The House of Sharvashidze or Chachba or Shervashidze ( ka, შარვაშიძე-შერვაშიძე-ჩაჩბა) was a Georgian- Abkhazian ruling family of

Principality of Abkhazia The Principality of Abkhazia ( ka, აფხაზეთის სამთავრო, tr) emerged as a separate feudal entity in the 15th-16th centuries, amid the civil wars in the Kingdom of Georgia that concluded with the dissolution of t ...

. The family was later recognized as one of the princely families of 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 ...

at the request of King Heraclius II of Georgia in accordance with the list of Georgian noblemen presented in the Treaty of Georgievsk. Although the surname is given in a standard Georgian form (particularly, the typical –''dze'' suffix meaning "a son"), in the 12th century the family is said to have derived its original name from

Shirvanshah ''Shirvanshah'' ( fa, شروانشاه), also spelled as ''Shīrwān Shāh'' or ''Sharwān Shāh'', was the title of the rulers of Shirvan from the mid-9th century to the early 16th century. The title remained in a single family, the Yazidids, ...

s, a dynasty of

Shirvan Shirvan (from fa, شروان, translit=Shirvān; az, Şirvan; Tat: ''Şirvan''), also spelled as Sharvān, Shirwan, Shervan, Sherwan and Šervān, is a historical Iranian region in the eastern Caucasus, known by this name in both pre-Islam ...

. According to the medieval '' The Georgian Chronicles'', the Shirvanese princes were granted the possessions in the province of Abkhazia after David IV, one of Georgia's greatest kings, extended his kingdom to Shirvan in 1124 . Anchabadze disputes this genealogy and argues that Sharvashidze was a local dynasty (they had another purely Abkhazian name Chachba) that had invented a foreign ancestry which is not unusual in feudal genealogies. It is believed by some that the princely (ruling) branch of the Sharvashidze family had the same patrilineal ancestors as the Anchabadzes. The first representative of the dynasty assumed the princely powers under the authority of the Georgian kings circa 1325. It was not, however, until the final decomposition of the unified Georgian feudal state in the late 15th century, when the Abkhazian princes obtained their full independence, only to soon become vassals of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

. That Turkish overlordship brought major changes in their palace culture and political leanings, with the Sharvashidze gradually losing their ties with the

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

Georgian nobility. In the late 18th century, the Sharvashidze princes embraced

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...

, but shifted back and forth across the religious divide, as the

Russians , native_name_lang = ru , image = , caption = , population = , popplace = 118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 '' Winkler Prins'' estimate) , region1 = , pop1 ...

and Ottomans struggled for controlling the area. The pro-Russian orientation prevailed, and Abkhazia joined

Imperial Russia 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. The ...

in 1810 while the Sharvashidzes (russian: Шарвашидзе) were confirmed in the Russian princely rank in accordance with the Russo-Georgian Treaty of Georgievsk. Today, Sefer-Ali Bey descendants of the family live in

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

and United States, where they emigrated after the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. According to Nikoloz/Nicolas Sharvashidze (Head descendant of Aslan-Bey) the elder descendants of the Aslan-Bey branch of the family live in Georgia, while the junior branch is said to have gone extinct in Turkey.Archived a
Ghostarchive
and th
Wayback Machine

References

Sources

* Georgi M. Derluguian, ''The Tale of Two Resorts: Abkhazia and Ajaria Before and Since and the Soviet Collapse''. In:
The Myth of "Ethnic Conflict"
Politics, Economics, and "Cultural" Violence'', edited by Beverly Crawford and Ronnie D. Lipschutz.

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, University of Califor ...

Press/University of California International and Area Studies Digital Collection, Edited Volume #98, pp. 261–292, 1998
The Oath of Allegiance of Prince Sefer-Ali Bek to the Russian crown, August 23 1810 (text)
*{{in lang, ru

Noble families of Georgia (country) Russian noble families Georgian-language surnames Abkhazian nobility

See also

References

Sources