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Demoralised Georgia may renew itself by restoring its monarchy ![](1x1.gif)
By Gerald Warner (Aug 20, 2008)
(This article is temporarily published here pending approval of our request.)
As war-torn Georgia struggles to assert its sovereignty and redefine its identity, there is now a growing possibility that the country may have recourse to an option that has been simmering on the political agenda for the past 18 years by restoring its ancient monarchy and recalling the head of the Bagration dynasty to the throne.
Even before the Russian invasion this proposal was being canvassed within the past year. The Bagration dynasty is more than a thousand years old and was forcibly removed from the Georgian throne by Russia in 1801. The Georgian people never consented to the abolition of either their monarchy or their national sovereignty.
When the Soviet Union collapsed and Georgia declared independence, one of the earliest proposals for a constitutional settlement was the restoration of the monarchy. In 1991 the Georgian government and parliament officially recognised Prince George Bagration- ![](4520d25e0.jpg) Moukhranski, formerly well known as a racing driver, as head of the royal house. The fact that they took the trouble to do so demonstrates that the monarchy was a substantive political issue.
During the civil war and general turbulence that ensued, the monarchic question was sidelined, though it never completely disappeared. Opinion polls showed wildly fluctuating public opinion on a restoration, varying from 2 per cent support to 45 per cent (with only 29 per cent opposed).
A succession of authoritarian presidents --- Gamsakhurdia, Shevardnadze and Saakashvili --- provoked a backlash against the power of the presidency. Lately the opposition parties have adopted the slogan "Georgia without a President."
Democrats have been talking about monarchy on the British model and citing the example of ![](45167dbf0.jpg) King Juan Carlos in Spain to prove the practicability of a restoration. What brought things back to the boil, however, was a sermon preached by the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, the Patriarch Illia II, on October 7 last year, in which he publicly called for the restoration of the monarchy as the " desirable dream of the Georgian people". That led to the question being debated in parliament.
Now the situation has been radically transformed. Mikheil Saakashvili is badly discredited. The nation may, for the moment, be rallying around him as a symbol of national identity, but that effect will not last long. His was the only political party in Georgia unambiguously opposed to a restoration, but it has little credibility now. In a time of defeat and suffering people are turning to the church, which is royalist.
Georgia has no military options against Russia, its economy has been devastated, it lacks diplomatic leverage. Yet there is one politico-cultural gesture it could make to renew itself, to reassert its national identity, to unite around a non-partisan symbol, and that is to restore its monarchy. The fact that it was originally abolished by Russia would give added meaning to this act of constitutional renewal.
The acknowledged head of the royal house, the de jure King George XIV, died earlier this year; but his 32-year-old son Prince Davit could be called to the throne of his ancestors as David XIII. This could be the holistic reinvention of itself this unfortunate nation needs.
(This article was published by Telegraph.co.uk on August 20, 2008 and can be seen at: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/gerald_warner/blog/2008/08/20
/demoralised_georgia_may_renew_itself_by_restoring_its_monarchy
Royal wedding gives hope to Georgians
A prince and a princess from Georgia's ancient Bagrationi dynasty were wed in a lavish ceremony in Tbilisi on Sunday, bringing together two feuding strands of the royal house that once ruled this Caucasus nation.
Spanish-born Prince David Bagrationi-Mukhraneli, 32, and Princess Anna Bagrationi-Gruzinsky, 31, were married before hundreds of guests in Tbilisi's Trinity Cathedral as crowds of well-wishers gathered outside.
The marriage is expected to bring an end to feuding over who is the rightful heir to Georgia's centuries-old throne and to boost a campaign to transform this ex-Soviet republic into a constitutional monarchy.
The bride wore a flowing white dress and the groom was in traditional Georgian costume, with a khanjali dagger belted to his waist. Georgian flags waved in the background as the pair exchanged vows before a priest of the Georgian Orthodox Church.
Princess Anna’s father, Nugzar Bagrationi-Gruzinsky, said the wedding marked an historic day for his country. "The most important thing is that this day will be beneficial for Georgia's future," he said.
The wedding was celebrated on the day Georgians commemorate King David the Builder, who ruled from 1089 to 1125 and is revered as the country's greatest king.
"This is a double holiday as we are celebrating both King David's day and the wedding of representatives of our royal Bagrationi dynasty that was abolished by Russia," one of the guests, opposition Conservative party co-leader Zviad Dzidziguri, told journalists before the ceremony.
Claiming descent from the biblical King David, the Bagrationi dynasty ruled a large chunk of present-day Georgia from at least the 9th century until the country was absorbed into the Russian Empire in the early 19th century. A noble family in Tsarist Russia, many of the Bagrationis were scattered across Europe after the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet takeover of Georgia in 1921 following a brief period of independence. Many of those who stayed were killed or thrown into Soviet concentration camps. Various branches of the family have laid claim to the Georgian throne, with the Mukhraneli and Gruzinsky branches considered the most likely contenders.
David Bagrationi-Mukhraneli is the son of Jorge de Bagration y de Mukhrani, a prominent racing driver whose branch of the family settled in Spain after World War II. A cousin of Spain's King Juan Carlos, the father died in 2008 after settling in Tbilisi.
Despite having spent his entire life in Spain and not speaking Georgian, David settled in Tbilisi in 2003 and obtained dual citizenship. His bride, Anna Bagrationi-Gruzinsky, is the daughter of Nugzar Bagrationi-Gruzinsky, a Tbilisi theatre director. The two houses have long feuded over their claims to the throne and historians say any children from the marriage would resolve the dispute. ![](30cfa6910.jpg)
It comes as support is growing for Georgia to adopt a constitutional monarchy in place of the presidential system it adopted after gaining its independence with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. The influential patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, His Holiness Ilia II, has promoted the restoration of the monarchy and a recent phone-in survey on Georgian Public Television showed more than 40 percent of callers backed the idea. (2009: http://monarchists.blogspot.com/2008/08/georgia-may-renew-itself-by-restoring.html)
Other articles in this section:![](41db816b0.gif)
Article #12: "The Model Constitution"
Article #13: "Demoralised Georgia may renewed itself by restoring its monarchy"
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