Bande à part

Hello, on April 9, 1989, which is also known as “Tbilisi massacre”, a peaceful, anti-Soviet demonstration (mostly consisting of school children and students) was massacred by the Soviet Russian troops. This demonstration first started on April 4 of the same year and was organized by the Independence Committee (one of the members of the Committee was Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who later declared independence of Georgia and became its first president). The demonstrators went on a hunger strike and demanded restoration of independence of Georgia. These strikes continued for several days and on April 9, the Soviet troops surrounded the demonstrators and (using military batons and spades) started beating them to death. Furthermore, the troops were using a harmful gas as a result of which many people went blind or paralyzed. The most terrible thing is that instead of letting doctors and emergency help the injured people, the soldiers attacked ambulances and started beating doctors as well. There was one 16 years old schoolgirl (later a Georgian author even wrote a short story about her) that was trying to get away from the soldiers, however, they chased her and beat to death on the steps of the governmental building. Overall, as a result of this massacre, 19 people were killed (it was almost impossible to identify most of the bodies since they had facial injuries and in some cases, were headless). The cruelest thing about all of these terrible events is that the Soviet government blamed the demonstrators and lied that the demonstrators were attacking the troops themselves (funny, isn’t it? - Imagine, an unarmed, 16 years old girl attacking a soldier). Anyways, an investigation was held later and it was confirmed that it were the troops that attacked the demonstrators. 

I will link below the video footages of these events that were recorded by the opposition journalists. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find these videos with English subtitles, however, they still can help: 

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYZxyvY5ZqU 

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPFkoCMfgqs 

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0vFTeYKzQQ

As a result of the massacre, Georgian opposition became more radical and the Supreme court of Georgian USSR officially recognized annexation of Georgia by Soviet Russia in 1921. Following that, a referendum was held in Georgia, in which most of the population voted for independence from the Soviet Union and on April 9, 1991, Georgia declared independence. You can watch the declaration of independence with English subtitles below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTST5GuzeBw

P.S. The timing of this question is somehow “funny” since Georgia is celebrating its independence day today (it was moved from April 9, 1991 to May 26, 1918, when following the Russian revolution of 1917, the initial Act of Independence of Georgia was adopted and the first Democratic Republic of Georgia was established. However, it didn’t last long and was invaded by the Soviet army in 1921).