Mariam of Georgia

Mariam ( _ka. მარიამი), also known as Maria in European sources, (April 9, 1768 – March 30, 1850) was the Queen of Georgia as the second wife and consort of the last King George XII of Georgia (reigned from 1798 to 1800).

Mariam was born at Tbilisi to Prince Giorgi Tsitsishvili, a representative of one of the preeminent noble houses of Georgia. George XII, then Heir Apparent to the Georgian throne, married her on July 13 1783 after the death of his first wife, Princess Ketevan née Andronikashvili (1782). Mariam gave birth to eight sons and three daughters:

* Michel (1783-1862)
*Jibrail (1788-1812)
*Elizbar (1790-1854)
*Joseph (died before 1798)
*Spiridon (died before 1798)
*Okropir (1795-1857)
*Svimeon (born 1796 - died in infancy)
*Irakli (1799-1859)
*Thamar (1788-1850)
*Anna (1789-1796)
*Anna (1800-1850) [cite web |url=http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Georgia/kakhet7.htm |title= Bagrationi Dynasty - Kakheti |accessdate=2007-01-06 |author= Christopher Buyers |authorlink= |coauthors= |date= |year= 2003|month= March - September |format= |work= Royal Arch|publisher= |pages= |language= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |quote= ]

When George died on December 18, 1800, Paul I of Russia, an official protector of the Kingdom of Georgia, did not allow his heir, David, to be crowned king, and abolished the Georgian monarchy, annexing the kingdom to the Russian Empire.

In 1802, the newly established Russian administration started deporting the members of Georgian royal family to Russia proper. In April 1803, the Russian commander in Georgia, Prince Pavel Tsitsianov, himself a Russified Georgian and ironically a distant relative of the Georgian queen, heard that Mariam was planning to flee to the strongholds of Khevsureti with the aid of loyal mountainous clansmen who were resolutely opposed to the Russian rule.

Tsitsianov gave orders to Major-General Ivan Petrovich Lazarev that the queen and her children should be immediately removed from Georgia under guard. The very next morning, on April 22, 1803, the Russian soldiers arrived at Queen’s mansion and Lazarev ordered Mariam to get up and be ready for departure, but the queen refused to follow him. The general then took hold of her foot, to make her rise from the cushion on which she was sitting, surrounded by her sleeping children. [Lang, page 46.] Mariam, indignant at the attempt to take her by force, drew the dagger from beneath the cushion and stabbed Lazarev, killing him on the spot. Lazarev’s interpreter drew his saber, and gave her a wound in the head, so that she fell down insensible. The soldiers burst into the bedroom and arrested the queen and her children.

Escorted by a considerable armed force, they were carried away to Russia through the Daryal Pass. During her passage through Georgia, the inhabitants came out to testify their loyalty to the queen and bade her farewell. She was kept into confinement at the Belogorodsky Convent at Voronezh until 1811 and then permitted to reside in Moscow. Little is known about Mariam’s life in Moscow, but she is known to have been regularly visited by Georgian students whom she helped financially. She died there at 82 and was interred at Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta, Georgia, with regal honors. [Lang, page 47.]

The tragic story of Queen Mariam was described in several contemporary accounts, based on the reports of eye-witnesses, and found its place in European literature of that time. [“Maria, the Last Queen of Georgia”. In: C. MacFarlane, editor (1847), "The Book of table-talk", pp. 34-39. London: C. Cox; Henningsen, Charles Frederick (1846), "Revelations of Russia in 1846", p. 350-1. London: H. Colburn.]

Notes

References

* Lang, David Marshall (1962), "A Modern History of Georgia". London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
* Papava, Tamar and Akaki (1956), მარიამ, უკანასკნელი დედოფალი საქართველოსი ("Mariam, the Last Queen of Georgia"). Buenos Aires.
* Tankov, A. (1901), Грузинская царица в Белгороде ("Georgian Queen in Belgorod"). "Istoricheskiy vestnik" № 3. [http://www.vostlit.info/Texts/Dokumenty/Kavkaz/XIX/1800-1820/Tankov/text.htm Online version] retrieved from the "Vostochnaya Literatura" project, 2008-07-11.