Abram "Itska" Rizhinashvili (Georgian

Georgian language

Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...

: იცკა რიჟინაშვილი‏) (April 12, 1886 – July 17, 1906) was a Georgian Jew

Georgian Jews

The Georgian Jews are from the nation of Georgia, in the Caucasus...

 from 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:...

 (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...

. He studied at the Kutaisi Real Gymnasium and became involved in the social-democratic movement. While studying at the Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

 University, he joined a local 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....

 group in 1904. Back to Georgia

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...

 in 1905, he helped propagate Marxist ideas among the army soldiers stationed in Imereti

Imereti

Imereti is a province in Georgia situated along the middle and upper reaches of the Rioni river. It consists of the following Georgian administrative-territorial units:#Kutaisi #Baghdati region#Vani region#Zestafoni region...

 and Samegrelo

Samegrelo

Samegrelo/Samargalo or Megrelia, Mingrelia is a historic province in the western part of Georgia, formerly also known as Odishi.It is inhabited by the Megrelians, an ethnic subgroup of the Georgians.-Geography and Climate:...

. He was assassinated by a Tsarist police agent in Kutaisi; Rizhinashvili was 20 years of age.

His story is described in a 1936 play by the Georgian Jewish writer Gerzel Baazov

Gerzel Baazov

Gerzel Baazov was a Georgian Jewish poet and playwright who fell victim to Stalin’s Great Purges.He was born in Oni, Georgia into the family of the leading Georgian Zionist David Baazov. At the age of 14, he published his first poems under the penname of Ger-Bi...

.