Original subtitles

January 21, 1924 Death of Lenin

THE SWIMMER (1981)

May Lenin's banner inspire you!

THE END

I have conquered many nations,

I am the barbarian ogre.

I have conquered the whole world,

I am the barbarian ogre.

I suck their blood.

This has been our way for generations.

I'll eat you up like a chicken!

Why didn't you eat him?

Dear comrades, please join me!

EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE When I started out,

I thought

I could manage

to improve the system

and show people that it was not the cause of our ills,

that this system could bring happiness.

At least in this small country, I wanted

to try and ennoble it.

And we did achieve a few minor results.

But later on,

toward the end of the 70s,

I had to admit

that all our ills

did come from the system.

Because all we could do

was maintain law and order, fight corruption,

punish the guilty,

defend the innocent, and so on.

We did initiate a few experiments,

and that may have been a relief for the people.

During those years,

our cinema, theater, and literature

were like a haven.

We had our hardships,

but the atmosphere was a creative one.

Georgia was even regarded as an exception.

My tactics, my attitude,

made sense, I think.

Everything I could do for my people,

anything that was within my power,

I did with conviction.

But the problem is, I reached a point

where I lost all hope.

THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE Bertolt Brecht

ROBERT STURUA

RICHARD III Shakespeare

LIANA ISAKADZE

ZURAB NIZHARADZE

GIA MIRZASHVILI

REPENTANCE by Tengiz Abuladze

ALEXANDER REKHVIASHVILI

MIKHAIL KALATOZISHVILI

MERAB KOKOCHASHVILI

GEORGI SHENGELAYA

ELDAR SHENGELAYA

THE LAST MASQUERADE by Mikhail Chiaureli

MIKHAIL KOBAKHIDZE

THE UMBRELLA

In those days, Georgia was

like a beacon,

whether it be in industrial production, agriculture,

or especially in art, literature, and spiritual domains.

Things were happening that could not have happened

anywhere else.

We got away with unforgivable things,

and many of our acts remained unpunished

because we were labeled a "laboratory".

Gorbachev also tried.

He saw that the country was at a dead end.

Where was the way out?

RUSUDAN BERIDZE Vice-President, Georgian Parliament

Don't forget, everything was done to humiliate us.

ZURAB MIKELADZE, mathematician Today, the blame

is laid on individuals, collectives,

ethnic groups in our country, but people forget

in what situation they were at the time,

what stress they were subject to.

All this was deliberate.

Another major aspect has been neglected.

The younger generation knows

what their parents did at the time,

how they survived

and what part they played.

They know all about it.

The psychological strain

weighs heavily on them.

MERAB MAMARDASHVILI, philosopher

Soviet Georgia

greets you heartily, dear Leonid Ilych!

Thank you, dear Leonid Ilych,

for everything you are doing for our Republic!

1982

1983

1985

EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE Minister of Foreign Affairs

At the time, I felt

that the whole thing might collapse

like a house of cards

- this whole restructuring called Perestroika -

unless we managed to transform

our relationship to the outside world.

This was supposed to help us, as a next step,

to determine the dynamics of inside changes

and their scope.

And when a tendency towards democracy

appeared in the USSR,

whose main advocate was the intelligentsia,

I felt that the process might be irreversible,

if exterior conditions were favorable.

I saw it as my duty

to convince the outside world

to encourage this process.

And we were already getting results.

What finally set in motion the enormous changes

that occurred at that time

was the human factor.

1989

I felt it in my whole body, not just in my head,

that they would not forgive us;

even worse, they would oppose us with all their might.

And that's what happened.

The military-industrial complex,

the generals, the Ministry of Defense,

the conservative forces,

all those huge powers were set in motion.

I watched all this happen,

and it hurt me terribly

that Gorbachev saw nothing.

He thought it was just talk, nothing more.

"You're speaking of democracy?

Well, this is democracy!"

I want to make a statement.

I hereby resign.

Please, don't overreact, don't insult me.

Let this be my contribution,

my protest against the rise of dictatorship.

I cannot condone

what is happening throughout our country,

or the hardships that are threatening our people.

In spite of all, I trust

that dictatorship will not win,

that our future lies in democracy and liberty.