Noe Zhordania[2] (Georgian: ნოე ჟორდანია /nɔɛ ʒɔrdɑniɑ/; Russian: Ной Никола́евич Жорда́ния, romanized: Noy Nikoláevich Zhordániya; born January 15 [O.S.

2 January] 1868, to a petty landowner family living in the village of Lanchkhuti in Guria, western Georgia, then part of the Kutais Governorate of Imperial Russia.

He was given the land, where he built the Oda (Georgian: ოდა) (typical house in the region of Guria), married the daughter of Apakidze and remained there during the period 1825 to 1830.

He then moved to Tbilisi where he graduated from the Georgian Orthodox Theological Seminary, a prestigious academic institution at the time (just a few years later Josef Stalin would enter that same academy).

With Filipp Makharadze, Noe Zhordania started a close correspondence with other Georgian intellectuals, namely Silvester Dzhibladze and Egnate Ninoshvili,[5] by sending them illegal Marxist literature.

There he read Marxist literature and explored the Swiss workers and peasants' life, writing down and then sending his notes to the journal Kvali (Georgian: კვალი).

[9] In 1895, he went to Paris and studied at the Bibliothèque nationale de France for 3 months, became acquainted with Jules Guesde, Paul Lafargue and other French socialists in the meantime.

In March 1897,[5] Zhordania moved to London, England with Varlam Cherkezishvili, a known photographer, who back then lived with the Wilson family.

Aiming to buy the journal "Kvali", he would later initiate a dialogue with Anastasya Tumanishvili and Giorgi Tsereteli, the directors of the famous magazine.

[10] Having been elected as a delegate to the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1903,[9] he sided with the Menshevik faction and gained significant influence.

[9] In 1905, during the revolution, with a false passport and the fake name of "Ignatov", Zhordania arrived in St. Petersburg, where his wife and party comrade Ina Koreneva was waiting for him.

In 1907, after the murder of Ilia Chavchavadze,[11] Zhordania published article in which he wrote that Marxists nihilists do not look to the past, but, in every historical era they see progress.

At the congress, Lenin asked Zhordania not to interfere in the Russian Bolshevik's activities: in return, he offered them autonomy in domestic matters.

At this time David Sarajishvili had entrusted him to draw up his own library catalog, and gave him a cash prize, before sending him and his family to Italy for a cooperative investigation.

The tsar announced an amnesty in 1913 to mark the three hundred-year rule of the Romanov dynasty:[13] it focused on press crimes and gave Zhordania his freedom.

Meanwhile, Ina Koreneva, who led the Social Democrats in the election campaign in Baku, was banned from living in the Caucasus and moved in Moscow with her children.

Zhordania met Leon Trotsky in Vienna, in June, and published his letters regarding Bolshevik-Menshevik relations and national issues.

Benito Mussolini, at the time the editor of the Italian Social Democratic Party newspaper "Avanti", helped him to buy the tickets from Venice to Istanbul.

At the same time, Zhordania secretly met Mikheil Tsereteli, an old acquaintance, who had translated Marx's "Capital" in English and brought it to his editorial office.

Tsereteli worked with a German oriented committee, which aimed to liberate Georgia with the help of Germany and the Ottoman Empire.

His wavering position on formal secession from Bolshevist Russia ended in May 1918, when he headed a parliamentary session which declared the independent Democratic Republic of Georgia.

In addition to the national provisions, there were also included some social issues, like, for example, the eight-hour working day and rules for land confiscation.

[17] Under Noe Zhordania's leadership, the new administration established the Tbilisi State Conservatory and the Institute of Caucasian Archaeology and History in 1917.

However, when the Soviet government proposed a joint offensive against the Volunteer Army of Anton Denikin, Zhordania remarked " "I prefer the imperialists of the West to the fanatics of the East.

In three years, his government had organized a successful land reform, adopted comprehensive social and political legislation, and cultivated widespread international ties, enabling Georgia to become the only Transcaucasian nation to earn de jure[9] recognition from Soviet Russia and the Western powers.

In addition to his political treatises, when he was still in Paris, in 1930, he published the Georgian epic poem by Shota Rustaveli, "The Knight in the Panther's Skin".

In addition, he shared the view that the backward countries needed political revolution, democracy, economic development and later the transition to socialism.

To better understand the ideology of Marxism, he traveled to Switzerland, France, Germany and England, where he became part of several European socialist parties.

It posed the risk of influencing and changing Georgian revolutionary ideology " ("My past", p. 28)Unlike Georgia, Western European countries had a settled national identity already, so Zhordania could not find anything useful from their programs: it was in Poland that he was introduced to the idea of a nationalist movement.

[5] While the Social-Democratic Party did not have common understanding on the national issues, Zhordania personally did not question Georgia's independence: his vision was based only on tactical considerations.