Darejan Dadiani

She was born on July 20, 1738 in the family of Katsiya-Georgy Dadiani, the youngest son of the Mingrelian prince Bejan Dadiani and Princess Tamara, from the Gelovani clan - eristavs of Svaneti. In 1750, at the age of twelve, Darejan was married to the Kakhetian king Heraclius II. She became the third wife of the king, who had already been widowed twice. His second wife, Anna Abashidze, died a year before the wedding with Darejan. Marriage negotiations on behalf of Heraclius II were conducted by his relative, the Kartlian princess Khoreshan, the daughter of the late Kartlian king Jesse and the wife of Prince Jesse Amilahvari. The bride to the groom in Surami brought Khoreshan and Saba, Bishop of Ninotsminda. The king personally met his future wife. Wedding celebrations in Tbilisi took place at the court of the father of the groom, the Kartlian king Teymuraz II. After the death of the latter, in 1762, Heraclius II inherited his throne, uniting both East Georgian kingdoms into a single state ^[1] .

The earliest mention in the birth certificates of Darejan of a child, Princess Elena, dates back to 1753. From 1755 to 1782 she gave birth to twenty-one more children. Only thirteen of them survived to adulthood. ^[2] The queen sought to ensure succession to one of her sons, depriving this right of the rightful heir to the throne, Tsarevich George - the king’s son from his second marriage. This was the main goal of Darejan participation in state policy. In the last years of the life of Heraclius II, she gained great influence on the king. In 1791, Darejan convinced her husband to abolish the principle of birthright in favor of fraternal inheritance, according to which, after the death of Heraclius II, his eldest son, Prince George, became his heir, but after the death of George himself, the throne was to be transferred to the next living son of Irakli II at that time, and not to the offspring of the stepson Darejan. Thus, the sons of the tsarina — the princes Yulon, Vakhtang, Mirian, Alexander and Farnavaz — immediately stood in the line of succession to George. However, ascending the throne after the death of Heraclius II in 1798, Tsar George XII returned the principle of the birthright, declaring its abolition by the deceased father invalid. The latter led to a conflict between George XII and his half-brothers and Darejan herself ^{[3] [4]} .

Another reason for the tensions between the Dowager Queen and her reigning stepson was his relationship with the Russian Empire. Darejan was skeptical about rapprochement of Kartli-Kakheti with his northern neighbor since the reign of Heraclius II, especially after the Russian army, in 1795, having violated the St. George Treaty of 1783, in which it undertook to protect Kartli-Kakheti from an external threat, left the kingdom in the face of a catastrophic invasion from Iran. The Tsarina has repeatedly argued that relations with the Russian Empire did not bring the state any benefit ^[5] .

Darejan and her supporters were strongly opposed to the desire of George XII to again resort to the patronage of the Russian emperor. In 1800, one of the sons of the Dowager Queen, Tsarevich Alexander, openly opposed the half-brother of the king and tried to make a coup with the help of the Avars and Iranian allies. Relations in the royal family finally fell into disrepair when in July 1800 George XII placed his stepmother in house in Avlabari under house arrest, forcing her sons to gather all their strength around Tbilisi in order to free her mother from arrest ^[6] .

After the death of George XII in December 1800, Russian General Ivan Lazarev announced the order of Emperor Paul I to all members of the royal family, including the Dowager Queen, to refrain from declaring himself heirs to the throne ^[7] . After the death of the emperor in March 1801, Darejan appealed to his heir Emperor Alexander I with a request to recognize Tsarovich Yulon as the new king of Kartli-Kakheti and protect the widowed queen herself and her relatives from being persecuted by the eldest son of her late stepson, Tsarevich David and his supporters. However, the Russian government announced the direct annexation of the Kartli-Kakheti kingdom, thereby destroying the thousand-year rule of the Bagration ^[7] .

The Dowager Queen and her sons went into opposition to the new regime. Tsarevichi Yulon, Alexander and Farnavaz led the rebels. The occupation authorities closely monitored every Darejan trip outside Tbilisi ^[8] . Not wanting further escalation, on August 20, 1802, Emperor Alexander I ordered General Karl Knorring to deport all members of the royal family from Kartli-Kakheti to the territory of the Russian Empire. The Council of State confirmed this decision and instructed "to take all measures to transport Queen Darejan and other members of the royal family to Russia, because their presence in Georgia will always be the cause and effect (for development) of forces hostile to Russian hegemony " ^[9] . Relations Darejan with Knorring were especially tense. Once the general angered the queen, putting on a hat and coat near her house and interrupting the midday audience with the words that it was time for his vodka ^[10] .

The deportation operation was to be carried out by Knorring's successor, General Pavel Tsitsianov, a Georgian by birth. To avoid exile, Darejan affected the patient. Tsitsianov replied that no reason would delay her departure. The tsarina was also accused of "treacherous" correspondence with the enemies of the Russian Empire and the removal of the revered icon of from the church in Tbilisi. On October 25, 1803, the Russian army took Darejan from the estate of the tsarina’s grandson to Mukhrani and transferred it to Russia ^{[11] [12]} .

During the exile, Darejan was addressed as Queen Darya Georgievna. She was allowed to settle in St. Petersburg, where she lived in a rented house at the arrival of the church of Saints Simon and Anna. Later, sick Darejan was allowed to have a home church, which was lit on July 22, 1804 and closed after the Queen’s death on November 8, 1807 ^[13] . Darejan, the Dowager Queen of Georgia and the lady of the Great Cross of the Order of St. Catherine was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra ^[14] .

"Sachino" - Palace of Queen Darejan (1776) - a landmark of Tbilisi . ^{[15] [16]}

• Kobak Al., Antonov V. The abolished church in the house of the Georgian Queen Darya (Neopr.) . www.encspb.ru . - Encyclopedia St. Petersburg. Date of treatment November 5, 2018. (Russian)