Andronikashvili

The Andronikashvili (Georgian: ანდრონიკაშვილები), sometimes known as Endronikashvili (ენდრონიკაშვილები), was a princely family in Georgia who claimed descent from emperor Andronicos I of the Eastern Roman Empire and played a prominent role in political, military and religious life of Georgia. After the Russian annexation of Georgia (1801), the Andronikashvili were confirmed in the dignity of knyaz Andronikov (Russian: Андрониковы) in 1826.

The surname Andronikashvili, meaning "children [descendants] of Andronikos", is attested in sixteenth-century documents, but oral tradition has it that the family descends from Alexios Komnenos (c. 1170–1199), the illegitimate son of the Eastern Roman emperor Andronikos I Komnenos (ruled 1183-1185) by his mistress and relative Theodora Komnene, Queen Dowager of Jerusalem. After the deposition and brutal murder of emperor Andronikos, Alexios is said to have taken refuge at the court of his relative Tamar of Georgia, who granted him an estate in the eastern Georgian province of Kakheti. Despite the fragmentary nature of this Andronikashvili pedigree, Professor Cyril Toumanoff (1976) accepted it as plausible, but evidence marshaled by Kuršankis (1977) suggests that it may be only a legend. Toumanoff has also assumed that the line of the "provincial kings" of Alastani (c. 1230—1348), known from Georgian sources and including the one named Andronike, may have belonged to the Georgian Komnenoi/Andronikashvili.

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