Niko the Boer
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Niko the Boer was a name of Georgian Prince Niko Bagrationi (in Georgian: ნიკო ბაგრატიონი; Nikolai Bagration, Николай Багратион, in Russian) (1868-1933) under which he took part in the Second Boer War (Anglo-Boer War).
A representative of a Mukhrani line of the Bagrationi royal family, he was born in Mukhrani Castle near Tbilisi in 1868 to. He represented Georgian nobility at the Tsar Alexander III’s coronation in 1881.
In 1899, Niko the Boer (as he came to be known) was leaving the Paris Exhibition to go big-game hunting when he heard that the Anglo-Boer War had broken out. He had never heard of the Transvaal until then, 'but it felt very much like my motherland and I felt I must protect it.' The first Russian volunteer to arrive in Pretoria, he was greeted with hugs by Paul Kruger and his generals, who fancied that he would win European support for their cause. A giant of a man, he was attended by two Georgian servants who, like him, were generally taken for Cossacks. He fought bravely, was captured by the British and summoned by Lord Kitchener to explain his conduct – a memorable confrontation in which he accused Kitchener of atrocities. Exiled to St Helena, Prince Niko remained hugely cheerful among his depressed fellow prisoners, organizing sports and other activities. Returning to Russia, he showed similar courage in the face of the Bolsheviks, whom he detested, and ended his days selling cigarettes in Tbilisi marketplace, still dressed in princely garments.
His memoirs “With the Boers” (in Georgian) were published in Tbilisi in 1951.
