Career
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.