Arsena Odzelashvili commonly known as Arsena of Marabda (არსენა მარაბდელი; Arsena Marabdeli) (c. 1797 – 1842) was a Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

n outlaw

Outlaw

In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute...

 said to have robbed the rich to help the poor. He gained popularity as a fighter against serfdom

Serfdom

Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...

 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

Cossack

Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

 unit at Mtskheta

Mtskheta

Mtskheta , one of the oldest cities of the country of Georgia , is located approximately 20 kilometers north of Tbilisi at the confluence of the Aragvi and Kura rivers. The city is now the administrative centre of the Mtskheta-Mtianeti region...

.

His popularity has been reflected in several fictional settings, particularly in folk poetry and patriotic Georgian literature. A Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

-era silent movie

Silent Movie

Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...

about him was shot in 1923.