Niko Nikoladze

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ნიკო ნიკოლაძე
Niko Nikoladze
Born27 September 1843
Didi Jikhaishi, Imereti, Russian Empire
Died5 June 1928
OccupationWriter, thinker, statesman
NationalityGeorgian
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1883)​
Children6
Signature

Niko Nikoladze (Georgian: ნიკო ნიკოლაძე) (27 September 1843 – 5 June 1928) was a Georgian writer and public figure primarily known for his contributions to the development of Georgian liberal journalism and his involvement in various economic and social projects of that time.

Biography

Nikoladze and his family, 1902

Niko Nikoladze was born in the village of

Aleksandr Herzen in his influential newspaper, Kolokol (The Bell), in 1865, but Nikoladze soon broke with Herzen when the latter sent a reconciliatory open letter to the tsar
.

Back in his native Georgia, he became involved in national-liberation movement inspired by Georgia's most famous intellectual of that time Prince

Tiflis
. He gained almost a scandalous name by publishing his sarcastic article, "A Thought on Likhi Mountain" (1871), where he compared Tiflis to an old whore, the wide, paved avenues, parks, and theaters being just her make-up, while the markets are her blackened teeth and the cemeteries and war-devastated fields her raddled body. Nikoladze's rhetoric attacks on the representatives of the older generation, who mostly chose to serve loyally to the Russian administration, further strengthened positions of the "men of the 60s," a backbone of younger Georgian intellectuals forming an opposition to the Tsarist regime.

From 1871 to 1875, Nikoladze lived between Paris and Tbilisi, organizing several revolutionary periodicals such as Krebuli in Tbilisi (1871), Drosha in Paris (1873) and Mimokhilva in Tbilisi.[1] While he was in Paris, he married a Polish woman, Bogumila Zemaianskaia (also Bogumiła Ziemiańska), who had lived for a while in his hometown of Kutaisi. They had three children — a son who died young, and two daughters, Nino (born 1872) and Elizabeth, known as "Lolo".[2][3] He returned to Tbilisi in 1875, but was arrested for his radical publications and expelled to Stavropol in 1880.[1] Separated from Zemaianskaia, he was accompanied to Russia by Olga Guramishvili, whom he would marry after he was officially divorced in 1883.[2][3]

Despite the strong governmental censure and pressure exerted upon Nikoladze, he remained an influential and respected writer not only in Georgia, but also in Russia proper. Many of his best writings composed in Russian and French were systematically published in the European press. The climax of Nikoladze's activity was his successful negotiations in the mid-1880s with Alexander III and his government that reduced the nationwide repressions and saved Vera Figner from the gallows and Chernyshevsky from exile.[citation needed] In 1884, Nikoladze and Guramishvili were living in Saint Petersburg, where their daughter Rusudan (1884-1981) was born.[4] From 1886, he led the liberal group Meore Dasi[1] and though his family lived in Didi Jikhaishi, in the Imereti region of western Georgia,[2][3] Nikoladze served as the editor of Novoe obozrenie in Tbilisi.[1] He and Olga's other two children Giorgi [ka] (1888-1931) and Tamara (1892-1939), were born in Didi Jikhaishi.[5] Also living as part of their family was his eldest daughter Nino.[3]

As a notable public benefactor, Nikoladze was responsible for a number of social and economic projects, including the expansion of railway systems in Georgia and the construction of the Grozny-Poti pipeline. From 1894 to 1912, Nikoladze was elected a mayor of Poti. During his tenure as a mayor, he made this small portal town on Georgia's Black Sea coast an important maritime city and trading center.[6]

Soon after the 1917

Soviet Georgia
, retreating into a world of theory, preaching education and reform instead of violent revolution.

His daughters from his first marriage, Nino, married Levan Zurabishvili and Lolo married the Belgian writer and statesman, Camille Huysmans.[3] From his second marriage Rusudan became a chemist and married Russian historian Mikhail Polievktov.[7] Giorgi became a mathematician and Tamara married one of Giorgi's colleagues, Nikoloz Muskhelishvili.[5]

References

Citations

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4422-4146-6
    .
  2. ^
    OCLC 1003149930
    .
  3. ^ a b c d e ჭილაძე, თინა (2003). "ნიკოლაძეთა ოჯახის ქალები" [Women of the Nikoladze Family]. bu.org.ge (in Georgian). Tbilisi, Georgia: Tbilisi State University. Niko Nikoladze 160: Anniversary Collection, MFN: 68783, p=78-84. Archived from the original on 2 October 2019. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  4. ^ Karaulshchikov, Taras; Kinslow, Kenneth; Lyandres, Natasha (2017). "Polievktov-Nikoladze Family Papers". Hesburgh Library. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame. collection #MSE/REE 0001. Archived from the original on 11 October 2019. Retrieved 11 October 2019.
  5. ^ a b O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (September 2018). "Nikoloz Muskhelishvili". MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive. St Andrews, Fife, Scotland: School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews. Archived from the original on 11 October 2019. Retrieved 11 October 2019.
  6. S2CID 155067044
    .
  7. ^ Lyandres 2014, p. 11.

Bibliography

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