National Archives commemorates Soviet repressions in Tbilisi display
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A poignant display opening today in Tbilisi will tell the personal stories of citizens exiled and persecuted during the brutal political repressions of the Soviet regime in Georgia.
Commemorating the 80th anniversary of the 1937 Great Purge in the Soviet Union, the exhibition Repressions in Georgia will open at the National Archives exhibition pavilion.
The event will seek to present the "scale and substance” of the regime’s repressions throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
The exhibition pavilion of the National Archives venue. Photo: National Archives of Georgia press office.
The persecutions claimed lives and livelihoods of thousands of common citizens, intellectuals and independently minded artists in Georgia.
Photographs, documents and personal items of the victims exiled to remote labour camps or shot following arrest will be presented to viewers.
Among others, the display will tell the stories of notable individuals of art and culture life in Georgia.
These will include theatre director Sandro Akhmeteli, poet Titsian Tabidze (with his final photograph going on display) and painter Dimitri Shevardnadze.
Members of the founding congress of the First Democratic Republic of Georgia, annexed by the Soviet armies in 1921, will also be remembered.
While some of the exhibits have been put on display before, a "major part” of the material will be publicised for the first time, said organisers.
The National Archives representatives met families and descendants of the victims to obtain documents and personal items for the exhibition.
The dark legacy of the Soviet purges is also on permanent display in Tbilisi, at the Georgian National Museum’s Museum of Soviet Occupation.
The exhibition Repressions in Georgia will be open for visitors through November 10.
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Names of the residents of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi who were killed or exiled during the 1937-38 Soviet repressions were read out loud in Tbilisi today. The victims of the Soviet regime were remembered in relation to the date (July 30, 1937) when the Soviet Union leadership issued decree N00447 on the detention and punishment of so-called “kulaks, criminals and anti-Soviet elements.”
History and art enthusiasts can now visit Tbilisi’s Museum of Georgia to discover the story of the country’s artists under Soviet repressions through works by painters, sculptors and designers that became victims of the regime.
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