Alexander "Sasha" Tsulukidze (November 1, 1876 – June 8, 1905) was a Georgian

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

 social-democratic revolutionary and journalist.

Born in Khoni

Khoni

Khoni is a town in the Western Georgian region of Imereti with the population of 11,300 . It is situated on the left bank of the Tskhenistkali River in the north-west of Imereti, close to the border with the region of Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti and 266 km west of Georgia's capital Tbilisi. The town...

, western Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

), Sasha came from a prominent princely family. His father belonged to the old Imeretian noble house of Tsulukidze

Tsulukidze (family)

The Tsulukidze are a Georgian noble family, known in the western part of the country since 1451. According to a traditional account, they were elevated to a princely dignity by King George III of Imereti in 1605....

 and his mother to that of Shervashidze

Shervashidze

Shervashidze was a noble family in Abkhazia which, according to later sources, can be traced at least as far back as the twelfth century.Although this is quite clearly a Georgian form , the family is said to have derived from the Shirvanshahs, a dynasty of Shirvan in what is now Azerbaijan...

. He joined the Kutaisi

Kutaisi

Kutaisi is Georgia's second largest city and the capital of the western region of Imereti. It is 221 km to the west of Tbilisi.-Geography:...

-based Marxist organization in 1896 and became involved in underground student activities while studying in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 between 1897 and 1899. Returning to Georgia in 1899, he organized a series of workers’ strikes in Tbilisi

Tbilisi

Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

, Batumi

Batumi

Batumi is a seaside city on the Black Sea coast and capital of Adjara, an autonomous republic in southwest Georgia. Sometimes considered Georgia's second capital, with a population of 121,806 , Batumi serves as an important port and a commercial center. It is situated in a subtropical zone, rich in...

, and other towns in Georgia. He was an active proponent of Lenin’s line within the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

 structures of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...

 and energetically engaged in pro-Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

 journalism, criticizing legal Marxists

Legal Marxism

Legal Marxism was a Russian Marxist movement based on a particular interpretation of Marxist theory whose proponents were active in socialist circles between 1894 and 1901. The movement's primary theoreticians were Pyotr Struve, Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergei Bulgakov, Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky and Semyon...

, nationalists, and Mensheviks. Together with Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

, he was a leader of a Bolshevik revolutionary minority in the Georgian Marxist milieu at a time when the dominant force were the Mensheviks led by Noe Zhordania

Noe Zhordania

Noe Zhordania was a Georgian journalist and Menshevik politician. He played an eminent role in the Social Democratic revolutionary movement in Imperial Russia, and later chaired the government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia from July 24, 1918 until March 18, 1921, when the Bolshevik Soviet...

. During the Russian Revolution of 1905

Russian Revolution of 1905

The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...

, he was briefly put in the Metekhi

Metekhi

Metekhi is a historic neighborhood of Tbilisi, Georgia, located on the elevated cliff that overlooks the Mtkvari river.- History :The district was one of the earliest inhabited areas on the city’s territory...

 prison. Tsulukidze died of tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

 in Kutaisi shortly after his release. His funeral attracted thousands who followed the open coffin to his native Khoni singing the Marseillaise. In the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, Tsulukidze's native town of Khoni was known as Tsulukidze from 1936 to 1990.