Mariam (Georgian:მარიამი) (1755 – 3 November 1828) was aGeorgian princess royal (batonishvili), daughter ofHeraclius II, the penultimateKing of Kartli and Kakheti. Like her sisters,Ketevan andThecla, Mariam was a poet of some talent and wrote in the spirit of earlyRomanticism.

Mariam was the 12th child of Heraclius II and the second daughter born of that ruler's third marriage toDarejan Dadiani. In 1777, Mariam married Prince David Tsitsishvili (1749–1792), a scion of the medieval house ofPanaskerteli and governor (mouravi) of the royal capital ofTbilisi. The couple had 7 children:^[1]

1. Prince Alexander Tsitsishvili (died before 1801).
2. Prince Evstati Tsitsishvili (1778–1828), a civil servant,mouravi ofPambak, and a close companion of his uncle,Catholicos Anton II of Georgia. He was married and had issue.
3. Prince Nikoloz Tsitsishvili (1779–?); he was married to Princess Ekaterine Tusishvili and had issue.
4. Prince Ioane Tsitsishvili (1784–c. 1835); he was married to Princess Elisabed Pavlenishvili and had issue.
5. Prince Dimitri Tsitsishvili (1790–?); he was married to Princess Avalishvili and had no issue.
6. Princess Anastasia Tsitsishvili (1782–?).
7. Princess Natalia Tsitsishvili (1786–?).

After the annexation of the Georgian kingdom by theRussian Empire in 1801, the widowed princess Mariam lived a reclusive life.^[2] Being one of the few members of the Georgian royal family to avoid deportation to Russia proper, she retired to her rural estate atKareli, part of herdowry. In 1803, the Russian authorities contemplated to give her the village of Didi Shulaveri in permanent and hereditary possession, but this was eventually ruled to be unfeasible. Instead, Mariam's son, Evstati Tsitsishvili, was granted a lifelong pension of revenues earned from that village.^[3] Mariam died at Kareli after a long illness in 1828. She was buried at theSioni Cathedral in Tbilisi.^[4]

Like several members of her family, such as her sisters—Ketevan andTekle—Mariam had a literary talent. Her friend, Princess Barbare Kobulashvili recalls that the contemporaries highly regarded her for her poetry and love for music. Her works, such as her best poem, "Alas, that the sweetness of time should turn better" (ჰოი, დამწარდეს დროთა ტკბილობა), are of earlyRomantic flavor, inspired by the loss of the native kingdom and family.^[2]

• Berge, Adolf (1868).Акты, собранные Кавказскою Археографическою коммиссиею. Т. II [Acts collected by the Caucasian Archaeographic Commission, Vol. II] (in Russian). Tiflis: Typography of the Chief Administration of the Viceroy of Caucasus.
• Kartveladze, Zurab (8 August 2012).""დაუმორჩილებელი ქართული პოეზია" - ერეკლე მეფის ქალიშვილები" ["Indomitable Georgian poetry" — Daughters of King Heraclius] (in Georgian). droni.ge. Retrieved31 March 2013.
• Rayfield, Donald (2000).The Literature of Georgia: A History (2nd, revised ed.). Richmond, England: Curzon Press.ISBN 0-7007-1163-5.

• 1755 births
• 1828 deaths
• Bagrationi dynasty of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti
• Princesses from Georgia (country)
• Women poets from Georgia (country)
• 18th-century people from Georgia (country)
• 19th-century people from Georgia (country)
• 19th-century women writers from Georgia (country)
• Daughters of kings

• CS1 uses Russian-language script (ru)
• CS1 Russian-language sources (ru)
• Articles containing Georgian-language text
• CS1 Georgian-language sources (ka)