulgaria China (until 1961) Congo Cuba Czechoslovakia East Germany Ethiopia Grenada Hungary Kampuchea Laos Mongolia Mozambique North Korea Poland (until 1989) Romania Somalia (until 1977) South Yemen Vietnam (North Vietnam, PRG) Yugoslavia (until 1948)
Related organizations Warsaw Pact Comecon Cominform World Federation of Trade Unions World Federation of Democratic Youth
Opposition Anti-Soviet partisans Albania Bulgaria Croatia Poland Romania Serbia Ukraine Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Soviet occupation Estonia Latvia Lithuania Operation Jungle Protests and uprisings Poland 1944–1989 Poznań 1956 1980–89 Plzeň 1953 East Germany 1953 Georgia 1956 Hungary 1956 Novocherkassk 1962 Prague 1968 Invasion Moscow Czechoslovakia 1976–1990 Romania 1977 Kazakhstan 1986 Brașov 1987 Tbilisi 1989 Ukraine 1989–1991 Baku 1990 Lithuania 1991 Riga 1991 Dissent Soviet Poland East Germany to Hong Kong North Korea
Cold War events Marshall Plan Czechoslovak coup Tito–Stalin split Berlin Blockade Korean War Secret Speech Sino-Soviet split Albanian–Soviet split De-satellization of the Socialist Republic of Romania Berlin Wall Cuban Missile Crisis Vietnam War Cuban intervention in Angola Afghan War 1980 Moscow Olympics 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Gulf War
Fall Singing Revolution Polish Round Table Agreement Revolutions of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall January Events Barricades in Latvia Breakup of Yugoslavia Yugoslav Wars End of the Soviet Union Post-Soviet conflicts Fall of communism in Albania Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
v t e

April 9 Tragedy (also known as The massacre of Tbilisi or Tbilisi tragedy) refers to the events in Tbilisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, on April 9, 1989, when an anti-Soviet, pro-independence demonstration was crushed by the Soviet Army, resulting in 21 deaths and hundreds of injuries. April 9 is now remembered as the National Unity Day (Georgian: ეროვნული ერთიანობის დღე, romanized: erovnuli ertianobis dghe), an annual public holiday.

Prelude

In the Georgian SSR, the anti-Soviet movement grew more active in 1988. Political groups opposed to the Soviet Union organized a number of protests and gatherings in Tbilisi. The conflict between the Soviet government and Georgian nationalists deepened after the so-called Lykhny Assembly on March 18, 1989, when several thousand Abkhaz demanded secession from Georgia and restoration of the Union republic status of 1921–1931. In response, the anti-Soviet groups organized a series of unsanctioned meetings across the republic, claiming that the Soviet government was using Abkhaz separatism in order to oppose the pro-independence movement.

The protests reached their peak on April 4, 1989, when tens of thousands of Georgians gathered before the House of Government on Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi. The protesters, led by the Independence Committee (Merab Kostava, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Giorgi Chanturia, Irakli Bathiashvili, Irakli Tsereteli and others) organized a peaceful demonstration and hunger strikes, demanding the punishment of Abkhaz secessionists and restoration of Georgian independence.

Local Soviet authorities lost control over the situation in the capital and were unable to contain the protests. First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party Jumber Patiashvili asked USSR leadership to send troops to restore order and impose curfew.

The demonstrations

In the evening of April 8, 1989, Colonel General Igor Rodionov, Commander of the Transcaucasus Military District, ordered his troops to mobilize. Moments before the attack by the Soviet forces, the Patriarch of Georgia Ilia II addressed the demonstrators asking them to leave Rustaveli Avenue and the vicinity of the government building due to the danger which accumulated during the day after appearance of Soviet tanks near the avenue. The demonstrators refused to disband even after the Patriarch's plea. The local Georgian militsiya (police) units were disarmed just before the operation.

On April 9, at 3:45 a.m., Soviet APCs and troops under General Igor Rodionov surrounded the demonstration area. Later, Rodionov claimed in his interview that groups of Georgian militants attacked unarmed soldiers with stones, metal chains and rods. The Soviet troops received an order from General Rodionov to disband and clear the avenue of demonstrators by any means necessary.

The Soviet detachment, armed with military batons and spades (a favorite weapon of Soviet special forces), advanced on demonstrators moving along Rustaveli Avenue. During the advance, the soldiers started to attack demonstrators with spades, inflicting injuries both minor and serious to anyone who was struck.

One of the victims of the attack was a 16-year-old girl who tried to get away from the advancing soldiers, but was chased down and beaten to death near the steps of the government building, receiving blows to the head and chest. She was dragged out of the area by her mother, who was also attacked and wounded. This particularly violent attack was recorded on video from the balcony of a building located on the other side of the avenue. The video was used in the aftermath as evidence during Soviet politician Anatoly Sobchak's Parliamentary commission on investigation of events of April 9, 1989. Groups of Soviet soldiers were reported to chase individual victims, rather than dispersing the crowd.

CN and CS gas were used against the demonstrators; vomiting, respiratory problems and sudden paralyses of the nervous system were reported.

The unarmed police officers attempted to evacuate the panicked group of demonstrators, however a video taken secretly by opposition journalists showed that soldiers did not allow doctors and emergency workers to help the injured people; even ambulances were attacked by the advancing soldiers Captured on film, the image of a young man beating a tank with a stick became a symbol of the Georgian anti-Soviet movement.

Victims

The stampede as people fled from the attack resulted in the death of 19 people, among them 17 women. Autopsies conducted on the victims concluded the direct cause of death of all those who died, with the exception of one case of serious skull and brain injury, was suffocation (asphyxia) caused by both the compression of the body and the inhalation of chemical substances.

On April 11, The Georgian TV showed the bodies of the 17 women violently killed, demonstrating alleged brutality by the Soviet soldiers, as the faces of the deceased women were hard to identify due to the facial injuries and blows to the head. The Soviet government blamed the demonstrators for the death of the 20 people, claiming that they had trampled each other while panicking and retreating from the advancing Soviet soldiers. Ironically there was some truth in this, as Soviet troops had blocked all exits from the area except for one narrow passage, which made flight from the area difficult and induced a crowd crush and, possibly, some desperate defensive violence by the trapped demonstrators.

Investigative reports

Official Soviet reports blamed the demonstrators for causing the clash, saying that the troops were attacked with sticks and knives. According to Tass, the soldiers followed orders not to use their weapons, but that extremists attacked them with pieces of metal, bricks and sticks. Tass described the demonstrators as stirring interethnic strife and calling for the overthrow of the Georgian government. General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev slammed "actions by irresponsible persons" for loss of life. He said that the disturbances sought to overthrow the Georgian government and stir ethnic tension in Georgia. A foreign ministry spokesman said that the clashes were sparked by "die-hard nationalists, extremists and political adventurists who are abusing democratization to the detriment of our new policy of openness and of our very society."

A parliamentary commission on investigation of the events of April 9, 1989, in Tbilisi was launched by Anatoly Sobchak, a member of the Congress of People's Deputies of Soviet Union. After full investigation and inquiries, the commission confirmed the government's claim that the deaths had resulted from trampling, but another contributing factor had been the chemical substances used against the demonstrators. It condemned the military, which had caused the deaths by trying to disperse demonstrators. The commission's report made it more difficult to use military power against demonstrations of civil unrest in the Soviet Union. Sobchak's report presented a detailed account of the violence which was used against the demonstrators and recommended the full prosecution of military personnel responsible for the April 9 event.

Response

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

On April 10, the Soviet government issued a statement blaming the demonstrators for causing unrest and danger to the safety of the public.

On April 10, in protest against the crackdown, Tbilisi and the rest of Georgia went out on strike and a 40-day period of mourning was declared. People brought massive collections of flowers to the place of the killings. A state of emergency was declared, but demonstrations continued.

The government of the Georgian SSR resigned as a result of the event. Moscow claimed the demonstrators attacked first and the soldiers had to repel them. At the first Congress of People's Deputies (May–June 1989) Mikhail Gorbachev disclaimed all responsibility, shifting blame onto the army. The revelations in the liberal Soviet media, as well as the findings of the "pro-Perestroika" Deputy Anatoly Sobchak's commission of enquiry into the Tbilisi events, reported at the second Congress in December 1989, resulted in embarrassment for the Soviet hardliners and army leadership implicated in the event.

Legacy

The April 9 tragedy radicalised Georgian opposition to Soviet power. A few months later, a session of the Supreme Council of Georgian SSR, held on November 17–18, 1989, officially condemned the occupation and annexation of Democratic Republic of Georgia by Soviet Russia in 1921.

The events of April 9 also gave rise to the so-called 'Tbilisi Syndrome'. This syndrome was characterized by the reluctance of military officers and soldiers to take any tactical decisions or even obey orders without a clear trail of responsibility to a higher authority. It arose because of the Soviet leadership's refusal to take responsibility for the orders to clear the square and the commission report's and Shevardnadze's criticism of the military in general. 'Tbilisi Syndrome' continued to spread in the coming years, especially following events in Baku and Vilnius, and contributed in 1991 to the refusal of soldiers to prevent demonstrations during the August 1991 putsch.

On March 31, 1991, Georgians voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from the Soviet Union in a referendum. With a 90.5% turnout, approximately 99% voted in favor of independence. On April 9, the second anniversary of the tragedy, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia proclaimed Georgian sovereignty and independence from the Soviet Union.

A memorial to the victims of the tragedy was opened at the location of the crackdown on Rustaveli Avenue on November 23, 2004.

See also

• Black January
• Revolutions of 1989
• 1956 Georgian demonstrations, 9 March 1956 massacre in Tbilisi
• 1978 Georgian demonstrations
• January Events, 1991 in Lithuania
• The Barricades, 1991 in Latvia
• Jeltoqsan
• Novocherkassk massacre

References

1. ^ "ЗАКЛЮЧЕНИЕ Комиссии Съезда народных депутатов СССР по расследованию событий, имевших место в г. Тбилиси 9 апреля 1989 года". sobchak.org. Archived from the original on 2018-08-19. Retrieved 2019-04-09.
2. "Военная библиотека Федоровых". Военная библиотека Федоровых (in Russian). Retrieved 2019-04-09.
3. ^ New Nations Rising: The Fall of the Soviets and the Challenge of Independence, Nadia Diuk, Adrian Karatnycky
4. Viktor Suvorov Spetsnaz, 1987, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, ISBN 0-241-11961-8
5. Documentary Film - The April 9, 1989 Tragedy on YouTube
6. ^ Nationalist Violence and the State: Political Authority and Contentious Repertoires in the Former USSR, Mark R. Beissinger Comparative Politics, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Jul., 1998), pp. 26-27.
7. Defending the Border: Identity, Religion, And Modernity in the Republic of Georgia (Culture and Society After Socialism) , Mathijs Pelkmans pp. 127-39
8. ^ Georgia: In the Mountains of Poetry, Peter Nasmyth, p 18
9. Lehrke, Jesse Paul (2013). The Transition to National Armies in the Former Soviet Republics, 1988-2005. London: Routledge. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-415-68836-9.
10. "Journal of Conflict Studies". journals.lib.unb.ca. Archived from the original on 2018-09-01. Retrieved 2019-04-20.
11. Associated Press, Toronto Star, Apr 13, 1989
12. "Gorbachev Sends Aide to Calm Soviet Georgia". Los Angeles Times. 1989-04-11. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2019-04-20.
13. Lehrke, Jesse Paul. The Transition to National Armies in the Former Soviet Republics, 1988-2005.” Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge (2013), Chapter 2 and 3.

External links

• Resolution of the Baltic Assembly on the Events in Georgia on April 9 1989
• The 9 April 1989 Tragedy and the Abkhazian Question
• A Rustavi 2 documentary about the 1989 events (includes original footage)
• Report of the Sobchak's commission of inquiry (in Russian) Archived 2018-08-19 at the Wayback Machine
• Eye of the Storm: Soviet Georgia Revolution. Documentary by Simeon Smith.
• 1989 წლის 9 აპრილის ტრაგედიიდან 31 წელი შესრულდა

v t e Georgia articles
History	Early Prehistoric Georgia Shulaveri–Shomu culture Kura–Araxes culture Trialeti–Vanadzor culture Colchian culture Mushki Diauehi Colchis Kingdom of Iberia Lazica Roman era Sasanian Iberia Christianization of Iberia Middle Principality of Iberia Bagrationi dynasty Arab rule Emirate of Tbilisi Kingdom of Abkhazia Kingdom of the Iberians Unification of the Georgian realm Kingdom of Hereti Kingdom of Kakheti-Hereti Kingdom of Georgia Byzantine wars Seljuk wars Battle of Didgori Golden Age Mongol invasions Timur's invasions Samtskhe-Saatabago Turkmen incursions Kingdom of Imereti Principality of Abkhazia Principality of Svaneti Principality of Guria Principality of Mingrelia Kingdom of Kartli Kingdom of Kakheti Safavid Georgia Shah Abbas I's invasions Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti 1795 Persian Invasion Absorption by the Russian Empire Modern Democratic Republic of Georgia Armenian War Red Army invasion Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic April 9 tragedy Independent Georgia Civil War War in Abkhazia Rose Revolution Russo-Georgian War By topic Names of Georgia Monarchs States Military history Wars Battles Timeline of Georgian history more
Geography	Borders Birds Black Sea Climate Earthquakes Environmental issues Glaciers Greater Caucasus Lakes Lesser Caucasus Mammals National parks Protected areas Rivers Volcanoes more Subdivisions Administrative divisions Cities and towns Tbilisi Regions more Russian-occupied territories Abkhazia South Ossetia
Politics	Constitution Elections Foreign relations Government Human rights LGBT Law enforcement Military Parliament Political parties President Prime Minister
Economy	Agriculture Central bank Companies Energy Lari (currency) Mining Stock Exchange Telecommunications Tourism Transport more
Culture	Alphabet Architecture Art Chokha Cinema Cuisine Wine Dance Gambling Languages Georgian Laz Mingrelian Svan Media Music Mythology Names Public holidays Religion Sports World Heritage Sites more Demographics Education Ethnic minorities Georgians List Diaspora Health care Women more Symbols Anthem Bolnisi cross Borjgali Coat of arms Flag Motto Saint George cross Saint Nino cross
Outline Index Category Portal

v t e Public holidays in Georgia

New Year's Day (1–2 January) Christmas Day (7 January) Baptism of Jesus (19 January) Mother's Day (3 March) International Women's Day (8 March) National Unity Day (9 April) International Workers' Day (1 May) Good Friday (variable) Great Saturday (variable) Easter Sunday (variable) Easter Monday (variable) Victory Day (9 May) Europe Day (9 May) Saint Andrew the First-Called Day (12 May) Family Purity Day (17 May) Independence Day (26 May) Saint Mary's Day (28 August) Svetitskhoveli Cathedral Day (14 October) Saint George's Day (23 November)

• Political repression in Georgia (country)
• Political repression in the Soviet Union
• Protests in Georgia (country)
• Human stampedes in 1989
• Violations of medical neutrality
• 1989 disasters in Georgia (country)
• 1989 protests
• Protests in the Soviet Union
• Mass murder in 1989
• 1980s in Tbilisi
• April 1989 events in Asia
• 1989 disasters in the Soviet Union
• Military history of Tbilisi
• Massacres in Georgia (country)
• Massacres committed by the Soviet Union
• Massacres of protesters in Europe
• Massacres of protesters in Asia
• Police brutality in Europe
• Police brutality in Asia
• Russian war crimes in Georgia (country)
• April 1989 events in Europe