TBILISI, Soviet Union — The singing was soft, lyrical, haunting. The words were those of one of the nation's great poets calling on the people to unite for the coming struggle. And the strong resolve was evident as the crowd grew and joined in the heartfelt singing.

Gathered before the Parliament building of the southern Soviet republic of Georgia were about 1,000 proudly nationalistic Georgians who were demanding that the army move an artillery range away from a 6th-Century monastery that they regard as an important part of their cultural heritage.

"The Soviet army is reducing our heritage to a pile of rubble," one activist, Zurab Chavchavadze, told the crowd. "And if it does, what can we as a nation say to our fathers and to our children? Now, we must take a stand. Is this our country, or does it belong to some occupying army?"

Straightforward Issues

While the speeches were impassioned, even fiery, as is customary in Georgia, the issues, on the surface, were straightforward and very typical of Soviet regional politics today:

People wanted to preserve from further damage the Davit Garedzha monastery, about 30 miles east of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. The army, after years of requests, had promised to act but apparently had reneged, shifting the target area away from the monastery complex itself but still firing as close to it as 2 miles. As the artillery shells explode, the fragile frescoes on the monastery walls crumble under the vibration.

And the republic's government, which itself had won the army's commitment to move the artillery range, was now being asked to demand that the military honor its pledge.

"Are these leaders of ours, these representatives of ours, truly Georgians?" Chavchavadze demanded. "Or are they Russian puppets?"

Dilemma for Kremlin

This was the real issue, and it reflects a dilemma facing the Soviet leadership around most of the periphery of the country in areas where non-Russian nations were incorporated, sometimes willingly but often not, in what today is the Soviet Union.

From the strife-ridden republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which border Georgia in the Caucasus Mountains, to the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, across much of Soviet Central Asia to parts of the Ukraine and Byelorussia, resurgent nationalism is challenging Soviet rule, or at least the way that they have experienced it for many years.