Ketevan Orbeliani
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Ketevan Orbeliani (Georgian: ქეთევან ორბელიანი; died 1750) was a Georgian princess of the House of Orbeliani. She was betrothed to Prince Heraclius, of the royal house of Kakheti and the future king of Georgia, in 1738, but the union was repudiated by Heraclius himself. Traditional genealogy considered her to have been the first wife of Heraclius until their divorce in 1744 and the mother of two of his children. More recent version, now widely accepted among the historians of Georgia, has it that Heraclius did not actually marry Princess Orbeliani, but disowned the engagement and took Ketevan, daughter of Prince Zaal Pkheidze, as his first legitimate wife in 1740.
Ketevan was born into one of the leading noble families of the Kingdom of Kartli. Her father, Prince Vakhtang Orbeliani-Qaplanishvili (born 1705), was a diplomat and writer. He had penned his experience while living in the Russian Empire (1735–1738) in his Description of Peterhof and also authored several poems. In 1738 Ketevan was betrothed to Heraclius, a prince of the royal house of Kakheti, who was then accompanying his suzerain, Nader Shah of Iran, in the Afghan campaign. The betrothal was arranged through the efforts of Heraclius's mother, Tamar, with the help of Ketevan's paternal aunt, Bangua, who was married to the influential Georgian nobleman, Givi Amilakhvari.[1][2]