Droeba was an influential Georgian

Georgian language

Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...

 political and cultural newspaper published in Tiflis from 1866 to 1885.

Droeba first came out in Tiflis, the capital of the Russian Caucasus

Viceroyalty of the Caucasus

The Viceroyalty of the Caucasus is a term used to denote the Imperial Russian administrative and political authority in the Caucasus region exercised through the offices of glavnoupravlyayushchiy and namestnik...

, on March 4, 1866, to be published thrice weekly and then daily from 1877.

The paper was published by S. Melikishvili from 1866 to 1882 and then by Giorgi Kartvelishvili

Giorgi Kartvelishvili

Giorgi Kartvelishvili was a Georgian public figure, philanthropist, publisher and businessman.Kartvelishvili owned a fishing and timber manufacturing enterprises in Georgia's Shida Kartli province and ran a sizable trading business...

 from 1882 to 1885. At various times, it was edited by leading Georgian intellectuals, including Ilia Chavchavadze and Ivane Machabeli

Ivane Machabeli

Prince Ivane Machabeli was a Georgian writer, journalist and public figure known for his resonant translations of Shakespeare....

. The newspaper, in which most major Georgian writers, journalists and social activists of that time were published, was an energetic promoter of the Georgian national idea. The younger radical Georgian literati used the pages of droeba to introduce their readers to the ideas of progressive liberal thinkers like John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...

 and "utopian socialists

Utopian socialism

Utopian socialism is a term used to define the first currents of modern socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen which inspired Karl Marx and other early socialists and were looked on favorably...

" like Robert Owen

Robert Owen

Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...

, Saint-Simon

Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon

Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon was a French early socialist theorist whose thought influenced the foundations of various 19th century philosophies; perhaps most notably Marxism, positivism and the discipline of sociology...

, Charles Fourier

Charles Fourier

François Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become main currents in modern society...

, Pierre Proudhon, and Louis Blanc

Louis Blanc

Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc was a French politician and historian. A socialist who favored reforms, he called for the creation of cooperatives in order to guarantee employment for the urban poor....

. Thus, it became more closely associated with the new generation of the Georgian national movement, known as meore dasi ("the second group") and led by Niko Nikoladze

Niko Nikoladze

Niko Nikoladze was a notable Georgian publicist, 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...

, which sought widely for a program of various forms of capitalism

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

 and Westernization

Western world

The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...

. The division of the Georgian intellectuals over the issues related to financial and economical projects was also reflected on the pages of droeba. This was one reason for Ilia Chavchavadze to leave the editorial board of droeba and found his own newspaper iveria. The newspaper was closed on the order of the Russian viceroy Alexander Dondukov-Korsakov on September 16, 1885.