Nugzar Bagration-Gruzinsky | |
---|---|
Head of the Royal House of Georgia (disputed) | |
Tenure | 1984 - present |
Predecessor | Petre Gruzinsky |
Born | Tbilisi, Georgia | 22 February 1944
Spouse | Leila Kipiani |
Issue | Anna Bagration-Gruzinsky Maia Bagration-Gruzinsky |
House | Bagrationi |
Father | Petre Gruzinsky |
Mother | Lia Mgeladze |
Religion | Georgian Orthodox Church |
Nugzar Bagration-Gruzinsky (Georgian: ბატონიშვილი ნუგზარი) (born August 25, 1950, in Tbilisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic) is the head of the deposed royal House of Gruzinsky and represents its claim to the former crown of Georgia.
Prince Nugzar is the son of Prince Petre Bagration-Gruzinsky of Georgia (1920–1984), a prominent poet and claimant to the headship of the Georgian dynasty from 1939 until his death, and his second wife Liya Mgeladze (b. 8 August 1926). Prince Nugzar is the director of the Tbilisi theatre of cinema artists.
On 18 December 2007, Nugzar met with Kristiina Ojuland, the Vice-President of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) at the Mariott-Tbilisi Hotel in which Ojuland "paid homage to the Bagrationi dynasty, which has made an extraordinary contribution in support of Georgia".[1] [2]
Prince Nugzar is the senior descendant by primogeniture in the male line of George XII, the last King of Georgia (Kartli and Kakheti) to reign.[3]
Nugzar married actress Leila Kipiani (b. Tbilisi July 16, 1947) on February 10, 1971, and they have two daughters:
As Nugzar has no male issue, Evgeny Petrovich Gruzinsky (born 1947), the great-great grandson of Bagrat's younger brother Ilia (1791–1854), who lives in the Russian Federation, is considered to be an heir presumptive within primogeniture principle.[4] Nugzar himself argues in favor of having his eldest daughter, Anna, designated as his heir recognized to be in accordance with the Georgian dynastic law of "Zedsidzeoba" by which every child born from Princess Anna will inherit the royal dignity from mother's side thus will continue the royal line.[5]
Nugzar's daughter, Princess Anna, a divorced teacher and journalist with two daughters, married Prince David Bagration of Mukhrani, on 8 February 2009 at the Tbilisi Sameba Cathedral.[6] The marriage united the Gruzinsky and Mukhrani branches of the Georgian royal family, and drew a crowd of 3,000 spectators, officials, and foreign diplomats, as well as extensive coverage by the Georgian media.[7]
The dynastic significance of the wedding lay in the fact that, amidst the turmoil in political partisanship that has roiled Georgia since its independence in 1991, Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia publicly called for restoration of the monarchy as a path toward national unity in October 2007.[8] Although this led some politicians and parties to entertain the notion of a Georgian constitutional monarchy, competition arose among the old dynasty's princes and supporters, as historians and jurists debated which Bagrationi has the strongest hereditary right to a throne that has been vacant for two centuries.[7] Although some Georgian monarchists support the Gruzinsky branch's claim, others support that of the re-patriated Mukhrani branch.[8] Both branches descend in unbroken, legitimate male line from the medieval kings of Georgia down to Constantine II of Georgia who died in 1505.
Whereas the Bagration-Mukhrani were a cadet branch of the former Royal House of Kartli, they became the genealogically seniormost line of the Bagrationi family in the early 20th century: yet the elder branch had lost the rule of Kartli by 1724.[3] Meanwhile, the Bagration-Gruzinsky line, although junior to the Princes of Mukhrani genealogically,[3] reigned over the kingdom of Kakheti, re-united the two realms in the kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti in 1762, and did not lose sovereignty until Russian annexation in 1800.[9]
Prince Giorgi, the son of David and Anna, was born on September 27, 2011 in Madrid, Spain.[10] Currently Nugzar does not officially recognize his grandson as heir to the Georgian throne.[11][12] He continues to demand David to sign a written agreement where he would recognize Nugzar and the Gruzinsky branch as the sole rightful heir to the Georgian throne and to the legacy of the Georgian kings.[13]
In 2013, Prince Giorgi returned to Georgia with his mother and father and was baptised by Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia at the royal cathedral in Mtskheta. This service was attended by Prince Nugzar, who after the christening of his grandson said:[14]
Prince Giorgi is the direct descendant of the last king of united Georgia, George VIII of Georgia and the last king of Kartli-Kakheti George XII of Georgia through his mother's side and we have a big hope that he will get the royal dignity from his mother in the future.