Doctor of History
Associate Professor
Georgian Technical University
Tbilisi, Georgia
ORCID: 0009-0006-4175-4804
Doctor of History
Associate Professor
Georgian Technical University
Tbilisi, Georgia
ORCID: 0009-0006-4175-4804
Tamar Bagrationi - Daughter of Giorgi XIII
As is known, the abolition of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti by the Russian Empire in 1801 was followed by a strong protest from the Georgian people. They could not accept this injustice on the part of a monotheistic state, to which its last monarchs had only applied with a request for a protectorate. A series of uprisings began for the restoration of the Georgian state, in which the royal princes (Batonishvili) also participated.
One link in this resistance movement is the conspiracy of 1832, which failed to develop into an uprising due to treason. Its leaders and ideological guides were the exiled in Russia grandsons of King Erekle II (1720-1798) - Dimitri Bagrationi (1803-1845), son of royal prince Yulon and Okropir Bagrationi (1795-1857), son of Giorgi XIII, who headed the St. Petersburg and Moscow circles of the conspiracy. The spirit of these royal princes was shared by members of their family, including Dimitri's sister, royal princess Tamar (Batonishvili) (1791-1857), who was active in Tbilisi. A number of works by Georgian scientists and researchers were dedicated to her.
In the investigation materials of the conspiracy (testimonies of Solomon Dodashvili (1805-1836) another Tamar appears - the sister of Okropir. Emigré writer Tamar Papava (1888-1976) was the first researcher, who paid attention to her in her essay “A Georgian Woman and the Conspiracy of 1832” (1937). As she writes, she could not find out the name of this woman - it was not visible from the materials she had at that time.
Tamar, the daughter of Giorgi XIII (1789-1850), together with her mother, the last queen of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, Mariam Tsitsishvili (1768-1850), was a participant in the famous tragedy of April 12, 1803, which resulted in the death of General Ivan Lazarev (1763-1803). The 14-year-old daughter, together with her brother, Jibrael (1788-1812), defended the dignity of the royal family, her mother, and her own dignity with a dagger in her hand from the Russian military detachments, who were brutally carrying out their mission of deporting them to Russia.
During the journey, while crossing the Caucasus Mountains, Tamar Batonishvili's legs froze and she became lame. Until 1811, she lived with her mother in the Nativity of the Savior Convent in Belgorod, and then in Moscow. She did not marry. In 1851, returning to her homeland, which she was allowed to do after a long time, she died in Voronezh and was buried there. Then her body was brought to Georgia and buried next to her mother's grave in the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral.
Information about Tamar Bagrationi's are scattered in old and newly discovered sources. Our report is dedicated to their search and collection, as well as to the identification of Tamar's place in the conspiracy of 1832. It is noteworthy that in the famous three-volume study of the great researcher of this conspiracy - Giorgi Gozalishvili (1900-1988), Tamar, daughter of Giorgi is not separately identified and she is identified with Tamar, daughter of Yulon. We believe that the presented research will be useful for studying this important act of Georgian history, as well as the history of the royal family and Georgian society in general of the first half of the 19th century.
Keywords: Tamar- daughter of George XIII, participants of the 1832 conspiracy, royal family of Kartli-Kakheti, the exile of the royal family to Russia, sister of Okropir Bagrationi.