Rusudan Nikoladze

Rusudana Nikolaevna Nikoladze (Georgian: რუსუდან ნიკოლაძე, 17 December 1884 – 9 September 1981) was a Georgian inorganic chemist, educator and member of the aznauri class and intelligentsia, as part of the old Georgian noble Nikoladze family.

Family and early life Nikoladze was born on 17 December 1884 in Saint Petersburg, while her parents were living in the Russian Empire after her father had been expelled to Stavropol in 1880. Her father was writer and revolutionary Niko Nikoladze (1843–1928) and her mother was Niko's second wife, biologist and educator Olga Guramishvili-Nikoladze (1855–1940), of the noble Guramishvili family. Nikoladze and her parents were permitted to return to Georgia in 1886, settling in the western village of Didi-Dzhikhaishi.

Nikoladze had three half-siblings from her fathers first marriage and two younger full siblings. He married Georgetta Gambashidze. Nikoladze's younger sister Tamara Nikoladze (1892–1939) was a graduate of the Women's Pedological Institute and married Georgian mathematician Nikoloz Muskhelishvili (1891–1976).

In 1900, the Nikoldaze family travelled to visit the Exposition Universelle in Paris, France. They later visited the French Alps in Aix-les-Bains, the Simplon Tunnel in the Alps and the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland, to teach the children about modern European engineering and science.

Career Nikoladze was educated at the Tiflis Gymnasium for Women (Pervaia Tiflisskaia zhenskaia gimnaziia) from 1898 to 1904. In 1920, Nikoldze also founded the V.I. Lenin Georgian Polytechnical Institute (now part of the Georgian Technical University) in Tbilisi with her brother Giorgi. Nikoladze additionally aimed to "preserve the family memory and transmit pre-revolutionary intellectual culture of Georgia to her son." Her archive of family papers is held at the University of Notre Dame.

Death Nikoladze died on 9 September 1981 in Tbilisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, aged 96. She is commemorated by a memorial plaque for her and her husband on Tabidze Street, Tbilisi.

Awards

Order of Lenin (1947 and 1953) Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1965) Certificate of Merit from the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (1960 and 1965) Giorgi Nikoladze Prize (1978)