Maia Tsertsvadze
Associate Professor at Georgian Technical University
Tbilisi, Georgia
ORCID: 0009-0006-4175-4804
Maia Tsertsvadze
Associate Professor at Georgian Technical University
Tbilisi, Georgia
ORCID: 0009-0006-4175-4804
For the study of the conspiracy of 1832 – prince royal Dimitri’s letters to princess royal Tamar
Abstract
As is known, the conspiracy of 1832, which aimed to expel the Russian Empire from Georgia and restore Georgia's independence, was hatched in St. Petersburg in 1826-1827 in the circle of Georgian noblemen who had emigrated to Russia. First of all, we should mention prince royal (Batonishvili) Dimitri (1803-1845), grandson of King Erekle II (1720-1798), son of prince royal Yulon Batonishvili (1760-1827), who also fought for the restoration of independence of Kartl-Kakheti. He is one of the initiators and organizers of this conspiracy, the head of the St. Petersburg circle of conspirators. He gathered there Georgian youths who had come to study in Russia and confided in them the intention of rebellion. The important figure of the conspiracy is his sister princess royal (Batonishvili) Tamar (1791-1857), who was active in its Tbilisi circle and was entrusted with the overall leadership of the rebellion and, in case of victory, the temporary governing of Georgia. After issuing the conspiracy, Dimitri Batonishvili was assigned to the first category of “criminals" ("the main initiator of the conspiracy"), and Tamar - to the third category ("those who actively participated in the conspiracy and agreed with the idea of rebellion") and were exiled - Dimitri Batonishvili to Smolensk, and Tamar - to Simbirsk.
In the materials of the investigation commission of the conspiracy, the letters sent by Dimitri Batinoshvili to Tamar Batonishvili from St. Petersburg to Tbilisi in 1831-1832 are preserved. They are very important for the historiography of this conspiracy. These personal letters, written mostly in Russian, include family news, as well as other information about other conspirators in St. Petersburg or returning to Georgia from there. Of particular note is the fact that the texts of these letters contain encrypted places where code words are used, and thus they can be considered as a question of the conspiracy of the event of 1832 - the use of encrypted correspondence together with the secret alphabet and the method of secret correspondence between the Tbilisi and St. Petersburg/Moscow circles with a special stencil, so called “Frame” whose author is Dimitri Batonishvili himself is the question of its cryptographic aspect.
In the report, we will discuss these letters of the conspirators Batonishvili, will present their Georgian translations, will touch on the issue of the participation of addresser and the addressee of the letter’s in the conspiracy, the characters of the letters - conspirators and other persons, will provide biographical data about them and will try to explain the coded places. We believe that the research presented at the conference will contribute to the study of the vicissitudes of the 1832 conspiracy, as well as the public environment of Georgia in the first half of the 19th century.