NY Times on Mother Language Day: Soviet Georgians Win on Language
On April 18, 1978, The New York Times devoted an article to the Georgian population's fight to preserve Georgian as the official state language.
The article, written by Craig R. Whitney, titled 'Soviet Georgians Win on Language,' reads:
"In an extraordinary concession to local patriotic feeling, authorities in the Soviet Union's Georgian Republic have reinstated Georgian as the official state language after a protest in the capital city of Tbilisi."
"A clause specifying Georgian as the official language had been omitted in a draft constitution published March 24. When the republic's Supreme Soviet legislature met Friday to consider the draft, hundreds marched on government headquarters in protest. The next day, the clause was inserted into the text. As published yesterday in the Tbilisi newspaper Zarya Vostoka, the text says, “The state language of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic is Georgian”--almost exactly as in the ID37 document the new charter supersedes," reads the publication from the archive.
"Such a concession to a demonstration of popular displeasure is unusual in this country. But the ethnic feeling among Georgians, who outnumber ethnic Russians in Georgia by nearly eight to one, is considered stronger than among most of the other major ethnic groups that form the basis for the Soviet Union's 15 constituent republics," the author notes.
The article further tells that two New York lawyers who were in Tbilisi on Friday said that they were detained on a visit to a factory on the edge of town when the demonstrators converged on government headquarters downtown. The lawyers, Robert B. McKay and S. Eric Ragman said they had been told later that the demonstrators, carrying slogans demanding the “native tongue,” were mainly Tbilisi University students.
"A Soviet journalist confirmed that protest had taken place and said the Georgian party chief, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, had come out to speak to the demonstrators.
“We were told that he had told them, ‘My children, what are you doing?! and some of them had cursed him,” Mr. McKay said. Later, the American said, he was told that Mr. Shevardnadze had emerged again and said the position of the Georgian language would be preserved," The New York Times reported on April 18, 1978.
On April 14, Georgia celebrates Mother Language (Deda Ena) Day, which marks the country’s preservation of Georgian as the official state language.
On 14 April 1978, thousands of Georgians took to the streets, protesting the attempt by the Soviet government to alter the constitutional status of languages in Georgia, primarily aimed at depriving the Georgian language of its state language status.
More than 100,000 citizens protested at a central Tbilisi park, now known as the Dedaena Park. The participants demanded the legitimacy of the Georgian language as the sole mother tongue. The government was compelled to compromise - a highly unusual concession to an open expression of opposition to the Soviet state policy.
A special monument was later erected to honor the day’s events.
The Georgian language, described as a “living culture of three writing systems”, is included in the UNESCO’s Intangible Heritage list.
Source: The New York Times