Commemorating fallen heroes on Bolshevik occupation
By Tea Mariamidze
Monday, February 27
On February 25, the Georgian national flag flew at half-mast at government buildings across the country in remembrance of the occupation of the Democratic Republic of Georgia by the Russian Bolshevik Red Army on February 25, 1921.
On that day, Georgia lost its independence when the 11th Red Army entered Tbilisi and occupied the country.
February 25 has its own heroes; the 20-21 year old military college students and cadets as well as volunteers who mounted a desperate defence against the Russian Bolshevik Red Army.
The Day of Soviet Occupation was first officially marked in Georgia in 2010. Parliament unanimously passed a resolution instructing the government to organize various memorial events each year on February 25 to commemorate the victims of political repression of the Communist occupational regime.
To mark the occasion, Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili laid a wreath at the memorial of the cadets who fought for Georgia's independence, and paid homage to those fallen in the battle against the Soviet occupants on February 25, 1921.
“Unfortunately, the heroism of these men could not change the fate of this battle. However, we do have a long-term war to win, which means building a free, independent and genuinely European Georgia, and this process must be exclusively peaceful. This is our job, to give our children a truly free and unified country,” the PM stated.
The Prime Minister visited the memorial of the cadets together with the Chairman of the Georgian Parliament, Irakli Kobakhidze, and the Defense Minister, Levan Izoria.
President Giorgi Margvelashvili also honored the memorial of fallen heroes.
“We are standing where our ancestors were protecting our homeland from the Bolshevik occupation. Our children will be standing here too because this country will always be independent”, the president stated.
Margvelashvili added that the President’s Reserve Fund allocated money to restore trenches, which Georgian cadets used in while defending the country, and turn it into a tourism site.
“Restored trenches will become one of the tourist routes and will promote the interest of future generations in Georgia’s military history,” he said.
Members of the parliamentary minority and the representatives of the opposition parties also honored the fallen heroes.
February 25 is the declared Day of Soviet Occupation.
