Niko Nikoladze (Georgian: ნიკო ნიკოლაძე) (27 September 1843 – 5 June 1928) was a notable Georgian writer, pro-Western enlightener, and public figure primarily known for his contributions to the development of Georgian liberal journalism and his involvement in various economic and social projects of that time. He was born in the village of Didi Jikhaishi, Imereti, western Georgia (then part of Imperial Russia) into petite noble family of Nikoladze. After the graduation from Kutaisi Gymnasium (1860), he enrolled the Faculty of Law at St Petersburg University in 1861. In the same year he was excluded from the university for taking part in student protests. After leaving St. Petersburg he went to study in Western Europe in 1864 and became the first Georgian to receive a doctorate (in law) from a European university, namely in Zurich (1868). Like many other Georgian intellectuals of that time, he followed the evolution of Russian liberals to different versions of socialism, establishing his own contacts with the Western leftist thinkers. Nikoladze was the first Georgian figure within this trend to gain position of influence in all-Russian liberalist movements. During his stay in Zurich, through Paul Lafargue he met Karl Marx, who asked Nikoladze to become the representative of the International in Transcaucasia. Nikoladze declined the offer because at that time his views were closer with the Russian revolutionary democrats, Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolay Dobrolyubov, whom he had met in St. Petersburg. While in Europe, he briefly collaborated with Aleksandr Herzen in his influential newspaper, Kolokol (The Bell), in 1865, but Nikoladze soon broke with Herzen when the latter send a reconciliatory open letter to the tsar.