House of Mukhrani

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House of Mukhrani
Country: Mukhrani (Georgia)
Parent house: Bagrationi dynasty
Titles: Prince of Mukhrani
Founder: Bagrat I of Mukhrani
Final ruler: Constantine IV of Mukhrani
Current head: David Bagration of Mukhrani
Founding year: 1512
Deposition: 1801
Ethnicity: Georgian

The house of Mukhrani is a Georgian princely family, a collateral branch of the former royal dynasty of Bagrationi of which it sprung early in the 16th century, and received in appanage the domain of Mukhrani located in Kartli, central Georgia. The family has since been known as Mukhran-Batoni (Georgian: მუხრანბატონი), that is "lords (batoni) of Mukhrani".

An elder branch of the house of Mukhrani, now extinct, furnished five royal sovereigns of Kartli between 1658 and 1724. Its descendants bore the Imperial Russian noble titles of Princes of Georgia (Gruzinsky; Грузи́нский, გრუზინსკი) and Princes Bagration (Багратион, ბაგრატიონი). A younger branch, received among the princely nobility of Russia under the name of Bagration of Mukhrani (Bagration-Mukhransky; Russian: Багратион-Мухранский; Bagration-Mukhraneli, Georgian: ბაგრატიონ-მუხრანელი), still flourishes and has, since 1957, claimed to be the Royal House of Georgia by virtue of being the genealogically eldest surviving line of the Bagrationi dynasty. David Bagration of Mukhrani has been the head of this house since January 16, 2008.[1][2]

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[edit] History

Origins of the house of Mukhrani date back to 1512, when King David X of Kartli was oblidged to create his younger brother Bagrat a hereditary lord of Mukhrani in order to secure his support against encroachments from another Georgian ruler, King George II of Kakheti. Over time, the princes of Mukhrani exploited the weakness of royal authority and converted their fiefdom into an autonomous seigneury, satavado, that is "a holding of tavadi (prince)".[3] On the death without heirs of King Rostom of Kartli, his adopted son Vakhtang, Prince of Mukhrani, succeeded on the throne as King Vakhtang V in 1659 and ceded the ownership of Mukhrani to his younger brother, Constantine I, ancestor of all the subsequent Princes of Mukhrani.[4]

The descendants of Vakhtang V, the elder branch of the house of Mukhrani, retained the crown of Kartli until 1724, when the Ottoman invasion forced King Vakhtang VI of Kartli and his household into exile in Russia, without, however, renouncing their rights to the throne. They formed two lines in exile, both accepted among the ranks of Russian princely nobility, knyaz. One of these, Princes Gruzinsky ("of Georgia"), descended from Vakhang V’s son Bakar and died out in 1892. The other, Princes Bagration, descending from Vakhang V’s nephew Alexander, was made famous by Pyotr Bagration, a Russian general of the Napoleonic Wars, and became extinct in 1919. The throne of Kartli eventually passed to their distant cousins from the Bagrationi dynasty of Kakheti. This new royal house defeated all subsequent attempts by the exiled Mukhranian pretenders to reclaim the crown and, by 1762, united both Kartli and Kakheti into a single monarchy.

Constantine’s scions, the younger branch of the house of Mukhrani, chose to stay in Kartli rather than follow Vakhtang VI to Russia. They remained in possession of Mukhrani under the Kakhetian Bagrationi and continued to exercise within the united kingdom of Georgia the hereditary positions of Mayor of the Palace of Georgia and High Constable of Upper Kartli.[4] After Russia’s annexation of Georgia in 1801, Mukhrani ceased to exist as an autonomous princedom and its former rulers were confirmed as Russian princes in 1825 and 1850.[1] This line became the genealogically senior representatives of the Bagrationi dynasty as the elder branch of the house of Mukhrani had gone extinct in its male line by 1919. After the Bolshevik takeover of Georgia, the family relocated to Europe in 1930. In 1957, Prince Irakli Bagration of Mukhrani, having established himself in Spain, declared himself a head of the Royal House of Georgia, a title that has passed to his descendants and is currently held by his grandson, David who has returned to Georgia. A rival claim, based on male primogeniture descent from the last kings of Georgia, come from the members of the Bagration-Gruzinsky family, an offshoot of the Bagrationi of Kakheti.[5]

[edit] Princes of Mukhrani (1512-1801)

  • Bagrat I (1512-1539)
  • Vakhtang I (1539-1580)
  • Erekle I (1580-1605)
  • Teimuraz I (1605-1625)
  • Kaikhosro (1625-1626)
  • David I, son of Teimuraz I of Kakheti (1626-1648)
  • Vakhtang II (1648-1659)
  • Constantine I (1659-1667)
  • Teimuraz II (1667-1688)
  • Ashotan (1688-1691)
  • Papua (1691-1710)
  • Constantine II (1710)
  • Erekle II (1710-1716)
  • Levan (1716-1719)
  • David II (1719-1734)
  • Mamuka (1734-1735)
  • Constantine III (1735-1755)
  • Simon (1755-1785)
  • Ioane (1785-1800)
  • Constantine IV (1800-1801)

[edit] Heads of the Princely House (1801-Present)

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Toumanoff, Cyril (1967). Studies in Christian Caucasian History, p. 269. Georgetown University Press.
  2. ^ Toumanoff, Cyril (1949–51). The Fifteenth-Century Bagratids and the Institution of Collegial Sovereignty in Georgia. Traditio 7: 201.
  3. ^ Suny, Ronald Grigor (1994), The Making of the Georgian Nation, pp. 46-7. Indiana University Press, ISBN 0253209153.
  4. ^ a b Horan, Brien Purcell (1998), The Russian Imperial Succession. Russian Imperial Union Order. Retrieved on 2008-05-24.
  5. ^ Sainty, Guy Stair (ed.). Bagration (Georgia). Almanach de la Cour. Retrieved on 2008-05-24.
  6. ^ Buyers, Christopher (2008). The Bagration-Mukhrani dynasty. Royal Ark. Retrieved on 2008-05-24.

[edit] External links