Minadora Orjonikidze-Toroshelidze

1879-1967 / public figure

Minadora joined Marxist circles in her youth. In 1901 she began studying medicine at Geneva University. She was active in Geneva's socialist circles and supported the Russian Communist émigré newspaper Iskra. In 1905, during the rift in the South Caucasus Social Democratic Party, she became an active Menshevik. In 1918 she became a legislator and was among the signatories of the Georgian Democratic Republic's declaration of independence. In 1919 she was elected to be a member of the Georgian Democratic Republic's founding congress under the Social Democrats' party list. She was a member of the labour and public health committee.

During the Russian army's invasion in February 1921, she worked in the Georgian Red Cross. After the Bolshevik takeover, she joined an underground anti-Soviet organization. In the coming years her husband and children were killed in the repressions and Minadora herself was resettled several times. It was only in 1950 that she managed to return to Tbilisi. She was formally rehabilitated in 1956.