Mariam Jambakur-Orbeliani

1852-1941 / public figure

In 1879 Mariam Jambakur-Orbeliani was a founding member of the Society for the Promotion of Literacy among Georgians. For 33 years she headed the Society of Women Teachers, which worked to facilitate women's employment in educational institutions and protect the rights of female teachers.

She collected money to open the first Georgian Women's School in the country. Mariam was a founding member of the Tbilisi Childcare Society. In 1917-18 she was actively involved in the founding of Tbilisi State University, whose main initiator was her relative by marriage, Ivane Javakhishvili.

After Georgia's Sovietization, Mariam, like many other women fighting for self-realization in that period, was marginalized and pushed out of social activism.