Nugzar Bagration-Gruzinsky

Prince Nugzar was the son of Prince Petre Bagration-Gruzinsky of Georgia (1920–1984), a prominent poet and claimant to the headship of the Georgian dynasty from 1939 until his death, by his second wife, Liya Mgeladze (b. 8 August 1926). Prince Nugzar was the director of the Tbilisi theatre of cinema artists.

On 18 December 2007, Nugzar met with Kristiina Ojuland, the Vice-President of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) at the Marriott-Tbilisi Hotel in which Ojuland "paid homage to the Bagrationi dynasty, which has made an extraordinary contribution in support of Georgia". ^[2]

Prince Nugzar was the senior descendant by primogeniture in the male line of George XII, the last King of the eastern Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti to reign.^[3]

Prince Nugzar died on 1 March 2025, at the age of 74.^[4][5]

Nugzar married Leila Kipiani (b. Tbilisi 16 July 1947), an actress, on 10 February 1971, and they have two daughters:

• Princess Ana Bagration-Gruzinsky, b. Tbilisi 1 November 1976. Married firstly to Grigoriy Malania and had two daughters with him, Irina and Mariam Bagration-Gruzinsky, and secondly, to Prince David Bagration of Mukhrani with whom she has a son, Prince Giorgi Bagrationi (see below). She became the Heiress General of the Gruzinsky branch on Nugzar's death.
• Princess Maia Bagration-Gruzinsky, b. Tbilisi 2 January 1978. She married Nikolai Chichinadze and has two children with him, Themour and Ana Chichinadze.

As Nugzar had no male issue, Yevgeny Petrovich Gruzinsky (born 1947–died 17 July 2018), the great-great grandson of Bagrat's younger brother Ilia (1791–1854), who lived in the Russian Federation, was considered to be Nugzar's heir presumptive within the primogeniture principle. Yevgeny died without issue. Nugzar himself argued in favor of having his elder daughter, Ana, designated as his heir in accordance with the Georgian dynastic law of "Zedsidzeoba" according to which every child of Princess Ana would inherit eligibility for dynastic succession through their mother, thus continuing the elder line of George XII.^{[6][user-generated source]}

Princess Ana Bagration-Gruzinski, daughter of Prince Nugzar Bagration-Gruzinski and direct descendant of King George XII, the last reigning monarch of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, married Prince David Bagration of Mukhrani, on 8 February 2009 at the Tbilisi Sameba Cathedral.^[7] The marriage united the Gruzinsky and Mukhrani branches of the Georgian royal family, and drew a crowd of 3,000 spectators, officials, and foreign diplomats, as well as extensive coverage by the Georgian media.^[8]

The dynastic significance of the wedding lay in the fact that, amidst the turmoil in political partisanship that has roiled Georgia since its independence in 1991, Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia publicly called for restoration of the monarchy as a path toward national unity in October 2007.^[9] Although this led some politicians and parties to entertain the notion of a Georgian constitutional monarchy, competition arose among the old dynasty's princes and supporters, as historians and jurists debated which Bagrationi has the strongest hereditary right to a throne that has been vacant for two centuries.^[8] Although some Georgian monarchists support the Gruzinsky branch's claim, which descends directly from the last reigning monarch of Georgia, others support the recently repatriated Mukhrani branch, a historically cadet branch.^[9] While both branches descend from the Bagrationi medieval kings of Georgia down to Constantine II of Georgia who died in 1505.,^[3] only the Gruzinsky branch maintained royal sovereignty until the Russian annexation in 1801."

Whereas the Bagration-Mukhrani were a cadet branch of the former Royal House of Kartli, they were considered the genealogically senior in the agnatic sense by the early 20th century: yet the elder branch had lost the rule of Kartli by 1724.^[3] Meanwhile, the Bagration-Gruzinsky line, although junior in terms of agnatic distance,^[3] reigned over the Kingdom of Kakheti, re-united the two realms in the kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti in 1762, and did not lose sovereignty until Russian annexation in 1801.^[10]

Prince Giorgi, the son of David and Ana, was born on 27 September 2011 in Madrid, Spain.^[11] Nugzar did not officially recognize his grandson as heir to the Georgian throne.^[12][13] He continued to demand that David sign a written agreement in which he would recognize Nugzar and the Gruzinsky branch as the sole rightful heir to the Georgian throne and to the legacy of the Georgian kings.^[14]

Nevertheless, in 2013, Prince Giorgi returned to Georgia with his mother and father and was baptised by Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia at the cathedral in Mtskheta. This service was attended by Prince Nugzar, who after the christening of his grandson said:^[15]

Prince Giorgi is the direct descendant of the last king of united Georgia, George VIII of Georgia and the last king of Kartli-Kakheti George XII of Georgia through his mother's side and we have a big hope that he will get the royal dignity from his mother in the future.

• Georgian monarchs family tree of Bagrationi dynasty