Eduard Shevardnadze

He was forced to retire in 2003 as a consequence of the bloodless Rose Revolution. After allegations of electoral fraud during the 2003 legislative election that led to a series of public protests and demonstrations colloquially known as the Rose Revolution, Shevardnadze was forced to resign.

The revolution was brought about by widespread protests over the disputed parliamentary elections and culminated in the ousting of President Eduard Shevardnadze, which marked the end of the Soviet era of leadership in the country.

He would later become the head of the internal affairs ministry and was able to charge First Secretary (leader of Soviet Georgia) Vasil Mzhavanadze with corruption.

Dismissed after a corruption scandal, he was replaced by Eduard Shevardnadze.

In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, Shevardnadze returned to the newly independent Georgia.

On July 1, 1985, Gorbachev promoted Eduard Shevardnadze, First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, to full member of the Politburo, and the following day appointed him minister of foreign affairs, replacing longtime Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.

He served as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party (GPC), the de facto leader of Soviet Georgia from 1972 to 1985 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991.

In 1991 and 1995 SKP supported the candidacies of Eduard Shevardnadze.

After allegations of electoral fraud during the 2003 legislative election that led to a series of public protests and demonstrations colloquially known as the Rose Revolution, Shevardnadze was forced to resign.

According to statistics released by the Georgian Election Commission, the elections were won by a combination of parties supporting President Eduard Shevardnadze.

After spending two years in obscurity, Shevardnadze returned as a First Secretary of a Tbilisi city district, and was able to charge the Tbilisi First Secretary at the time with corruption.

Even during the Shevardnadze Era (1993–2003), crime and corruption became rampant at most levels of society.

He became the country's head of state following the removal of the country's first president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

In Georgia, the government of Eduard Shevardnadze (who was then First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party) arrested Gamsakhurdia and his fellow dissident Merab Kostava on April 7, 1977.

Mikhail Gorbachev appointed Shevardnadze to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs.

He moved Gromyko from his role in foreign policy to that of head of state and replaced Gromyko's former role with his own ally, Eduard Shevardnadze.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he was President of Georgia (or in equivalent posts) from 1992 to 2003.

In the post-coup absence of legitimate power, a position of the head of state was introduced for Georgia's new leader Eduard Shevardnadze on 10 March 1992.

Like many Soviet people, the crimes perpetrated by Joseph Stalin horrified Shevardnadze, and the Soviet government's response to the 1956 Georgian demonstrations shocked him even more.

Eduard Shevardnadze, then a Komsomol leader in Kutaisi and eventually to become President of post-Soviet Georgia, later recalled that Khrushchev's ironic remark on Georgians at the end of his speech was particularly hurtful to the pride of Georgian youth.

In 1951, Shevardnadze married Nanuli Shevardnadze, whose father was killed by the authorities at the height of the purge.

In 1951 she married Eduard Shevardnadze, who would become Soviet Foreign Minister (1985–1991) and leader of post-Soviet Georgia (1992–2003).

The 1978 Georgian demonstrations were sparked by the Soviet government's decision to amend the Georgian constitution and remove the Georgian language as the sole state language in the republic.

A series of indoor and outdoor actions of protest ensued and implied with near-certainty there would be a clash between several thousands of demonstrators and the Soviet government, but Georgian Communist Party chief Eduard Shevardnadze negotiated with the central authorities in Moscow and managed to obtain permission to retain the previous status of the Georgian language.

In 1973, Shevardnadze launched an agricultural reform in Abasha, popularly referred to as the "Abasha experiment".

The modern history of Abasha is primarily associated with a resonant Soviet-era economic experiment introduced by the Georgian Communist party chief Eduard Shevardnadze in the 1970s.

However, Gamsakhurdia's rule ended abruptly in January 1992, when he was deposed in a bloody coup d'état.

Following Gamsakhurdia's fall, a Military Council, led by Kitovani and Ioseliani, took power in Tbilisi and assured the return of Eduard Shevardnadze, the last Soviet Foreign Affairs Minister to hand over power to him.

On 23 November, Shevardnadze met with the opposition leaders Mikheil Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania to discuss the situation in a meeting arranged by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

Involved in Georgian politics since 1995, Saakashvili became president in January 2004 after President Eduard Shevardnadze resigned in the November 2003 bloodless "Rose Revolution" led by Saakashvili and his political allies, Nino Burjanadze and Zurab Zhvania.

Eduard was a cousin of the Georgian painter and intellectual Dimitri Shevardnadze, who was purged during Stalinist repressions.

Georgian politician Eduard Shevardnadze was a son of a cousin of Dmitri Shevardnadze.

His adulation was only surpassed by that of Andrei Kirilenko and Heydar Aliyev.

The ground-breaking ceremony of BTC took place in September 2002 with the participation of Heydar Aliyev, Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Edward Shevardnadze.

On 23 November, Shevardnadze met with the opposition leaders Mikheil Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania to discuss the situation in a meeting arranged by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

Gamsakhurdia's violent overthrow in January 1992 resulted in Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister, coming to power a few months later.

Eduard Shevardnadze was born in Mamati in the Transcaucasian SFSR, Soviet Union, on 25 January 1928.

Since the 2nd President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze was born there on 25 January 1928, it has gained prominence.

Shevardnadze was responsible for many key decisions in Soviet foreign policy during the Gorbachev Era including reunification of Germany.

He immediately began appointing younger men of his generation to important party posts, including Nikolai Ryzhkov, Secretary of Economics, Viktor Cherbrikov, KGB Chief, Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze (replacing the 75-year-old Gromyko), Secretary of Defense Industries Lev Zaikov, and Secretary of Construction Boris Yeltsin.

Shevardnadze also faced separatist conflicts in the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Former Soviet foreign minister and architect of the disintegration of the USSR Eduard Shevardnadze became the country's head of state, inheriting a government dominated by hard-line Georgian nationalists.

There was another problem facing Shevardnadze during the 1978 demonstrations; some leading Abkhaz intellectuals were writing to Leonid Brezhnev in the hope that he would let the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic secede from Georgia and merge into the Russian SFSR.

However, with the breakdown of the Gamsakhurida government in Georgia, and efforts by Eduard Shevardnadze to delegitimize Gamsakhurdia by failing to honour agreements he signed, and Abkhaz desires to utilize the ongoing Georgian Civil War, it fell apart.

On 23 November, Shevardnadze met with the opposition leaders Mikheil Saakashvili and Zurab Zhvania to discuss the situation in a meeting arranged by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

Ivanov played a key role in mediating a deal between Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze and opposition parties during Georgia's "Rose Revolution" in 2003.

Shevardnadze also faced separatist conflicts in the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Afterwards, the Georgian military council, an interim government, was formed by a triumvirate of Jaba Ioseliani, Tengiz Kitovani and Tengiz Sigua, and, in March 1992, they invited Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet minister, to come to Georgia to assume control of the Georgian State Council.

As the first woman she has served as the acting head of state of Georgia twice; the first time from 23 November 2003 to 25 January 2004 in the wake of Eduard Shevardnadze's resignation during the Rose Revolution, and again from 25 November 2007 to 20 January 2008, when Mikheil Saakashvili stepped down to rerun in the early presidential elections.