Zviad Gamsakhurdia

Gamsakhurdia co-founded the Georgian Helsinki Group, which sought to bring attention to human rights violations in the Soviet Union. He organized numerous pro-independence protests in Georgia, one of which in 1989 was suppressed by the Soviet Army, with Gamsakhurdia being arrested. Eventually, a number of underground political organizations united around Zviad Gamsakhurdia and formed the Round Table—Free Georgia coalition, which successfully challenged the ruling Communist Party of Georgia in the 1990 elections. Gamsakhurdia was elected as the President of Georgia in 1991, gaining 87% of votes in the election. Despite popular support, Gamsakhurdia found significant opposition from the urban intelligentsia and former Soviet nomenklatura, as well as from his own ranks. In early 1992 Gamsakhurdia was overthrown by warlords Tengiz Kitovani, Jaba Ioseliani and Tengiz Sigua, two of which were formerly allied with Gamsakhurdia. Gamsakhurdia was forced to flee to Chechnya, where he was greeted by Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev. His supporters continued to fight the post-coup government of Eduard Shevardnadze. In September 1993, Gamsakhurdia returned to Georgia and tried to regain power. Despite initial success, the rebellion was eventually crushed by government forces with the help of the Russian military. Gamsakhurdia was forced into hiding in Samegrelo, a Zviadist stronghold. He was found dead in early 1994 in controversial circumstances. His death remains uninvestigated to this day. After the civil war ended, the government continued to suppress Gamsakhurdia's supporters, even with brutal tactics. After Eduard Shevardnadze was overthrown during the 2003 Rose Revolution, Gamsakhurdia was rehabilitated by the president Mikheil Saakashvili.

Zviad Gamsakhurdia studied at Tbilisi State University. The recorded working language is Georgian, Russian and English. Employment is recorded with Tbilisi State University. Positions recorded include President of Georgia and Chairperson of the Parliament of Georgia. Distinctions recorded are Order of National Hero.

Zviad Konstantinovich Gamsakhurdia was born in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on 31 March 1939; his father, Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, was a prominent Georgian writer during the 20th century. Konstantine held nationalist views and was imprisoned in the 1920s, but evaded the Stalinist purges and became influential as a historical novelist. He and his circle of fellow writers promoted Georgian culture and ethnic particularism in the Soviet centre. Zviad was raised in an intellectual setting, which encouraged attention to traditional Georgian history, culture and national identity. At 16, Gamsakhurdia established an underground nationalist youth group called Gorgasliani. In 1956 he participated with his fellow students, including future ally Merab Kostava, in the demonstrations in Tbilisi against de-Stalinization. He and a group of friends began distributing anti-communist Georgian nationalist pamphlets in December; they were caught and taken to court. He was arrested again in 1958 for distributing anti-communist literature and was confined to a mental hospital in Tbilisi for six months, although his familial status protected him from further sanctions. In mental hospital, Gamsakhurdia was diagnosed as suffering "psychopathy with decompensation", becoming an early victim of the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union. After his release, he continued studying Western languages and literature at Tbilisi State University, eventually graduating with a degree in philology and becoming a lecturer of English language and American literature at Tbilisi State University in 1963. He also found employment at the Institute of Literature of the Georgian Academy of Sciences, and joined the Georgian Writers' Union in 1966. As an academic, Gamsakhurdia turned his focus to promoting Georgian culture, criticizing falsification of history, and supporting the Georgian Orthodox Church.

In the 1970s, Gamsakhurdia and his dissident intellectual circle began making contact with Russian dissidents and with the Western press. In mid-1974, he co-founded a Human Rights Defense Group with Kostava and others; in 1977 they established the Georgian branch of the Helsinki Rights Watch Group. It worked with the Moscow Helsinki Group and other Helsinki Groups throughout the country, all set up to monitor the Soviet implementation of the 1975 Helsinki Agreement, which was co-signed by Leonid Brezhnev and called for protection of human rights such as freedom of thought, conscience, religion and national self-determination. Gamsakhurdia was also active in the underground network of samizdat publishers, contributing to a wide variety of underground political periodicals. In their publications, Gamsakhurdia and Kostava denounced corruption, treatment of cultural heritage, the prison system, deportation of Meskhetian Muslims, and other controversies. Although he was frequently harassed and occasionally arrested for his dissidence, for a long time Gamsakhurdia avoided serious punishment, probably as a result of his family's prestige and political connections. Despite being an insider in the Georgian Writers' Union, Gamsakhurdia was expelled from the Union on 1 April 1977 after they had received information from the prosecutor's office about his illegal dissident activities. Later that month, Gamsakhurdia was arrested along with Kostava; they were accused of anti-Soviet activities, including illegal distribution of books and periodicals. They spent a year imprisoned before both being convicted and sentenced to three years in prison and two in exile. Following their imprisonment, the Georgian Helsinki Group ceased to exist. In 1978, Gamsakhurdia was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1979, he was released after publicly denouncing his dissident activism. His supporters, family and Merab Kostava claimed that his recantation was coerced by the KGB. Unlike Gamsakhurdia, Kostava did not recant and remained in prison until 1987, and Gamsakhurdia's reputation suffered. Following his release, Gamsakhurdia returned to his literary work and organizing. He continued his dissident activity, contributing to samizdat periodicals and campaigning for the release of Kostava. Gamsakhurdia was arrested again in October 1981 after attending a human-rights demonstration in Mtskheta. He was placed under house arrest from 1982–1983 for his campaigning on Kostava's behalf.

As the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev launched his glasnost reform which allowed for greater freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, the grass-roots political activism increased and eventually became commonplace in Georgia and other Soviet republics. In the spring of 1985, the Georgian Helsinki Group was restarted and in 1987, as Merab Kostava and other dissidents were released from prison, the dissident movement, which had been gaining steam, was strengthened by new leadership. Gamsakhurdia was attacked in the press as the authorities attempted to undermine the nationalist movement. In the context of glasnost, the nationalist discourse among the intelligentsia was heightened, but still sharply divided on the issue of independence. In 1988, Gamsakhurdia became one of the founders of the Society of Saint Ilia the Righteous (SSIR), a religious-political organization which became the basis for his own political movement. Through the SSIR and the Helsinki Group, which was transformed into the Georgian Helsinki Union party in September 1989, Gamsakhurdia took part in organizing almost all of the mass protest actions demanding the independence in late 1980s. On 9 April 1989, the brutal suppression by Soviet forces of a large peaceful demonstration held in Tbilisi, proved to be a pivotal event in discrediting the continuation of Soviet rule over the country. The central Soviet government responded by the significant changes in the Georgia's leadership, replacing its heads Jumber Patiashvili and Zurab Chkheidze. The new leadership chose a more conciliatory approach towards the opposition. The opposition leaders arrested during the 9 April tragedy, including Zviad Gamsakhurdia, were released from prison and given a greater role in the decision-making. In recognition of his enormous popularity, Gamsakhurdia was brought into negotiations with the new Soviet Georgian leader Givi Gumbaridze over impeding legislation in the Georgia's Supreme Soviet. It passed a number of measures demanded by the opposition, paving path towards the independence. Gamsakhurdia's organizations soon gained support in almost all Georgian institutions and Gamsakhurdia played a prominent role in their decisions to break their ties with the Kremlin. In February 1990, the Georgian sports association announced that it was breaking off the Soviet championships, holding its own championships with a goal of sending its team to international competitions. The ceremonies inaugurating the independent Georgian games began with Gamsakhurdia's opening remarks. The Georgian trade union organization broke off all-Union trade union organization, while the republican Komsomol declared independence from the Communist Party and all-Union Komsomol, later dissolving itself, being replaced by the new youth groups. Through political strikes, mass demonstrations, hunger strikes and vigils, the opposition led by Gamsakhurdia forced the Soviet leadership to make concessions on many issues.

The progress of democratic reforms was accelerated and led to Soviet Georgia's first democratic multiparty elections, held on 28 October 1990. On 11–13 March 1990, during the meetings of pro-independence opposition parties of the Soviet Georgia in the Tbilisi Philharmonic Hotel in order to establish the "coordinating council", a split became evident in the pro-independence opposition, with two groups having different visions for the path towards independence. Gamsakhurdia and his followers argued that opposition had to come to power first through winning official elections to the Supreme Soviet and then declare independence through peaceful means, using existing legal procedures. Meanwhile, the second faction, led by Giorgi Chanturia's National Democratic Party and Irakli Tsereteli's National Independence Party, argued that Georgia needed to "win freedom before achieving independence". They argued for electing an alternative representative body and boycotting the official elections, claiming that taking part in the official elections would only serve to "legitimize the colonial status of Georgia within the Soviet system". In April, Gamsakhurdia's Helsinki Union left the forum and joined by the Monarchist Party, the Saint Ilya the Just Society, the Merab Kostava Society and other opposition groups, it established the "Round Table — Free Georgia" ("Mrgvali Magida — Tavisupali Sakartvelo") coalition. Led by Gamsakhurdia, the coalition argued for a peaceful transition, citing the example of Baltic republics. A second faction meanwhile set its own alternative elections for the "National Congress", which it imagined as a "transitional legislative body" of national liberation movement to achieve independence. However, with the absence of Round Table and later withdrawal of People's Front party, its claims on being an alternative legislative body representing "the will of the Georgian people" was undermined. Two of the best-known radical groups, the National Democratic Party of Georgia led by Gia Tchanturia and the Party for the National Independence of Georgia headed by Irakli Tsereteli, continued to oppose all "official " institutions including any manifestation of a Supreme Soviet. In early 1990 they urged the selection of a completely new representative body, the National Congress, and to boycott the elections. The justification for this decision was that to participate under existing conditions would be inherently unfair and would only serve to legitimize a continuation of what they described as the "colonial status" of Georgia within the Soviet system. Most other political groups, however, including more moderate political organizations such as the Rustaveli Society and the Popular Front as well as Gamsakhurdia's organizations, did not participate in the National Congress elections and concentrated instead on gaining control of the Supreme Soviet (see below). The elections, with a turnout that was probably below the minimum set by the organizers, created a body that was dominated by Tsereteli and Tchanturia." Gamsakhurdia's Round Table coalition run on the ardently pro-independence platform in the October election. Gamsakhurdia campaigned tirelessly, often travelling to distant parts of Georgia in one day and holding large rallies at sports arenas. The Round Table coalition secured a convincing victory, with 64% of the vote, as compared with the Georgian Communist Party's 29.6%. Gamsakhurdia himself won his own race in a Tbilisi district with over 70 percent of the vote. On 14 November 1990, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was elected by an overwhelming majority as chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia, which made him de facto head of Georgia, albeit not a sovereign country yet. Gamsakhurdia was voted as Georgia's new leader with 238 votes in favor to 5 against. In April 1991, Gamsakhurdia was among six candidates who registered for the presidential election. The election was held on 26 May, in a free and democratic environment. On 28 May 1991, the state newspaper "Republic of Georgia" released preliminary results, showing Gamsakhurdia's lead by a large margin, with Gamsakhurdia securing 86.52% of votes, while Valerian Advadze, who took second position, securing 7.52% of votes. On 3 June, the Central Election Commission approved a summery protocol of the election, with 86.5%, that is, 2 565 362 out of 3 594 810 voters, supporting Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

According to Stephen F. Jones, a historian and specialist on Russian and Eurasian studies, Gamsakhurdia promoted the concept of pan-Caucasian unity, "Caucasian House". Gamsakhurdia favored regional cooperation between peoples of the Caucasus and considered concepts such as a common economic zone, a "Caucasian Forum" (a regional United Nations) and an alliance against foreign interference. "Caucasian House" was based on the idea of shared Ibero-Caucasian languages and common tribal and cultural identity among autochthonous Caucasian nations, such as Chechens, Circassians, Abkhazians and Georgians. An allegiance between Gamsakhurdia and Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev was seen as pivotal to its success. However, Gamsakhurdia was soon overthrown after taking office, so the "realisation of the idea of Caucasianness and the Caucasian House has never gone beyond the declaratory level or imaginative projects...". In his election program, Gamsakhurdia argued for gradual privatization and transition from socialist command economy to capitalist market economy. He supported social market economy, a model which would synthesize "free labor and guarantees of social rights, respect for private property and social utility, free entrepreneurship and honest competition". This included support for: wage indexation, consumer protection, social protection of vulnerable groups, minimum wage, unemployment benefits etc. Gamsakhurdia supported price controls for certain and the most basic products. Gamsakhurdia was a deeply religious person. He believed that existing societal problems, including crime, resulted from the destruction of faith, decline of morality, and the abandonment and degradation of spiritual ideals. Gamsakhurdia thought that Georgia's political struggle for independence involved not only "national and political goals", but also "a moral revival based on religious faith and conscience". Gamsakhurdia and his supporters believed in a strong presidential system. They argued that to overcome the challenges, the country needed a strong president elected by universal suffrage. These views were shared by most Georgians.

Upon Gamsakhurdia taking office in November 1990, one of the first laws passed by the Georgia's Supreme Council under his leadership renamed the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic into the "Republic of Georgia" and restored the state hymn, flag and seal of the Georgia's First Republic. The new Supreme Council declared a "transitional period" towards the independence, a period during which the newly elected government was to prepare the political-legal and economic foundations to the sovereign existence of Georgia. The Supreme Council appointed Tengiz Sigua, a member of an opposition Rustaveli Society, as the chairman of the Georgian Council of Ministers (later renamed into a post of prime minister). Though state authorities continued to operate under the 1976 Soviet Georgian Constitution, several changes were adopted following independence to create a presidential republic. Gamsakhurdia made efforts to root out the influence of mafia from the Soviet-era institutions like KGB, military and police. His one of the first conflicts with Mikhail Gorbachev occurred over designating a candidate who would become the head of Georgian KGB. Gamsakhurdia also took steps to create a new military structure independent from the Soviet control. In December 1990, the Georgia's Supreme Council adopted the law which ended Soviet military draft in Georgia. As a result, only 10 percent of eligible draftees responded to call-up, the lowest percentage among all Soviet republics. Instead, in January 1991 the Georgia's Supreme Council approved the legislation which created the National Guard of Georgia. The first military parade was held on Independence Day in 1991, with 10,000 soldiers of the National Guard taking their oath of service in front of President Zviad Gamsakhurdia at Boris Paichadze Stadium. Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, through the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Anatoly Lukyanov, instructed Gamsakhurdia to ban the creation of the Guard. The official newspaper of the Soviet Army, Krasnaya Zvezda, published an article mocking the National Guard entitled "Mr. Prefects and Mr. Guardsmen". Georgia held a referendum on restoring its pre-Soviet independence on 31 March 1991 in which 98.9% of those who voted declared in its favour. The Georgian parliament passed a declaration of independence on 9 April 1991, in effect restoring the 1918–1921 Georgian sovereign state. However, it was not recognized by the Soviet Union and although a number of foreign powers granted early recognition, universal recognition did not come until the following year. Romania became the first country to recognize the Georgian independence, on 26 August 1991. In August 1991, Georgia created a national bank and the legislature committed Georgia to issue its own currency in the future. In September 1991, the law on privatization was passed after long discussions on how to prevent "party-economic mafia" (a term used by Gamsakhurdia to refer to Communist Party leaders and administrators at various levels who controlled shadow economy of the Soviet Georgia) from becoming the primary beneficiary. On 3 May 1991, Gamsakhurdia issued a decree implementing fixed prices for some basic goods and lifting the national 5-percent sales tax on some food and services. The first steps towards the abolition of death penalty in Georgia came during the government of Gamsakhurdia on 20 March 1991, when the Georgian Supreme Council removed this possible punishment for four economic offences not involving the use of violence. Thus, Georgia became a first former Soviet republic to take steps to abolish the death penalty. He spoke out against allowing the Meskhetian Turk community, who previously lived in the Meskheti region before being deported to Uzbekistan by Stalin, from returning to their homeland, despite huge pogroms in the Uzbek SSR forcing them to flee. Many of those who managed to return during his administration were forced back into exile.

During his rule, Gamsakhurdia maintained that Georgia would not sign New Union Treaty or interrepublican economic treaty. Georgia under Gamsakhurdia was among six Soviet republics, along with Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, and Armenia, that rejected the New Union Treaty in July 1991. Gamsakhurdia called for a boycott of the 1991 Soviet Union referendum on preserving the Union and the Georgia's Supreme Council voted to do so. Gamsakhurdia remarked that "the USSR law on referendum violates the sovereignty of the Republic of Georgia, because with this law the destiny of Georgia would be decided not by its citizens, but by citizens of all union republics in the Soviet Union". In response to the Soviet referendum, Georgia's Supreme Council appointed the 1991 Georgian independence referendum. On 15 June 1991, in an interview to Saarländischer Rundfunk, Gamsakhurdia said that Georgia sought an eventual membership in the European Community and the United Nations, while it would develop relations with the USSR as a foreign state. In response to the Soviet crackdown on the pro-independence movement in Lithuania in January 1991, Zviad Gamsakhurdia led a pro-Lithuania rally in Tbilisi, saying that "it is impossible to preserve an empire by democratic means" and urging the opposition to Kremlin. On 31 March 1991, during the Georgian referendum, the American delegation led by Richard Nixon arrived to Georgia and met with Zviad Gamsakhurdia. The visit was unofficial, but it was still arranged by the US president George H. W. Bush. During the meeting, Gamsakhurdia said that "there is no "Soviet people" but the nations conquered by the Soviet Union". Two weeks earlier, on 15 March, Gamsakhurdia met with James Baker in the US Embassy in Moscow. In an attempt to debunk the claim that "Gorbachev's Perestroika and democratic reforms would change situation in the Soviet Union", Gamsakhurdia said that they were just a façade "to preserve the neocolonialism and the imperial structures". Gamsakhurdia said that he would believe that the Gorbachev's reforms were real only if Gorbachev amended the USSR Law on Secession and made it more "fair". In an attempt to regulate the South Ossetia conflict, Gamsakhurdia met with Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR Boris Yeltsin in March 1991 in Kazbegi. At the negotiations, they agreed to establish a joint Russian-Georgian Joint Commission of Ministries of Internal Affairs to study the situation in the region, restore order and disarm the illegal groups. On 6 and 7 April 1991, representatives of Armenia, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Moldova met in Chișinău, Moldova and pledged to cooperate in their independence efforts. As Georgia was moving towards independence from the Soviet Union, the Georgian government, led by Zviad Gamsakhurdia, addressed Boris Yeltsin stating that "After the fall of the Soviet Union, the only legitimate framework for relations between the Russian Federation and Georgia can be the treaty signed between Soviet Russia and the Democratic Republic of Georgia in Moscow on 7 May 1920". Under this treaty, Russia granted de jure recognition of Georgian independence in exchange for promising not to grant asylum on Georgian soil to troops of powers hostile to Bolshevik Russia. Moscow refused, and Georgia declared Soviet troops in Georgia an occupation force. In July 1991, the chairman of the Armenian Supreme Council Levon Ter-Petrosyan visited Tbilisi and met Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia. On 3 July 1991, during a press conference, President Gamsakhurdia denied that Georgia was considering a NATO membership. In response to George H. W. Bush's Chicken Kiev speech which supported Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and his New Union Treaty, the government of Georgia issued a statement declaring that "the heir of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and others arrives... and carries on propaganda in favor of the Union Treaty. Why didn't he call on Kuwait to sign the Union Treaty with Iraq?". Gamsakhurdia forged close ties with Chechnya, Russia's breakaway republic. Gamsakhurdia met with Chechen leader Dzokhar Dudayev during the spring of 1991 in Kazbegi, the meeting being arranged by the leader of Adjarian Autonomous Republic Aslan Abashidze. Gamsakhurdia welcomed Chechnya's declaration of independence in November 1991 and attended inauguration of Dzokhar Dudayev as Chechnya's president in Grozny. While Chechnya did not receive backing from the international community, it received support and attention from Georgia, which became its only gateway to the outside world that was not controlled by Russia. As a sign of moral support, on 11 November 1991 Gamsakhurdia wrote a letter to the United Nations and Russian president Boris Yeltsin, condemning his declaration of the state of emergency in Chechnya amid its proclamation of sovereignty as "a show of force against the Chechen people". On 13 March 1992, the president of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia, at the time removed from power as a result of the coup, while in Grozny, signed a decree recognizing the independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. On 20 February 1992, Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Chechen president Dzokhar Dudayev signed join communique in Grozny. It called for the "good will of the Caucasian peoples" for the peaceful resolution all interethnic and interstate conflicts in the regions "only at the negotiating table". The sides reached agreement on a number of topics, including "the resolution of the disputed question of the return of Ingush lands only at the negotiating table and without the participation of a third side" and "the inviolability of historical borders, meaning South Ossetia, which must remain a part of Georgia". The document called Russia to play "positive role" in creating conditions for the normalizations of the Caucasus situation by withdrawing its troops from the territory as a "first positive step in this direction". The communique emphasized the necessity of forming "a pan-Caucasian home", the Union of Caucasian States.

In 1989, violent unrest broke out between the Georgian independence-minded population of the region and Ossetians loyal to the Soviet Union in South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast. In September 1990 Ossetian nationalists in the South Ossetia's regional soviet declared independence from Georgia by announcing "South Ossetian Soviet Democratic Republic" loyal to Moscow. In response, the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR annulled the autonomy of South Ossetia. Following clashes between Georgians and South Ossetians on 12 December 1990 Gamsakhurdia declared a state of emergency in the region.

Gamsakhurdia's rule began with heavy opposition from the National Congress. Although the Communist Party weakened significantly and was unable to make the shift from ruling party to opposition, the National Congress refused to recognize the legitimacy of the official elections and new government, continuing using the same methods they had been using against the Soviet rule — street demonstrations, rallies, hunger strikes etc. During the 1991 Soviet coup attempt, the Russian news agency Interfax reported that Gamsakhurdia had agreed with the Soviet military that the Georgian National Guard would be disarmed, and on 23 August, he issued decrees abolishing the post of commander of the Georgian National Guard and redesignating its members as interior troops subordinate to the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs. In reality, the National Guard was already a part of the Ministry of the Interior, and Gamsakhurdia's opponents, who claimed he was seeking to abolish it, were asked to produce documents they claimed they possessed which verified their claims, but did not do so. Gamsakhurdia always maintained he had no intention of disbanding the National Guard. In defiance of the alleged order of Gamskhurdia, the sacked National Guard commander Tengiz Kitovani led most of his troops out of Tbilisi on 24 August. By this time, however, the coup had clearly failed and Gamsakhurdia publicly congratulated Russia's president Boris Yeltsin on his victory over the putschists. The political tensions escalated in September, with daily rallies for and against the president in Tbilisi. Political unrest beset the country as the clashes erupted between the opposition and the government. The demonstrations demanding Gamsakhurdia's resignation were joined by the rebel units of the National Guard. Both renegade members of the Georgian national guard and pro-Gamsakhurdia troops deployed armored personnel carriers and artillery in the city. The opposition ignored Gamsakhurdia's call to disarm. The rebellious members of the National Guard captured the city television center in Tbilisi and clashed with the police near the central power station which left four people dead and four wounded. Gamsakhurdia reacted angrily, accusing shadowy forces in Moscow of conspiring with his internal enemies against Georgia's independence movement. In a rally in early September, he told his supporters: "The infernal machinery of the Kremlin will not prevent us from becoming free.... Having defeated the traitors, Georgia will achieve its ultimate freedom." He shut down an opposition newspaper, "Molodiozh Gruzii," on the grounds that it had published open calls for a national rebellion. Giorgi Chanturia, whose National Democratic Party was one of the most active opposition groups at that time, was arrested and imprisoned on charges of seeking help from Moscow to overthrow the legal government. It was also reported that Channel 2, a television station, was closed down after employees took part in rallies against the government. On 22 December 1991, armed opposition supporters launched a violent coup d'état and attacked a number of official buildings including the Georgian parliament building, where Gamsakhurdia himself was sheltering. Heavy fighting continued in Tbilisi until 6 January 1992, leaving hundreds dead and the centre of the city heavily damaged. On 6 January, Gamsakhurdia and members of his government escaped through opposition lines and made their way to Azerbaijan where they were denied asylum. Armenia finally hosted Gamsakhurdia for a short period and rejected Georgian demands to extradite Gamsakhurdia back to Georgia. In order not to complicate tense relations with Georgia, Armenian authorities allowed Gamsakhurdia to move to the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya, where he was granted asylum by the rebel government of General Dzhokhar Dudayev. A Military Council made up of Gamsakhurdia opponents took over the government on an interim basis. One of its first actions was to remove Gamsakhurdia as president. Gamsakhurdia's supporters continued to hold rallies to support the ousted President. The Military Council opened fire with automatic weapons to disperse protesters on several occasions, resulting in several deaths. The order to shoot was given by Jaba Ioseliani, the leader of Mkhedrioni paramilitary. It was later claimed that Russian forces had been involved in the coup against Gamsakhurdia. On 15 December 1992 the Russian newspaper Moskovskiye Novosti printed a letter claiming that the former Vice-Commander of the Transcaucasian Military District, Colonel General Sufian Bepayev, had sent a "subdivision" to assist the armed opposition. If the intervention had not taken place, it was claimed, "Gamsakhurdia supporters would have been guaranteed victory." It was also claimed that Soviet special forces had helped the opposition to attack the state television tower on 28 December. The Military Council reconstituted itself as a State Council in March 1992 and, without any formal referendum or election, appointed Gamsakhurdia's old rival Eduard Shevardnadze as chairman, who then ruled as de facto president until the formal restoration of the presidency in November 1995.

After his overthrow, Gamsakhurdia continued to promote himself as the legitimate president of Georgia. He was still recognized as such by some governments and international organizations, although as a matter of pragmatic politics the insurrectionist Military Council was quickly accepted as the governing authority in the country. Gamsakhurdia himself refused to accept his ouster, not least because he had been elected to the post with an overwhelming majority of the popular vote (in conspicuous contrast to the undemocratically appointed Shevardnadze). In November–December 1992, he was invited to Finland (by the Georgia Friendship Group of the Parliament of Finland) and Austria (by the International Society for Human Rights). In both countries, he held press conferences and meetings with parliamentarians and government officials

On 31 December 1993, Zviad Gamsakhurdia died in circumstances that are still unclear. It is known that he died in the village of Dzveli Khibula in the Samegrelo region of western Georgia. Gamsakhurdia's death was announced by the Georgian government on 5 January 1994. Some refused to believe that Gamsakhurdia had died at all but the question was eventually settled when his body was recovered on 15 February 1994. According to British press reports, his body was found with a single bullet wound to the head but, in fact, it was found with two bullet wounds to the head. Years later Avtandil Ioseliani - counter-intelligence head of interim government - admitted that two special units were hunting Zviad on interim government's orders. In the first days of December 1993 two members of Gamsakhurdia's personal guard also disappeared without a trace, after being sent on a scout mission. Some remains and ashes, never identified, were found 17 years later.

A variety of reasons has been given for Gamsakhurdia's death, which is still controversial and remains unresolved. On 14 December 2018, Constantine and Tsotne Gamsakhurdia, the former president's two sons, announced concerns about the expiration of the statute of limitations set at the end of the same year for a potential investigation into the death of their father, as Georgian law set a 25-year limit for serious crime investigations. They then announced the beginning of a hunger strike. On 21 December, newly inaugurated President Salome Zurabishvili formally endorsed the request to expand the statute of limitations, a move supported by opposition and ruling party members of Parliament. Less than a week later, Parliament approved a bill to expand the statute of limitations for serious crimes from 25 to 30 years after the crime, following Constantine Gamsakhurdia's hospitalization. On 26 December, following the setting-up of a new investigative group under the leadership of General Prosecutor Shalva Tadumadze, promising a new investigation into Zviad Gamsakhurdia's death, Tsotne Gamsakhurdia ended his hunger strike. However, the investigation failed to reach any conclusion to this day, with numerous theories about Gamsakhurdia's death floating in public discourse.

In January 1994, Gamsakhurdia's widow Manana Archvadze-Gamsakhurdia told the Interfax news agency that her husband shot himself on 31 December after being surrounded by forces of the pro-Shevardnadze Mkhedrioni militia. The Russian media reported that his bodyguards heard a muffled shot in the next room and found that Gamsakhurdia had killed himself with a shot to the head from a Stechkin pistol. Gamsakhurdia's press service in Grozny published what they claimed was Gamsakhurdia's suicide note: "Being in clear state of mind, I commit this act in token of protest against the ruling regime in Georgia and because I am deprived of the possibility, acting as the president, to normalize the situation, and to restore law and order."

On 25 January 1994, Gamsakhurdia's son Konstantine Gamsakhurdia told Le Monde that his father "was murdered". Despite initially claiming that her husband's death was a suicide, in March 1995 his widow claimed in an interview to Trud newspaper that Gamsakhurdia was killed on orders from Eduard Shevardnadze, by his bodyguards who were together with him in hiding. She accused Gamsakhurdia's finance minister Guram Abasnadze of masterminding his murder. She later alleged that Gamsakhurdia's prime minister, Besarion Gugushvili ordered one of Gamsakhurdia's bodyguards to kill him. Several Gamsakhurdia's guards claim that Gamsakhurdia committed suicide, but the family opposes this account of events and claims that Gamsakhurdia was killed. In 2007, BBC News reported that some of Gamsakhurdia's friends believed he committed suicide, "although his widow insists that he was murdered." In 2001, fugitive former Georgian intelligence chief Igor Giorgadze accused Georgian special services of murdering Gamsakhurdia. According to former deputy director of Biopreparat Ken Alibek, that laboratory was possibly involved in the design of an undetectable chemical or biological agent to assassinate Gamsakhurdia.

According to another version circulated in early January 1994 by the Shevardnadze's government, Gamsakhurdia was shot in a skirmish with his own allies following a quarrel. The Georgian news agency, citing a member of the Mkhedrioni paramilitary, reported that Gamsakhurdia died in Grozny after being wounded in a fight with his own associates. The Georgian Security Ministry stated that Gamsakhurdia was shot in Grozny on 30 December and died on 5 January. The Georgian officials reported that his widow was "misinformed" and that his suicide was a rumor. An aide of Georgian Security Minister David Mumladze said that they "did not believe" in Gamsakhurdia's suicide. Mumladze even claimed that Gamsakhurdia could have been murdered by his supporters to "turn him into a martyr" and suggested that it could also be linked to him falling out with his former chief commander, Loti Kobalia. Eduard Shevardnadze, after himself questioning Gamsakhurdia's suicide, sent a group of investigators to Grozny. On 8 January 1994, they reported that Gamsakhurdia committed a suicide.

Gamsakhurdia was initially buried in the village of Dzveli Khibula and later re-buried in the village of Jikhashkari (also in the Samegrelo region). Eduard Shevardnadze sent investigators to identify his body. Chechen officials asked the government of Shevardnadze to allow Gamsakhurdia's remains to be buried in his family's cemetery next to his home in Tbilisi or, in case of refusal, to transfer his body to be buried in Chechnya. There were appeals to name a street in Grozny after Gamsakhurdia. In February 1994, Gamsakhurdia's body was discovered by a joint commission from Georgia and Chechnya, which led to the Georgian government confirming Gamsakhurdia's death. Georgian and Chechen officials agreed to have his body be flown to the Chechen capital Grozny, where his remains were buried. Dudayev provided state funeral and Orthodox Christian last rites to Gamsakhurdia. During his burial in Grozny in February 1994, Dudayev stated: "We are gathered here today to give back to the earth a brave son of the Caucasus, a man who believed in freedom." On 3 March 2007, the newly appointed president of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov announced that Gamsakhurdia's grave – lost in the debris and chaos of a war-ravaged Grozny – had been found in the center of the city. Gamsakhurdia's remains were identified by Russian experts in Rostov-on-Don, and arrived in Georgia on 28 March 2007, for reburial. He was interred alongside other prominent Georgians at the Mtatsminda Pantheon on 1 April 2007. Thousands of people throughout Georgia had arrived in Mtskheta's medieval cathedral to pay tribute to Gamsakhurdia. "We are implementing the decision which was [taken] in 2004 – to bury President Gamsakhurdia on his native soil. This is a fair and absolutely correct decision," President Mikheil Saakashvili told reporters according to the Civil Georgia internet news website.

In addition to Georgian, Gamsakhurdia was fluent in Russian, French, English and German. He was a devout adherent of the Georgian Orthodox Church his entire life. Gamsakhurdia's second wife, Manana Archvadze-Gamsakhurdia, was the inaugural First Lady of independent Georgia. The couple had two sons, Tsotne and Giorgi. Gamsakhurdia's only son from his first marriage is Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, who became a politician and the leader of the Tavisupleba ("Freedom") political party.

20th century American Poetry (a monograph). Ganatleba, Tbilisi, 1972 (in Georgian) The Man in the Panther's Skin" in English, a monograph, Metsniereba, Tbilisi, 1984, 222 pp. (In Georgian, English summary). "Goethe's Weltanschauung from the Anthroposophic point of view.", Tsiskari, Tbilisi, No 5, 1984 (in Georgian), link to Georgian archive version, p.149 Tropology (Image Language) of "The Man in the Panther's Skin", monograph. Metsniereba, Tbilisi, 1991 (in Georgian) Collected articles and Essays. Khelovneba, Tbilisi, 1991 (in Georgian) Gamsakhurdia: a Product of the Soviet Union. Janice Bohle, University of Missouri, 1997. The Spiritual mission of Georgia (1990) The Spiritual Ideals of the Gelati Academy (1989) at the Wayback Machine (archived 28 April 2007) "Dilemma for Humanity", Nezavisimaia Gazeta, Moscow, 21 May 1992 (in Russian) "Between deserts" (about the creative works of L. N. Tolstoy), Literaturnaia Gazeta, Moscow, No 15, 1993 (in Russian) Fables and Tales. Nakaduli, Tbilisi, 1987 (in Georgian) The Betrothal of the Moon (Poems). Merani, Tbilisi, 1989 (in Georgian)