Georgian Leaders Commemorate Centenary of Tbilisi State University

Today, February 8, 2018, marks the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of Tbilisi State University, Georgia’s oldest and largest university.  

Founded at the time when the collapse of the Romanov Dynsasty briefly allowed for the establishment of an independent Georgia, Tbilisi State University was created by a host of Georgian intellectual’s, led by the historian Ivane Javakhishvili, who the university is now named after.  

To commemorate the centenary, Prime Minister Kvirikashvili, President Margvelashvili and Chairman of Parliament Kobakhidze all issued statements.  

Below are some excerpts from these statements.  

“This year, we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the University we are all proud of. Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University has not been only an educational institution for Georgia: it has been a very important cultural center and a place for maintaining our national vigor and our identity.

It was the Tbilisi State University that has raised generations in Georgia, who have carried on the national vigor and helped maintain our independence. It was the Tbilisi State University that has raised many prominent patriots, who have managed to promote Georgia abroad. We are proud of our university. 

It is very important that the anniversary celebrations will be held under UNESCO auspices. It is also important that we will be celebrating the 100th anniversary together with 147 delegates from various countries, including from academic circles and foreign governments,” the Prime Minister said. 

“We are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the establishment of an institution which has played a very important role in the intellectual development of our nation, and has contributed to public and political processes in very difficult times for our statehood. 

The University was established in the wake of the independence of Georgia, and its founding has been inspired by the work and the thoughts of previous generations of Georgians.  

The University gave us a crucial foundation which was very important in living through 70 years of [Soviet] occupation. It was a period when all expressions of national identity were considered as a rebellion against the system. It was a period when all manifestations of our national identity were considered against the Soviet ideology, and the University was exactly the place, the center, where our ancestors were creating, gathering and sharing with the society who we were [as a nation] and what we should have been in the future", President Giorgi Margvelashvili said.

By Máté Földi