The Principality

Principality

A principality is a monarchical feudatory or sovereign state, ruled or reigned over by a monarch with the title of prince or princess, or by a monarch with another title within the generic use of the term prince....

 of Svaneti

Svaneti

Svaneti is a historic province in Georgia, in the northwestern part of the country. It is inhabited by the Svans, a geographic subgroup of the Georgians.- Geography :...

was a small principality (samtavro

Mtavari

Mtavari was a feudal title in Georgia usually translated in English as prince.The earliest instances of the use of mtavari are in the early Georgian hagiographic texts dated to the 5th century. From the 11th to the 14th centuries, the title mtavari, along with tavadi, was synonymous with eristavi,...

) in the Greater Caucasus

Greater Caucasus

Greater Caucasus , sometimes translated as "Caucasus Major", "Big Caucasus" or "Large Caucasus") is the major mountain range of the Caucasus Mountains....

 mountains that emerged following the breakup of the Kingdom of Georgia

Kingdom of Georgia

The Kingdom of Georgia was a medieval monarchy established in AD 978 by Bagrat III.It flourished during the 11th and 12th centuries, the so-called "golden age" of the history of Georgia. It fell to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, but managed to re-assert sovereignty by 1327...

 in the late 15th century. It was ruled successively by the houses of Gelovani

Gelovani

House of Gelovani - is a Georgian princely family from the lower part of the mountainous province of Svaneti, formerly - rulers of Svaneti.The family can be traced back to...

 and Dadeshkeliani

Dadeshkeliani

Dadeshkeliani or Dadishkeliani was an aristocratic family from the mountainous western Georgian province of Svaneti. They ruled the Principality of Svaneti from the 1720s to 1857....

, and was annexed to the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 in 1858.

Early history

Svaneti lies in northwestern Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

, along two broad upland valleys located to the south of Mount Elbrus

Mount Elbrus

Mount Elbrus is an inactive volcano located in the western Caucasus mountain range, in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia, Russia, near the border of Georgia. Mt. Elbrus's peak is the highest in the Caucasus, in Russia...

 – the upper Enguri River valley in the west and the upper Ts'khenis-Ts'k'ali and its tributary, the Kheladula, in the east. In the period of Georgian unity (1008-1463), it was a duchy (saeristavo

Eristavi

Eristavi was a Georgian feudal office, roughly equivalent to the Byzantine strategos and normally translated into English as "duke". In the Georgian aristocratic hierarchy, it was the title of the third rank of prince and governor of a large province...

) within the Bagratid

Bagrationi Dynasty

The Bagrationi dynasty was the ruling family of Georgia. Their ascendency lasted from the early Middle Ages until the early 19th century. In modern usage, this royal line is frequently referred to as the Georgian Bagratids, a Hellenized form of their dynastic name.The origin of the Bagrationi...

 kingdom of Georgia ruled first by the house of Vardanidze

House of Vardanisdze

The House of Vardanisdze was an aristocratic family in medieval Georgia, listed among the Great Nobles of the realm.The family is presumed to have branched off from another eminent Georgian feudal clan of the Marushisdze, a hypothesis supported by the abundance of the name Marushiani in the...

 from the late 11th to the 14th century, and then by that of Gelovani which established themselves as virtually independent princes when Georgia fragmented, in the 1460s (officially 1490/1491), into three kingdoms – Kartli, Kakheti

Kingdom of Kakheti

The Kingdom of Kakheti was a late medieval/early modern monarchy in eastern Georgia, centered at the province of Kakheti, with its capital first at Gremi and then at Telavi...

, and Imereti

Kingdom of Imereti

The Kingdom of Imereti was established in 1455 by a member of the house of Bagration when the Kingdom of Georgia was dissolved into rival kingdoms. Before that time, Imereti was considered a separate kingdom within the Kingdom of Georgia, to which a cadet branch of the Bagration royal family held...

 – and several regional principalities and feudal enclaves.

A series of Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 invasions and civil wars in western Georgia resulted in a breakdown of communications and the mountainous regions became increasingly isolated. In Svaneti, a medieval feudal system effectively collapsed and once flourishing regional Georgian Orthodox culture went in decline to the point of reversal to some pagan practices. The highlanders of Svaneti entrenched themselves in their difficultly accessible villages fortified with chains of defensive towers and were only passively involved in the turmoil that filled Georgia, leading to the relative lack of written records about Svaneti from that period. Their relations with the neighbors on the other side of the Caucasus range, chiefly Kabarda and Balkars

Balkars

The Balkars are a Turkic people of the Caucasus region, one of the titular populations of Kabardino-Balkaria. They are possibly Bulgars or are descended from them...

, were often hostile, although trade via mountainous passes and intermarriages among the noble families were also common.

Civil strife and Russian annexation

Between the 17th and 19th centuries, Svaneti fragmented into three political entities. The first, Lower Svaneti in the upper Ts'khenis-Ts'k'ali valley, dominated by the clans of Gelovani and Gardabkhadze, was gradually subjugated by the Dadiani

Dadiani

Dadiani was a Georgian family of nobles, dukes and princes, and a ruling dynasty of the western Georgian province of Samegrelo.- The House of Dadiani :...

 princes of Mingrelia

Principality of Mingrelia

The Principality of Mingrelia was a historical state in Georgia ruled by the Dadiani dynasty. Established as an independent Principality in 1557 by Levan I Dadiani as a hereditary mtavari , it remained independent until it became subject to Imperial Russia in 1803...

 and came to be known as Dadiani Svaneti. The second, Upper Svaneti, lay along the upper reaches of the Enguri river for whose control the families of Richgviani and Dadeshkeliani

Dadeshkeliani

Dadeshkeliani or Dadishkeliani was an aristocratic family from the mountainous western Georgian province of Svaneti. They ruled the Principality of Svaneti from the 1720s to 1857....

 vied. The latter clan emerged as the eventual winners by the 1720s and established their rule on the territory to the west of the Enguri, which henceforth came to be known as Dadeshkeliani Svaneti (Principality of Svaneti). The communities to the east of the Enguri seceded, however, and organized themselves into a confederation of clans which was deprived of any centralized government and was known as Free Svaneti.

In the 1820s, the Principality of Svaneti effectively split into two as a result of a blood feud between the rival Dadeshkeliani branches. Through the mediation by the princes of Mingrelia, both branches accepted nominal Russian suzerainty in 1833 as did the Free Svanetian communities in 1840. Nevertheless, they continued to run their affairs independently and did not allow Russian officials or church missions into the area until the late 1840s.

Continuing dynastic strife among the Dadishkeliani, their defiance to the Russian government, and vacillation during the Crimean War

Crimean War

The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

 (1854-1856), however, led to direct Russian intervention. In 1857, Prince Alexander Baryatinsky, Viceroy of the Caucasus

Viceroyalty of the Caucasus

The Viceroyalty of the Caucasus is a term used to denote the Imperial Russian administrative and political authority in the Caucasus region exercised through the offices of glavnoupravlyayushchiy and namestnik...

, ordered Svaneti to be subdued by armed force. The ruling prince of Svaneti, Constantine, chose to negotiate, but was ordered into exile to Erivan. On a farewell audience in Kutaisi

Kutaisi

Kutaisi is Georgia's second largest city and the capital of the western region of Imereti. It is 221 km to the west of Tbilisi.-Geography:...

, he quarreled with a local Russian administrator, Alexander Gagarin

Alexander Gagarin

Prince Alexander Ivanovich Gagarin was a Russian general and nobleman of Rurikid ancestry who was involved in the Caucasian and Crimean wars. In 1857, he served as a governor-general of Kutaisi and was killed by Constantine Dadeshkeliani, the deposed Prince of Svanetia, during a quarrel at...

, and stubbed to death him and three of his staff. When captured, Constantine was summarily tried by court martial and shot. In 1858, the principality was abolished and converted into a district administered by a Russian-appointed officer (pristav). Several members of the Dadeshekeliani family were exiled to the remote Russian provinces and those who remained in Georgia were deprived of their autonomous powers.