Ketevan ( ka, ქეთევანი; 1764 – 5 July 1840) was a

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

princess royal (''

batonishvili ''Batonishvili'' ( ka, ბატონიშვილი) (literally "a child of batoni (lord or sovereign)" in Georgian) is a title for royal princes and princesses who descend from the kings of Georgia from the Bagrationi dynasty and is suffixe ...

''), 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 Thecla ( grc, Θέκλα, ) was a saint of the early Christian Church, and a reported follower of Paul the Apostle. The earliest record of her life comes from the ancient apocryphal ''Acts of Paul and Thecla''. Church tradition The ''Acts of ...

, Ketevan was a poet of some talent and wrote in the spirit of early

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

Biography

Princess Ketevan was born in 1764 in the family of Heraclius II and his third wife

Darejan Dadiani Darejan Dadiani ( ka, დარეჯანი), also known as Daria (Georgian: ; russian: Дарья Георгиевна, Darya Georgyevna) (20 July 1738 – 8 November 1807), was List of Georgian consorts, Queen Consort of Kingdom of Kakheti, ...

. She married, c. 1781,

Ioane, Prince of Mukhrani Ioane ( ka, იოანე მუხრანბატონი, ''Ioane Mukhranbatoni'') (12 December 1755 – 1 October 1801) was a Georgian diplomat and military commander. As the head of the Mukhrani branch of the royal Bagrationi dynasty of ...

(1755–1801), a prominent military and political figure of that time. After the Georgian kingdom was annexed by the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

in 1801, Ketevan was dispossessed of a hereditary village, Karaleti, near Gori. She was suspected by the Russian commander in Georgia, Prince

Pavel Tsitsianov Prince Pavel Dmitriyevich Tsitsianov (russian: Павел Дмитриевич Цицианов), also known as Pavle Dimitris dze Tsitsishvili ( ka, პავლე ციციშვილი; —) was a Georgian nobleman and a prominent general ...

, 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 A firman ( fa, , translit=farmân; ), at the constitutional level, was a royal mandate or decree issued by a sovereign in an Islamic state. During various periods they were collected and applied as traditional bodies of law. The word firman com ...

'') sent by

Fath Ali Shah Fath-Ali Shah Qajar ( fa, فتحعلى‌شاه قاجار, Fatḥ-ʻAli Šâh Qâjâr; May 1769 – 24 October 1834) was the second Shah (king) of Qajar Iran. He reigned from 17 June 1797 until his death on 24 October 1834. His reign saw the irr ...

of Persia and addressed to the Georgian dignitaries, including Ketevan's son Konstantin. 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."

Family

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

Konstantin The first name Konstantin () is a derivation from the Latin name ''Constantinus'' (Constantine) in some European languages, such as Russian and German. As a Christian given name, it refers to the memory of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. ...

(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 Burke's Peerage Limited is a British genealogical publisher founded in 1826, when the Irish genealogist John Burke began releasing books devoted to the ancestry and heraldry of the peerage, baronetage, knightage and landed gentry of Great Br ...

's version of Ketevan's second marriage to Prince Abel Andronikashvili is not accepted as credible by more recent genealogies of the Georgian royal house.

Ancestry

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ketevan, Princess of Georgia 1764 births 1840 deaths Bagrationi dynasty of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti 19th-century poets from Georgia (country) 18th-century people from Georgia (country) 19th-century people from Georgia (country) Princesses from Georgia (country) Romantic poets Women poets from Georgia (country) 19th-century women writers from Georgia (country)