Bagration-Davitashvili

The House of Bagration-Davitishvili (Georgian: ბაგრატიონ-დავითიშვილი) is a Georgian noble family, a cadet branch of the Kakhetian line of the royal Bagration dynasty. In turn, Kakhetian line descends from George VIII, last king of the united Georgian kingdom and first king of Kakheti.

Their ancestry of this line of the family traces back to the Kakhetian prince Davit whose father, Demetre, was blinded by his brother George II the Wicked after the latter killed his reigning father Alexander I, and usurped the crown in 1511.^[1]

His descendants, now named Bagration-Davitishvili, fled Kingdom of Kakheti to the neighboring Georgian Kingdom of Kartli, where they persisted as a princely family.

After the annexation of Georgia by Imperial Russia, the family, in the person of Prince Solomon Bagration-Davitashvili (1796-1859), was confirmed in princely dignity in the Russian Empire (Russian: Багратионы-Давыдовы, Bagration-Davidov or Bagration-Davidoff) on December 21, 1849.^[2]

Although in 1666, Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov officially recognized the princely dignity of the Bagration-Davydov family based on documents confirming their descent from the Georgian Royal House, this decision met with opposition. King Archil II from the Mukhrani branch of the Bagrationis, fearing the strengthening of the dynastic claims of his kinsmen to the royal throne, contested this act. The descent of the princes Davitishvili from the last legitimate king of a unified Georgia, George VIII, made them serious competitors for other offshoots of the Bagrationis who at that moment occupied the thrones of the fragmented Georgian kingdoms. This dispute led to lengthy proceedings in the Posolsky Prikaz (Ambassadorial Office). The result was the Tsar's decree of February 28, 1687, ordering the genealogy of the Princes Davydov not to be entered into the Velvet Book, which caused protests from the latter: they submitted four petitions, insisting on the "unjust" nature of the proceedings. The last known case on this matter dates back to 1691. However, later, after the abolition of the sovereign royal power of the Bagrationis in Georgia, the status of the family was reconsidered. By the Supreme decrees of the Russian Emperor Nicholas I Romanov — on December 11, 1849, August 21, 1857, and September 4, 1889 — the Bagration-Davydov family was finally recognized in the princely dignity of the Russian Empire on the basis of direct descent from the former Georgian reigning dynasty. The Russianized branch of the family was entered into Part V of the genealogy book of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, but, like their kinsmen the Princes Khokhonov-Davydovi, it became extinct in the male line. Modern genetic research on representatives of the Bagration-Davitishvili family also proves their direct male-line descent from the Bagrationi dynasty. The House of Davidishvili is also the most numerous branch of this dynasty. As a result of the extinction in the male line of the royal line of the Kakhetian Bagrations (Crown Princes of Georgia) on March 1, 2025, the House of Bagration-Davitishvili is the last and only remaining male branch, descending from the royal house of Kakheti and direct descendants of the last king of a unified Georgia, George VIII, inheriting the possibility of being called "batonishvili" (princes of royal blood), and claiming the headship of the House of Bagrationi, also inheriting the historical right to the throne of a unified Georgia on the basis of uninterrupted male-line descent from the last King of Georgia, George VIII.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]}