GEORGIAN NATIONALISTS DEMANDED TBILISI CITY COUNCIL TO PAY TRIBUTE TO THE NATIONAL HERO

A patriotic action was initiated by the Georgian youth nationalist movement "Georgian Power" in Tbilisi on November 30. The action was aimed to emphasize the need to perpetuate the memory of the fighters for Georgia's independence; in particular, during the action the nationalists demanded from Tbilisi city government to establish a monument to General Giorgi Mazniashvili in order to pay tribute to the outstanding Georgia's warlord, who defended the country during the Soviet and Ottoman invasion.

"I am not a Bolshevik or a Menshevik,
 I am a Georgian General"
 Giorgi Mazniashvili

On 1917 General Giorgi Mazniashvili formed two national divisions and secured the capital Tbilisi from the chaotically retreating and increasingly Bolshevist Russian soldiers. In April 1918, he successfully defended the southwestern province Guria from the Ottoman offensive winning a victory on the Choloki River. In June 1918, he served as a governor general of Abkhazia and crushed there a pro-Bolshevik revolt; then he took Gagra, Sochi and Tuapse in the first phase of the Sochi conflict. From October to December 1918, he served as a governor general of Tbilisi. During the December Georgian-Armenian war 1918, he was appointed a commander-in-chief and successfully defended the Georgian borders from the troops of General Dro. In 1919 he served as a governor general of Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki and was moved, on October 6, 1920, as a commandant in Tbilisi. During the Soviet invasion of February 1921, he repulsed the Red Army from the Soghanlughi heights at the outskirts of Tbilisi. The war, however, was lost. Mazniashvili did not follow the country’s leaders in exile, but mobilized the remnants of the Georgian armed forces to recover the Black Sea city of Batumi from the Turkish occupation, March 1921. The newly established Soviet government of Georgia declared him outlaw, but later offered him a nominal post in the Red Army. In 1923, during the Red Terror, he was arrested and exiled to Persia whence he moved to France. In a few years, he was allowed to return and he lived in his native village Sasireti, far from political life. During the Great Purges, however, he was arrested and executed without a trial, 1937.