Zviad Gamsakhurdia

Dissident, first President of Georgia

1939–1993

Zviad Gamsakhurdia (1939–1993) was a philologist, writer and human-rights activist, the son of the writer Konstantine Gamsakhurdia. From his youth he took part in the dissident movement: together with Merab Kostava he founded underground groups and the Georgian Helsinki Group, for which he was arrested.

He became one of the leaders of the independence movement. In 1991, after the victory of the Round Table — Free Georgia bloc, Gamsakhurdia was elected the first President of independent Georgia.

In early 1992 he was overthrown in an armed coup; he fled and died at the end of 1993 in unexplained circumstances.