Independence Day (South Ossetia) Independence Day (South Ossetia) The Independence Day of South Ossetia (Russian:День независимости Южной Осетии) is the main state holiday in the partially recognized Republic of South Ossetia. This date is celebrated on September 20. It commemorates South Ossetia's declaration of independence from the Georgian SSR in 1990, and the country's recognition as a sovereign state by Russia in 2008. South Ossetia first declared its independence from Georgia in 1920 following the Russian Revolution in Russia. After the Soviet Army invaded Georgia in 1921, the government declared South Ossetia an autonomous region within the Georgian SSR. On September 20, 1990, the
Russia–South Ossetia relations percent of administrative buildings in Tskhinval were destroyed in the Georgian shelling of the city in 2008. On 30 August 2008, Tarzan Kokoity, the Deputy Speaker of South Ossetia's parliament, announced that the region would soon be absorbed into Russia, so that South and North Ossetians could live together in one united Russian state. Russian and South Ossetian forces began giving residents in Akhalgori, the biggest town in the predominantly ethnic Georgian eastern part of South Ossetia, the choice of accepting Russian citizenship or leaving. However, Eduard Kokoity, the then president of South Ossetia, later stated that South Ossetia would