Georgia Commemorates Fighters Fallen for its Independence 103 years ago

On 23 February, Georgia officially commemorates the sacrifice of the military cadets (Junkers) and all those fighters who fell defending Tbilisi and Georgia’s independence from Soviet Russia’s invading army in February 1921.

Who were the Junkers?

The Georgian Democratic Republic created the military school for junior officers in September 1919. General Giorgi Kvinitadze (1874-1970) was its founder and first rector. Gen. Kvinitadze started his service in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 as an officer of the Russian Imperial Army and headed the 4th Caucasus Division during World War I. After Georgia declared its independence, Kvinitadze returned to Georgia and took up critical commanding roles in the fledgling army.

The time was of the essence. Freshly independent Georgia was headed by the Social Democratic Party, who, as the leading force in the National Council, took the first steps towards establishing the army in 1917. But the relations quickly soured: the military was made up of freshly demobilized Russian Army recruits, and the morale was low. The Bolshevik propaganda was also rife, which led to mutinies in the spring of 1918. These were suppressed by the Social-Democratic Party militia, which was formed in December 1917 and then transferred under the control of the new state as the National Guard. At the outset, the National Guard became the country’s main fighting force, but the government proceeded with the creation of the regular army, based on former Russian Army officers of Georgian origin who expressed the wish to serve.

By 1919, the country had stabilized sufficiently to allow for proper budgetary planning. In 1919-1920, 30-35% of the budget expenditures were allocated to the military. The creation of the military school was one of the fundamental efforts for creating the Georgian officer corps. The two-year training course enrolled 180 Junkers, as they were called: 120 were training as infantry officers, 30 for artillery, 10 – for cavalry, and 20 for engineer corps.

As the Bolshevik Army invaded on February 12, 1921, the junior officers were mobilized alongside the regular army and the National Guard. 166 Junkers took positions to defend Tbilisi. They have distinguished themselves in combat, especially when repelling the first assault on February 18-19 at Kojori and Tabakhmela, near Tbilisi, and fighting heroically in the ill-fated battle of February 24. Nine of them died in combat, and 43 were heavily injured, which represents 35% of losses. Despite that, the Junkers held their positions. The Georgian press saluted their bravery and sacrifice at the time. This memory was revived after Georgia regained independence in 1991.

Were the Junkers the critical force defending Tbilisi?

No, by no means. Historians estimate that approximately six to ten thousand servicemen from all branches – the Army, armored trains, aviation, the National Guard, border guards, and Junkers – were defending Tbilisi on February 18-24, 1921. Overall, according to various estimates, the war against the Bolshevik invasion involved 30 to 40 thousand servicemen, including mobilized citizens.

So why are they commemorated more?

Hიstorians advance different views to explain this phenomenon. There is a shared understanding that the memory of the Georgian Democratic Republic was purposefully erased from the public memory during the Soviet rule. But Soviet propaganda’s manipulation of the memory was selective and contradictory, resulting in sometimes unexpected distortions of scale and proportion. The case of Junkers is likely one of those. Let us enumerate some hypotheses of why Junkers’ sacrifice is commemorated in an outsized fashion:

• For one, Junkers were young officers in training, the life force and hope of the nation. Their bravery on the battlefield won them accolades, and their death was felt to be particularly tragic. As the Georgian high command took the decision to withdraw and the Bolshevik Army took Tbilisi on February 25, the wound was still fresh, and the nation was seething at the brutal destruction of its independence. The Bolshevik propaganda went along the grain of this sentiment. On March 4, after particularly bloody clashes occurred between Georgian and Bolshevik troops, the occupation authorities decided to bury 42 the Georgian and Bolshevik fighters together in Tbilisi as “the last victims of Mensheviks” (i.e., the Georgian government), promising “a better, happier future.” For years afterward, the propaganda cultivated the narrative that “the Tbilisi government fled and let our young sons die in vain.” The Junkers were the embodiment of those “sacrificed sons.”
• When the national movement was revived in Georgia in the 1980s, it flew the flag of the Georgian Democratic Republic, but much of the historical memory was, by that time, lost. What is more, the new Georgian pro-independence political leaders were markedly anti-Soviet, and their disdain for Socialist ideas (marked by Soviet experience) extended to the Social-Democrat leaders in 1918-1921. By contrast, the ideas of the National Democratic Party (NDP) leaders – who formed an opposition minority in the First Republic and were prominent in the army – became popular, and the party itself was revived. While in French emigration, NDP was critical of Social Democrats and echoed some of the Bolshevik narrative of the “irresponsible flight” by the Tbilisi government in 1921. They sympathized with the Army and Junkers (which had many members of aristocratic descent) as opposed to the National Guard (mostly Socialists). As a result, the national movement of the 1980s-1990s took up the NDP narrative that gave outsized importance to Junkers’ sacrifice, and this image remains the mainstay of the political discourse despite new archival and historiographical research that puts those events and the heroic role that Junkers played in their proper context.

But it is a fact that the government fled, no?

Yes…and no. The Georgian army units were defeated and fled during the initial onslaught on February 12-17. But the battle for Tbilisi on February 18-19 was successful. Many war prisoners were taken and paraded through Tbilisi streets. The laws of the time gave the Army Chief the priority decision-making powers during wartime, so General Giorgi Kvinitadze took the decision to vacate the capital on February 24. Even though the enemy did not breach the main defense line, Gen. Kvinitadze felt that the troops were heavily outnumbered and outflanked. The eyewitnesses report that Noe Jordania, who headed the government, and former Army Chief General Ilia Odishelidze disagreed with the commander but obeyed. Tbilisi was abandoned, but Gen. Kvinitadze’s hope to re-form the defense behind the capital did not materialize. Heavy combats continued into March.

On March 17-18, in Kutaisi, the Government signed the agreement on the cessation of hostilities with the political representatives of the invading force. The reason was the invasion of Kemalist Turkey’s army into the Batumi district, which was considered a vital threat. From that point onwards, the Georgian Army only engaged the Kemalist troops and eventually took control of the Batumi district.

Also, in March, the Constituent Assembly convened in Batumi and instructed the head of government and some of the ministers to leave the country and seek political and military help abroad. At the same meeting, the Constituent Assembly also rejected the signing of the Acts of Capitulation with the Bolshevik army.

At that point, approximately 80% of the Georgian government and political leaders remained in the country. Up to 60 members of the government and the Assembly were subsequently killed by the Soviets or died in prison. A large number of military leaders and politicians who stayed or returned were executed after the failure of the 1924 insurrection. Former Head of Government and then the Minister of Interior, Noe Ramishvili, was killed by Bolsheviks while in emigration in 1930. Tens were killed during the purges of 1937.

The Constituent Assembly declared itself dissolved and handed over full powers to the government. Despite the Bolshevik attempts to reconvene the Assembly and thus yield legitimacy to occupying forces, the elected representatives refused. This allowed the government to maintain a legal basis for the struggle to regain independence, which Georgia managed 70 years later.

based on research articles by Dimitri Silakadze and Irakli Iremadze and publications for the Civil.ge project Republic-100