Mariam Dadiani

Mariam was the daughter of the sovereign prince Odisha (Megrelia) Manuchar I Dadiani , who ruled in 1590 - 1611 . His first wife was Nestan-Darejan Bagrationi, daughter of Tsar Kakheti Alexander II . It is known that Shah Abbas I wanted to marry Nestan-Daredjan, however, Alexander, who was categorically against this marriage, urgently married his daughter to Manuchar, the ruler of Odisha (Megrelia) ^[2] .

According to the Russian ambassadors Kuzma Sovin and Andrei Polukhanov, Manuchar married Nestan-Darejan in 1596 ^[2] . Based on this date, as well as from the information of Arcangelo Lamberti ^[3] , the historian Ilya Antelava accurately calculated the birth date of Levan, the firstborn of Manuchar and Nestan-Daredjan - 1597 ^[2] , which also became the year of death of Nestan-Daredjan ( Vakhushti Bagrationi wrote that “ Nestan-Darejan died at birth ”) ^[4] .

After mourning for Nestan-Darejan, according to Vakhushti, Manuchar married the widow of Vakhtang Gurieli and the daughter of the atabag ^[4] . Bery Egnatashvili also writes that Mariam was the daughter of the daughter of an atabag ^[5] . According to an anonymous Georgian chronicler, the mother of Mariam was called Tamar ^[5] . Based on this information, it is believed that Miriam's mother was Tamar Dzhakeli , whose son from his first marriage was Kaihosro I Gurieli ^[1] , a politician in Western Georgia who ruled in Guria in 1639 - 1658 . Manuchar and Tamar Dzhakeli had four children: Erekle, Ies, Mariam and another daughter, whose name was not preserved (in the materials of the Russian embassy in 1652, the second sister of Levan Dadiani , sent to the shah of Iran, is mentioned ^[6] ). It is not known which of the children - Ies, Erekle, Mariam or an unnamed sister - was older. If we assume that Mariam was the eldest, then the year of her birth could not have been earlier than 1599 . It is known that Mariam married Simon Gurieli in 1621, while in Georgia at that time it was forbidden to marry before age 12. With this law in mind, Mariam could not be born later than 1609 , therefore, most likely, she was born between 1599 and 1609 .

Childhood

According to Georgian tradition, noble children were given up for education by subordinate aznauras (nobles) or tavad (princes). Therefore, it can be assumed that Mariam also gave some tavad or aznaura to be brought up in a family. In the dowry list drawn up in 1634 , among other things, the following is mentioned - “ honest, well-mannered, slim as a reed ” ^[7] .

Mariam lost her father early. According to Vakhushti, in 1611, during a hunt, a herd of deer carried away and killed him ^[4] .

First marriage. Mariam and Simon Gurieli

According to one of the chronicles, in 1621, Mariam married the son of the ruler of Guria Mamia II Gurieli Simon (who later became Simon II Gurieli ). Mariam and Simon had a son, Otia. Mariam lived happily with Simon until 1625 - when Simon , who dreamed of the Gurian throne, killed his father.

Upon learning of this, Levan II Dadiani , the brother of Mariam, decided to take advantage of the situation and subjugate the principality of Guria. The decisive battle between him and Simon took place near Lanchkhuti . Levan severely punished his opponent - he gouged out his eyes, and took his sister with him to Megrelia. The owner (mtavar) of Guria Levan appointed the Catholicos of Western Georgia Malachi (Gurieli), and co-ruler of his brother Mariam by mother Kaihosro I.

After these events, for seven years, Mariam lived at her brother’s court in Zugdidi and was only engaged in the upbringing of Otia’s son.

Second marriage. Kartli

In 1632, with the permission of the Persian Shah Cephy I, the Muslim Georgian prince Rost Bagrationi ascended the Kartli throne.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Rost Bagrationi was a gifted, intelligent, but at the same time cunning and far-sighted person. At first, Rostom became the head of the Shah's guard, and then became the manager of the city of Isfahan . After Rostom took part in the coup in Iran in 1629 , the result of which was the accession to the throne of Shah Safi I , Khosro-Mirza, aka Rost Bagrationi, became the second person in the state ^[8] .

After the disobedient Teymuraz I was removed from the throne of Kartli, on November 3, 1631 , Cephy I appointed Rostom king of Kartli.

The Catholic missionary Pietro Avatabi, who was in Kartli in 1626, notes that “the new king, not yet arriving, was already dreaming of marrying his sister Dadiani, the ruler of Odisha, and did not get tired of sending a messenger for a messenger ” ^[9] .

However, at the same time, it is known from other sources that, having arrived in Kartli, Rostom married Ketevan, the daughter of Prince Gorjasp Abashishvili (from the Baratashvili clan) ^[10] , and only after the death of his first wife did he marry Mariam. Vakhushti Bagrationi writes: “ after the death of his first wife, Rostov went to Levan and he gave his sister to him as a wife ” ^[4] . Growth was afraid of Teymuraz who had taken refuge in Imereti , and wanted to enlist the support of powerful allies. It was this that caused the marriage of the Kartlian king and sister of the ruler of Megrelia. And if Rostom wanted to get Teimuraz to strengthen power in Kartli, then Levan's goal was to obtain the Imereti kingdom.

In 1633, the ruler of Megrelia sent to Kartli an embassy under the direction of Nikoloz (Nikifor) Irubakidze-Cholokashvili, which was supposed to discuss the conditions of the upcoming wedding.

The meeting between Levan and Rostom took place near the village of Bagdati , on the Kaka bridge. He advanced from Kartli with the 30,000th army and camped near the village of Otskhe . Levan also advanced with a large army and stood near the village of Sachkheidze .

Learning about this, Tsar Imereti George III decided to upset the political wedding, which was dangerous for him. The Imereti army cut the path to the Mingrelian ruler, George decided to scout the situation and approached the enemy with a small detachment, but the traitor in the retinue of George told Levan about everything and the latter captured Tsar Imereti ^[4] .

Government Activities

Immediately after the accession to Kartli, Mariam, without the knowledge of Rostom, freed Tbilisi peasants from taxes, which was at least strange to the feudal era for Kartli .

It is known that at first Mariam was categorically against marriage with an elderly Muslim, but realizing that there was no point in resisting her brother, she called the conditions for marriage equal rights in the administration of the kingdom. Due to the difficult situation when Rostom needed an alliance with Levan to save the throne, he agreed to these conditions.

Being the queen of Kartli, Mariam contributed a lot to the construction of many new churches and the restoration of old ones. Under her leadership, the most important monument of Georgian history, Kartlis Tskhovreba (The Life of Kartli), was rewritten. Tsar Rostom, being a Muslim from childhood in Persia , began to impose Iranian customs in Georgia, introduced Persian posts, introduced Persian vocabulary into Georgian , and Persian and Muslim into Georgian culture , which adversely affected the national identity of Georgians ^{[11 ]} . Despite the fact that his rule was marked by stability, tranquility, the strengthening of state power and even an economic upsurge, dissatisfaction with the government of Rostom grew in Georgian society due to the active Iranization of Kartli. One of the leaders of the opposition-minded part of society was the spiritual father of Tsarina Mariam - Catholicos Evdemoz I (Diasamidze). Without fear, he said to Rostom in person: “You are a native father to Muslims, but to Christians you are a stepfather!” In 1642, under the leadership of the Catholicos , a conspiracy against the king was organized, but the conspiracy was uncovered, the Catholicos was arrested and subsequently strangled. Nevertheless, Queen Mariam continued the work of her spiritual father regarding the preservation of Georgian culture ^[12] .

To understand the role of Mariam in political life, it is extremely important to evaluate the events after the death of Rostom. The chronicle “The Life of Kartli” created in the 18th century writes:

But Mariam refused to go to Iran and sent to the Shah the ambassador of Prince Papuna Tsitsishvili , who reported to the Shah on the death of Rostom, and gave him a letter from Mariam. The text of the letter of Mariam to the Shah is unknown, but its contents are known from the letter of Mariam to his adviser in 1658 . She asked to consider her the mother of Shakhnavaz ( Vakhtang V ), that is, to remain on the throne. From the “Life of Kartli” it is known that:

Further events are described to us by prince Vakhushti ^[4] :

Upon learning of this, the Shah granted Vakhtang a kingdom in Kartli and great gifts and treasures of Rostom and ordered that Queen Mariam be married. Having received these news, Zaal eristavi retreated to Dusheti and did not want to submit to Vakhtang and refused to be married with him too, because Zaal [before] asked Vakhtang his daughter for his son.

And it was hard for Vakhtang to marry Queen Mariam, for he was married to Rodam, the daughter of Kaplan, exalted and virtuous, but the impotent [Vakhtang] released Rodam and married Mariam.

Third marriage. Mariam and Vakhtang

In 1654, Rostom recognized his adopted son and heir to the throne of Vakhtang Bagrationi-Mukhransky. In the same year, the Tsarevich was sent to Persia , from where the Muslim Shakhnavaz, aka Vakhtang V , returned. After the death of Rostom, the Shah appointed Vakhtang king of Kartli , but he called marriage with Mariam a condition of reign. Vakhtang was forced to divorce his first wife, Rodam Orbeliani, and marry Mariam. From the documents of that time it is known that Mariam ruled the state on equal terms - in one of the documents of 1664, Mariam writes:

Mariam used her husband's ambitions for her own purposes - after the death of Levan II on March 17, 1657 , in the erupted battle for the Mingrelian throne, Mariam took the side of Liparit Dadiani, since he was the son of her brother. Prince Salipartiano Vameh Dadiani took advantage of this situation, who, with the help of King Imereti, ascended the throne a few weeks later. An attempt by the nobles of Megrelia to elevate Liparit Dadiani to the throne ended in nothing, and the latter was forced to go for help to the relatives of his grandmother: Kaihosro Gurieli and Akhaltsikhe Pasha. Then Liparit went to Gori to his aunt, where he received the Kartli army under the leadership of Prince Zaza Tsitsishvili . Allied forces entered Megrelia, and Vamekh III Dadiani was forced to flee to Imereti. Liparita was supported by both secular and religious authorities - in particular, Catholicos Illarion, but Liparit could not stay in power. Tsar Imereti Alexander III brought his troops into Megrelia and defeated the army of the Akhaltsikhe Pasha and Liparit and planted the ruler of Vamekh III. The further fate of Liparit is unknown - according to one version, he died in battle, and according to Tsarevich Vakhushti, he and Kaihosro Gurieli went to Istanbul , where he died ^[1] .

Mariam painfully received the news of Vamekh’s victory in Megrelia, but at first she couldn’t do anything - Vamekh soon became king of Imereti, and after a while he tried to capture Guria , where he was rebuffed from Kaihosro. Frightened, Vamekh violated the contract with Shakhnavaz ( Vakhtang V ), and in order to maintain power in Imereti, he urgently married his daughter there to Bezhan Gogoberidze, although under the agreement Vamekh had to marry his daughter to Vakhtang's son. The French traveler Jean Chardin writes: “ Mariam ... asked her husband to protect the interests of her relative, and return to him the throne, of which he is the rightful heir ” ^[14] .

Soon, Vakhtang invaded Megrelia and forced Vamekh to flee to Svaneti , where, on the orders of Vakhtang, the manager ( sardal-Mourav ) of Lechkhumi, Khosia Lashkhishvili, sent murderers and was soon killed.

The owner of Megrelia was another nephew of Mariam - Shamadavle, who took the name Levan III Dadiani .

Abesalom Tugushi notes that under Vakhtang Mariam not only did not move away from politics, but, on the contrary, strengthened her influence on Kartli’s policy ^[1] .

Death

Mariam died in old age and was buried with great honor in Svetitskhoveli . The exact date of her death is unknown, since the tombstone is cracked in the place where the date of death should be. The epitaph of the tombstone, which reads:

In Georgia of that century, dates were indicated by letters - accordingly, the letters that remained at the end indicated 1680 , however, according to Abesalom Tugushi, at the end there are no numbers indicating a decade and a year, and, accordingly, this date is not suitable for identifying the year of death ^[1] .

The chronicles of that time also do not give an exact date - according to the chronicle of Parsadan Gorgidzhanidze, Mariam died in 1681 . The greatest number of contemporaries and works of that time (Tsarevich Vakhushti in The History of the Kingdom of Georgia, Jesse Chkheidze in his 17th century rewritten Zhamgulani, Kartlis Tskhovreba and Zhamni of the 17th century ) is called the year of death in 1682 . In the chronicle of Gabriela Mikadze, the year of death is 1683 ^[1] .

Her son, Otia Gurieli, who was brought up at the court of Tsar Rostom , was married to the daughter of the Aragwa eristav Zaal and died in 1645/6, leaving his son Lipar (? - 1658) ^[15] .

На сегодняшний день сохранилось несколько изображений Мариам на фресках и один портрет современника карандашом. Самая ранняя фреска с изображением Мариам хранится на юго-восточной части Цаленджихского храма , надпись под фреской гласит: « Госпожа Мариам, дочь властелина Манучара » ^[1] .

В Мартвильском храме так же существует изображение женщины в дорогой короне и с маленьким сыном — которое по мнению Абесалом Тугуши является изображением Мариам ^[1] .

Третья фреска Мариам находилась на юго-восточной колонне храма Светицховели . О её существовании известно благодаря Григорию Гагарину — он зарисовал фреску и опубликовал в своём альбоме ^[16] .

Фреска Мариам Дадиани существует и в Иерусалиме — в грузинском монастыре Креста. Путешествовавший в 1775 году Тимоте Габашвили так описывает эту фреску :

В 1845 году Нико Чубинишвили перерисовал эту фреску, а в 1980 году её опубликовал Борис Канделаки ^[18] .

Портрет Мариам, исполненный католическим миссионером доном Кристофоро де Кастелли , был нарисован им в период его пребывания в Мегрелии. Известно, что когда Бежан Гиоргадзе переводил надписи Кастелли, с большим трудом удалось разобрать следующие надписи — царица Грузии и Колхида ^[19] .

В церкви Святого Георгия в селении Згудери , к северу от города Гори , на южной двери церкви имеется шестистрочная надпись, выведенная шрифтом « асомтаврули » ^[20] :