Princess Ketevan of Georgia

Ketevan (Georgian: ქეთევანი; 1764 – 5 July 1840) was a Georgian princess royal (batonishvili), a daughter of Heraclius II, the penultimate king of Kartli and Kakheti, and the wife of Ioann, Prince of Mukhrani. Like her sisters, Mariam and Thecla, Ketevan was a poet of some talent and wrote in the spirit of early Romanticism.

Biography

Princess Ketevan was born in 1764 in the family of Heraclius II and his third wife Darejan Dadiani. She married, c. 1781, Ioane, Prince of Mukhrani (1755–1801), a prominent military and political figure of that time.^[1] After the Georgian kingdom was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1801, Ketevan was dispossessed of a hereditary village, Karaleti, near Gori. She was suspected by the Russian commander in Georgia, Prince Pavel Tsitsianov, of being implicated in the 1804 rebellion raised by the members of the ousted royal family of Georgia. The Russian agents, further, intercepted the letters (firman) sent by the Fath Ali Shah of Persia and addressed to the Georgian dignitaries, including Ketevan's son Konstantin.^[2] As a result, Tsitsianov had Ketevan briefly arrested in 1805. During her imprisonment the princess wrote a lyric, "Alas how shall I say?" (ჰოი, ვითარ ვსთქვა), which uses Romanticist imagery to represent the collapse of the Georgian monarchy: she sees "a little cloud darkening Asia's stars, lying waste happy palaces, not letting beautiful gardens boom."^[3]

Family

Ketevan had 7 children of her marriage to Ioann, Prince of Mukhrani. These were:

• Prince Konstantin (1782–7 September 1842), the last Prince of Mukhrani and lieutenant-general in the Russian service;
• Prince Teimuraz (1784–1833);
• Prince Grigol (1787–25 February 1861), major-general in the Russian service;
• Princess Barbara (1790–24 July 1843);
• Prince David (1793–22 May 1878);
• Princess Tamar (1798–1851);
• Prince Irakli (1800–c. 1816).

Burke's Peerage's version of Ketevan's second marriage to Prince Abel Andronikashvili^[1] is not accepted as credible by more recent genealogies of the Georgian royal house.^[4]

Ancestry

Ancestors of Princess Ketevan of Georgia

16. David of Kakheti               8. Heraclius I of Kakheti                       17. Elene Diasamidze               4. Teimuraz II of Georgia                             18. Shermazan Cholokashvili               9. Ana Cholokashvili                       2. Heraclius II of Georgia                                   20. Levan of Kartli               10. Vakhtang VI of Kartli                       21. Tuta Gurieli               5. Tamar of Kartli                             22. Kelchiko of Kabarda               11. Rusudan of Kabarda                       1. Ketevan                                         24. Giorgi Lipartiani               12. Bezhan I Dadiani                       25. Sevdia Mikeladze               6. Katsia-Giorgi Dadiani                             26. Gelovani               13. Tamar Gelovani                       3. Darejan Dadiani

References

1. Montgomery, Hugh, ed. (1980). Burke's Royal Families of the World, Volume 2. London: Burke's Peerage. pp. 63, 66. ISBN 0850110297.
2. Kartveladze, Zurab (8 August 2012). ""დაუმორჩილებელი ქართული პოეზია" - ერეკლე მეფის ქალიშვილები" ["Indomitable Georgian poetry" — Daughters of King Heraclius] (in Georgian). droni.ge. Retrieved 7 April 2013.
3. Rayfield, Donald (2000). The Literature of Georgia: A History (2nd, revised ed.). Richmond, England: Curzon Press. pp. 133–134. ISBN 0 7007 1163 5.
4. Dumin, S.V., ed. (1996). Дворянские роды Российской империи. Том 3. Князья [Noble families of the Russian Empire. Volume 3: Princes] (in Russian). Moscow: Linkominvest. p. 69.