Batonishvili (Georgian:ბატონიშვილი,lit. 'a child of a lord or sovereign') is atitle for royalprinces andprincesses who descend from theKings of Georgia from theBagrationi dynasty.[1]
Batonishvili is suffixed after or before thegiven names e.g.DavidBatonishvili orBatonishvili Ioane, etc.
The title was eventually borne not only by the children of the reigning king (mepe), but by allmale-line descendants of past kings. The customary attribute or form of address for abatonishvili was "უგანათლებულესი" (uganatlebulesi) ("Most Brilliant" or "Most High").[2][3]
There were several types ofnoble in themonarchies of theCaucasus, some exercising more or lesssovereign authority at times, whose titles are prone to be confused with the title andrank of Batonishvili when translated fromGeorgian into other languages. This is partially because there were no preciseWestern equivalents for those titles, and partially because they all came to be translated by the Russian word for prince,Knyaz, asRussia increasingly dominated the region.
A list of Georgian titled families was attached to the 1783Treaty of Georgievsk between Georgia and Russia pursuant to Article IX's promise that Russia would allow those families to "...enjoy all the same privileges and advantages granted to the Russian nobility". Inexplicably, the list did not differentiate among the ranks of the families included therein (although they were apparently listed in descending order of rank). Russia eventually added all of them to theFifth Book of Nobility, wherein were already included nobles that held the title of prince but who had no claim to sovereign or quasi-sovereign rank. The first family named on the treaty's list was that ofBagrationi, to which belonged Georgia's king andagnates, but henceforth they and all of the other families were accorded the title ofKnyaz and the rank of ordinarynobleman in Russia.
In fact, members of theKartli (includingMukhranian progeny of KingVakhtang V),Kakheti, andImereti branches of theBagrationi dynasty all bore the title ofbatonishvili in Georgia and had descendants living in Russia in the 19th century. The heirs of Kakheti and Imereti had been deported to Russia after their kingdoms were annexed in 1801 and 1810 respectively. Yet at the Russian court they were allowed to bear the Russian title equivalent to Batonishvili,Tsarevich, until 1833, the year following the abortive1832 Georgian plot to restore the Georgian crown which had been led byAlexandre Batonishvili. Henceforth Georgia's royal heirs and their descendants were demoted toKnyaz, as PrinceGruzinsky and PrinceImeretinsky, respectively.