CCE 54
CCE 54.13-1 (‘In the Prisons and Camps’) referred to an article by Dovganich.
In fact, the journal Towards a New Life contained an article written by its special correspondents G. Vasilev and R. German, entitled ‘Prisoners of Conscience? No! People without Honour!’ It includes a letter written by Dovganich to the editors of the journal and an interview with prisoner Voloshin.
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CCE 49
During the demonstration in Tbilisi on 14 April 1978 concerning the adoption of the new Constitution of the Georgian SSR (CCE 49.17), several girls from the medical institute ripped up their white coats and wrote slogans on them in lipstick demanding that Georgian be declared the State language. The demonstration took place right outside Government House. Only the most active demonstrators at the front managed to break their way through, and were then separated from the others by a police cordon.
Most of the police in Tbilisi are Ossetians. On the day of the demonstration, however, the cordon was made up of Georgian police who had been called in from the provinces. There were about 10,000 people in the square outside Government House. The cordon furthest from the building consisted of bread vans, one of which was lifted by the demonstrators and carried away. The other cordons were formed of policemen linking arms, and these cordons were “taken by storm” when men from the crowd surged forward and tore the cordon apart with their bodies. Word went round the square: “Not a foot on the pavement or on the steps”. It was later discovered that riot troops with machine-guns at the ready were standing behind the final cordon of unarmed policemen.
The demonstrators began to chant their demands. Copies of Article 75 of the new Constitution, which describes Georgian as the language of the Republic, were brought from Government House and distributed. The crowd then began shouting ‘State!’ (to replace the term ‘Republic’), and burnt the copies. Shortly afterwards loudspeakers were switched on in the square to relay the proceedings of an extraordinary sitting of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR.
When Eduard Shevardnadze reached Article 75, he said the government had spent a long time deliberating the issue and had consulted with Moscow. His voice was drowned by the whistling. The announcement that the paragraph concerning language had been adopted without any changes from the previous paragraph was greeted with rejoicing. Delegates at the sitting of the Supreme Soviet gave him a fifteen-minute ovation.
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CCE 56
N. Gorbal (CCE 56.15) is now in this camp: 329222, Nikolayev Region, Olshanskoye village, penal institution IN-316/53. He is working as a lathe operator.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 