Every year on April 14, Georgians celebrate Mother Language Day in honor of the events that happened on April 14, 1978.
In particular, when Georgia was still part of the Soviet Union, the Soviet authorities decided to deprive Georgian of its official status and to consider only Russian as the state language on the terms of the 1977 New Soviet Constitution.
In response, thousands of protesters rallied on Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi. Georgians demanded the reversal of the decision of the communist government. It is noteworthy that most of the people participating in the demonstrations were students. The events especially aggravated on 14 April.
On this day, about 15,000 people marched from Tbilisi State University in the direction of Rustaveli Avenue and were joined by others. As a result, the Communist government withdrew its decision and Georgian was officially preserved as the state language.
The efforts of the Georgian people to preserve the language were successful, foreign media also wrote about it. In 1978, two articles were published in the New York Times with the following headlines: “Soviet Georgians Win on Language” and “Soviet Georgians Take to Streets To Save Their State Language”.
