page_title: Olga Guramishvili-Nikoladze
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Olga Guramishvili-Nikoladze / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Georgian biologist and educator, Olga Guramishvili-Nikoladze, and her husband, writer Niko Nikoladze.
context_page_description: Olga Guramishvili-Nikoladze was a Georgian biologist and educator. One of the first women to study abroad, she earned a degree in pedagogy and brought advanced teaching methods to Georgia. In 1886, she founded a girls' school, and later a women's gymnasium, in Didi Jikhaishi. At the school, she introduced sericulture to the country and taught her students mechanical knitting and weaving. In her later career, she served as the chair of the school board in Poti from 1894 to 1912. She is remembered for her contributions to education and a street in Tbilisi bears her name.
context_section_description: Returning to Georgia in 1875, Guramishvili began working at the boys' gymnasium operated by Iakob Gogebashvili. Initially, the other instructors opposed the hiring of a woman, but her training soon earned her admiration. Around the same time, Niko, who had been living between Paris and Tiflis since 1871, establishing and writing for a number of revolutionary periodicals, returned to Georgia. After teaching at the gymnasium for five years, Guramishvili left in 1880 and accompanied Niko when he was arrested and exiled to Stavropol, though he did not refrain from his radical publishing activities. In 1881, they relocated to Saint Petersburg, though they were unable to marry. Divorce was a difficult process in the period and required permission from the Holy Synod. Niko and Zemianskaia were formally separated in the early summer of 1883, and on 29 July, he and Guramishvili married at the Kashveti Church in Tiflis. The following year, their daughter Rusudan (1884–1981) was born in Saint Petersburg. 
  In 1886 or 1887, the family moved to Didi Jikhaishi, (sometimes known as Didi-Dzhikhaishi), in the Imereti region of western Georgia. Guramishvili opened a girls' school which introduced new teaching methods, bringing in teachers from Tiflis to help advance her ideas. One of these was Nino Tkeshelashvili, who she hired as a teacher for Russian language. The couples' other children, Giorgi (1888–1931) and Tamar (1892–1939) were born during this time. In 1894, she opened a women's gymnasium, which focused on agricultural sciences. Bringing in silk worms from Lyon, France, she taught sericulture as well as machine knitting and weaving to her students. Later that year, they moved to Poti, where Niko served as mayor until 1912. While they were living in Poti, Guramishvili continued her focus on education, serving as the chair of the school board.
  By 1916, Niko was working in Saint Petersburg, having taken a post on the board of Russkaia volia (Russian Liberty), a leading left-leaning journal. When the February Revolution began, the family immediately supported the creation of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma and both daughters began working as telephone operators for the new Soviet leadership.  In the spring, Niko and Guramishvili returned to Tiflis, where he became one of the founders of the National Democratic Party. On 5 September, Rusudan left newly-renamed Petrograd with her son to return to the family home in Didi Jikhaishi and avoid the turmoil of the revolution. She began working as a teacher at the gymnasium her mother had founded. When Georgia gained its independence in 1918, Niko became a member of the Constituent Assembly and served until 1921. When the Soviets invaded Georgia, the family moved to London for three years, before returning to Tiflis, where Niko died in 1928.
caption: Olga Guramishvili-Nikoladze and Niko Nikoladze, circa 1880
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