Arsena Odzelashvili (Georgian: არსენა ოძელაშვილი) commonly known as Arsena of Marabda (არსენა მარაბდელი; Arsena Marabdeli) (c. 1797 – 1842) was a Georgian outlaw said to have robbed the rich to help the poor. He gained popularity as a fighter against serfdom and Russian colonial rule in Georgia.
Born in a village Marabda (hence his nickname) to a typical Georgian peasant family, he led from the 1820s a small band which moved from region to region organizing assaults on police forces and loyal landowners. Eventually he was killed in 1842 in a skirmish with a Cossack unit at Mtskheta.
His popularity has been reflected in several fictional settings, particularly in folk poetry and patriotic Georgian literature. A Soviet-era silent movie about him was shot in 1923.
References
- Arsena Marabdeli Archived 2008-04-19 at the Wayback Machine at the Dictionary of Georgian National Biography
- Bonner, John; Curtis, George William; Alden, Henry Mills; Conant, Samuel Stillman; Schuyler, Montgomery; Foord, John; Davis, Richard Harding; Schurz, Carl; Nelson, Henry Loomis; Bangs, John Kendrick; Harvey, George Brinton Mcclellan; Hapgood, Norman (1857). "Cuttings from the Garden of Eden". Harper's Weekly. 1: 73.
- Natia Amirejib, "The screen of time" p. 32 - "Arta", Tbilisi, 1990
- Arsen the Bandit, kino-teatr.ru
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