Prince David of Georgia
David Bagrationi, also known as David the Regent , was a Georgian royal prince, writer, scholar, and regent of the Kingdom of Kartl-Kakheti from 28 December 1800 to 18 January 1801.
The eldest son of the last Kartli-Kakhetian, King George XII by his first wife Ketevan Andronikashvili, he was educated in Russia, and served there as a colonel of the Russian army from 1797 to 1798. He was proclaimed as Heir Apparent by his father on 22 February 1799 and confirmed by the Russian Tsar Paul I, an official protector of Georgia, on 18 April 1799. In 1800, he attempted to modernize the law and administration. He became a lieutenant general the same year.
On his father's death in December 1800, David became the head of the Royal House of Bagrationi but was not allowed to ascend the throne of Kartli-Kakheti. David ruled briefly between the time of his father's death and the arrival of General Knorring. In November 1800 the Russian Tsar had prohibited him from doing that without Russian consent. On 18 January 1801, he was surprised by a decree of Paul I declaring the annexation of the Kingdom to the Russian Empire. He tried to remain in power as de facto head of state. In May 1801, Russian General Karl Knorring removed him from power and established a provisional government headed by General Ivan Petrovich Lasarev. Prince David was brought to St Petersburg under a military escort on 18 February 1803. From 1812 to 1819, he held a seat in the Senate of the Russian Empire.
He married in 1800 Princess Elene Abamelik, and died childless in 1819. He was buried at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.
Influenced by the ideas of French Enlightenment, he was the first Georgian translator of Voltaire. He was also an author of a research on Georgian history, Review of the Georgian Law, Abridged Manual of Physics, and several poems.
Ancestry
Literature
- Takaishvili, E. Chronological list written by Davit Batonishvili, son of King Giorgi. . Vol., 1912, p. 54-55;
- Georgian Soviet Encyclopedia, Vol., ch., 1978. — p. 338.
- Sikharulidze F., Potskhishvili A., Encyclopedia "Georgia", vol. 2, ch., 2012. — p. 279.
Category:Male writers from Georgia
Category:19th-century historians from Georgia
Category:Bagrationi dynasty of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti
David Bagrationi
Category:1767 births
Category:1819 deaths
Category:Writers from Tbilisi
Category:Regents of Georgia
Category:Imperial Russian Army generals
Category:Georgian lieutenant generals in the Imperial Russian Army
Category:18th-century regents
Category:19th-century regents
Category:18th-century historians from Georgia
Category:Heirs apparent of Georgia who never acceded
Category:Burials at the Feodorovskaya Church of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra