6 August (24 July according to the Julian Calendar)—the feast day of Holy Righteous Princes and Passion-Bearers Boris and Gleb—marks the anniversary of the Georgievsk Treaty (1783): an agreement between King Irakli II of Kartli and Kakheti and Empress Catherine II the Great of Russia, which made Georgia a protectorate of the Russian Empire and assigned to Russia control over the kingdom’s foreign affairs.
https://imperialhouse.ru/en/allnews-en/news/2023-08-05-the-240th-anniversary-of-the-signing-of-the-treaty-of-georgievsk-1783.html#sigProId0138f4e079
Grant eternal rest in blessed repose, O Lord, to Thy servants, the Most Pious and Right-Believing Empress Catherine Alekseevna, the Most Pious King Irakli Teimurazovich, the Pious Prince Ivan Konstantinovich, the nobleman Pavel, and the nobleman Garsevan, and may their memory be eternal.
[Translator’s note: The names in this commemorative prayer are: Empress Catherine II of Russia (r. 1762-1796), King Irakli II of Georgia (r. 1762-1798), Prince Ivan Konstantinovich Bagration (1755-1801), Count Pavel Sergeevich Potemkin (1743-1796), and Prince Garsevan Revazovich Chachavadze (1757-1811).]
Text (in Russian and Georgian) of the Treaty of Georgievsk:
https://elibrary.tambovlib.ru/?ebook=9232#n=18
And in modern Russian orthography:
http://www.hist.msu.ru/ER/Etext/georgia.htm
Text (in English) of the Treaty of Georgievsk:
https://www.russianlegitimist.org/the-treaty-of-georgievsk-1783
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The House of Romanoff and the House of Bagration
The Georgian Royal House of Bagration, with which the Russian Imperial House of Romanoff became linked in the 20th century, descends, according to a venerable tradition of the Holy Church, from King David, and thus is related to our Lord, Jesus Christ.
In 150 BC, the Parthian King Valarzij gave the crown of the ancient kingdom of Armenia to one of the descendants of King David, named Bagrat.
In 298 AD, Bagrat’s descendant, King Tiridates III, converted to the Christian Faith and spread Christianity throughout the Kingdom of Armenia. The Georgian branch of the Dynasty begins with Brat, who came to Georgia in 575 AD.
The Mukhrani branch of the ruling house was formed in 1469.
Close ties between the Bagrations and Russia were established in 1564, when King Leo of Kahketi turned to Ivan IV the Terrible for protection. These good relations were formalized in 1783 with the signing of the “eternal” Treaty of Georgievsk, according to which the Georgian Kingdom, while retaining its autonomy and ancient monarchy, came under the suzerainty of the Emperors of Russia. In 1801, during the reign of the Russian Emperor Alexander I and after the death of Georgian King George XII, the independent monarchy in Georgia was abolished by Russia and the Bagration dynasty was left without a throne or political power.
Members of the Georgian Royal House did not consider this fair or legal. But, in spite of everything, and with only rare exceptions, members of all the dynastic lines of the House of Bagration were devoted and loyal to Russia and proved this by their faithful and unswerving service in the military and Imperial government over many decades.
Because there was no Law of Succession to the Throne in Georgia, the dynastic situation in the House of Bagration was and to this day remains more complicated than in those Imperial and Royal Houses where a Law on Succession exists. Although the Georgievsk Treaty of 1783 was concluded with King Irakli II, a member of the junior Kakheti line of the House of Bagration, who actually was reigning at the time of the Treaty, in a strictly dynastic sense, the senior-most branch of the Georgian Royal House down to the end of the 19th century was the line of King Vakhtang VI of Kartli (1675-1737), who was ousted by the Persians from his throne and fled to Russia (and died in Astrakhan). It was the Persians who elevated the younger Kakheti branch to the throne of Kartli, from which King Irakli II and King George XII descended. (The current male-line descendant in this line is Prince Nugzar Petrovich Bagration-Gruzinsky; this line will, however, become extinct upon Prince Nugzar’s death since he has no male offspring).
The senior direct line of King Vakhtang VI became extinct at the end of the 19th century. As a result, seniority in the Georgian Royal House of Bagration passed into the line of the Sovereign Princes of Bagration-Mukhrani.
At the beginning of the 20th century, in the highest circles of the Russian Empire, it was recognized that the question of the legal status of the Bagratid House needed to be resolved. Options for solving it were discussed at the time of the marriage of the Princess Tatiana Konstantinovna of Russia and Prince Konstantin Alexandrovich Bagration-Mukhransky. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, the bride’s father, wrote in his diary on November 30, 1910, that Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna had said to him that “they would not look on her marriage with Bagration as morganatic in view of the fact that he, like the Orléans, was a descendant of the formerly reigning Dynasty” (Iz dnevnikov Velikogo Kniazia Konstantina Konstantinovicha, ed. E. I. Matonina [Moscow, 1994]). However, no special Imperial Decree on this matter was ever issued before the Revolution of 1917. When Princess Tatiana Konstantinovna married Prince Konstantin Bagration-Mukhransky in 1911, she renounced her potential rights to the throne, as some other female members of the Russian Imperial House did before they entered into equal marriages with foreign royals (for example, the Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, Queen of Württemberg). But in itself, Princess Tatiana Konstantinovna’s renunciation says nothing about the status of the Bagrations, since similar renunciations were also signed by dynasts who entered into morganatic marriages (for example, Princess Irina Alexandrovna, Princess Yusupova, Countess Sumarokova-Elston).
It was in this state of “legal limbo” that the Bagrations found themselves at the time of the Revolution of 1917. The grandfather of the future Grand Duchess Leonida, Prince Alexander Iraklievich Bagration-Mukhransky (de jure King of Georgia) was executed by the Bolsheviks in Pyatigorsk in 1918, along with other victims.
In 1921, after the overthrow of the Menshevik government of Noah Zhordania by the Georgian Bolsheviks, the family of the Princes Bagration-Mukhransky fled abroad for the first time. In 1923, their longing for their homeland brought them back to Tiflis. At first, the royal family lived unmolested, and was even allowed to live in their ancestral palace. But very soon the oppression and arrests began. The Bagration-Mukhranskys left the USSR for the second time in 1931 with the help of Maxim Gorky, whom they had befriended and supported before the Revolution, and whom they had met in Germany during their first time living abroad.
In 1934, in Nice, Princess Leonida Georgievna married for the first time a descendant of a British gentry family, Sumner Moore Kirby, who was an American citizen. The marriage ended in divorce in 1937. This marriage and divorce did not affect in any way the dynastic status of Leonida Georgievna; she was and remained a member of the Bagration dynasty.
With the outbreak of World War II, friends helped Princess Leonida Georgievna escape from occupied France to Spain. After the war, her future husband, the Head of the Imperial House of Russia, Grand Duke Wladimir Kirillovich, also moved to Spain and resided with his mother’s sister, the Infanta Beatriz of Spain (born Princess Beatrice of Great Britain and Ireland).
About a year before the first meeting between Princess Leonida Georgievna and Grand Duke Wladimir Kirillovich, an event took place that finally put an end to the painful legal limbo that had arisen in 1801 in respect of the international dynastic status of the House of Bagration. In 1946, a member of the Spanish Royal House, H.R.H. Prince Fernando of Bavaria y Borbon, Infante of Spain, approached Grand Duke Wladimir Kirillovich about the upcoming wedding of his daughter, the Infanta Mercedes of Spain, to Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna’s brother, Prince Irakli. Infante Fernando wanted confirmation as to whether this marriage could be considered equal, and sent a request to the Head of the Imperial House of Russia—the Kingdom of Georgia having been a constituent part of the Russian Empire before the Revolution. In response, Grand Duke Wladimir Kirillovich, having studied the issue and consulted with lawyers and historians, confirmed the historical status of the dynasty that had been violated more than a century before for the sake of temporary and transient political advantage. By his Decree of December 5, 1946, he recognized the royal status of the House of Bagration:
“His Royal Highness, the Infante Don Fernando of Spain, Prince of Bavaria, asked me when his daughter, the Infanta Mercedes, was about to contract a marriage with Prince Irakli Georgievich Bagration of Mukhrani, whether, taking into account the independence of Georgia from 1918 to 1921 and the present position of its Royal Family, I could consider the proposed marriage to be an equal one.
“My reply, which was conveyed to the Infante through the intermediary of the Spanish minister in Berne, the Count de Bailen, was in the affirmative, inasmuch as, after prolonged and careful study of the history of Georgia and of the Georgian question, and after consulting my uncle His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Andrei, brother of my late Father, and my advisers, and after correspondence with the historian, Professor M. Muskelishvili, I consider it right and proper to recognize the royal status of the senior branch of the Bagration family, as well as the right of its members to bear the title of Prince of Georgia and the style of Royal Highness. The present head of the family is Prince George.
“If Almighty God, in His mercy, grants the rebirth of our great Empire, I consider it right that the Georgian language should be restored for use in the internal administration of Georgia and in her educational establishments. The Russian language should be obligatory for general use within the Empire.
“I have decided to draw up this Decree for the good of the Russian Empire and for the preservation of its territorial integrity in the future, and have deemed it right to affix my signature to it, in order to satisfy the legitimate national sentiments of the Georgian people and in the hopes of avoiding thereby a possible annexation of their fatherland by force of arms, in the event of its willful secession from the Russian Empire.”
The 1946 Decree is not only dynastic law, it is international law. It is possible that, on the basis of this Decree, it can be determined who would have the right to reign in both European monarchical states.
At a later date, Grand Duke Wladimir Kirillovich met Princess Leonida Georgievna. A strong and deep feeling of mutual love and devotion forever bound their hearts together. They were married on July 31/August 13, 1948, in Lausanne (Switzerland) in the Greek church of St. Gerasimus, since there were no Orthodox churches yet in Spain. The Imperial Couple lived in Spain and in France, where the Grand Duke had a house that he inherited from his parents in the Breton town of Saint-Briac.
On December 23, 1953, a daughter was born of this marriage: Grand Duchess Maria, the current Head of the Imperial House of Russia.
[Historical note: The title of King of Kartli and Kakheti is also often given as King of Georgia. The Kingdom of Kartli and the Kingdom of Kakheti used to be separate kingdoms ruled by different branches of the Royal House of Bagration. The genealogically senior line of the House of Bagration ruled Kartli and was overthrown by the Persians. The Kartli dynasty is today represented by the Bagration-Mukhransky line, the most senior princes of the House of Bagration. The Kakheti dynasty is today represented by the Bagration-Gruzinsky line, which is junior genealogically but which reigned until 1801. In 1762, King Irakli II of the Kakheti line became the monarch of both kingdoms. The Bagration-Mukhransky family, of the Kartli line, remained important dynasts within the combined kingdom. Irakli II’s eldest son married the daughter of the senior prince of the Bagration-Mukhransky line. The above-mentioned Prince Ivan Konstantinovich Bagration, head of the Mukhransky line, married King Irakli II’s daughter. Prince Ivan negotiated the Treaty of Georgievsk on behalf of his father-in-law, Irakli II.]