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Ketevan of Kakheti (1648–1719)


Ketevan (Georgian: ქეთევანი; 1648 – 16 April 1719) was a princess (batonishvili) of the royal house of Kakheti, a kingdom in eastern Georgia. She was a daughter of Prince David of Kakheti and, by virtue of her marriages to Bagrat IV and Archil, a queen consort of Imereti, a kingdom in western Georgia (1660–1661, 1678–1679, 1690–1691, 1695–1696, and 1698), and of Kakheti (1668–75). In 1684 she accompanied her husband Archil in exile in Russia, where she was known as Tsaritsa Catherine of Imereti (Russian: Екатерина Давыдовна Имеретинская, Ekaterina Davydovna Imeretinskaya). She died in Moscow at the age of 71.

Ketevan was a daughter of Crown Prince David of Kakheti and his wife, Elene Diasamidze. She was a granddaughter of King Teimuraz I of Kakheti on her father's side and grandniece of the catholicos of the Georgian Orthodox Church Eudemus I on her mother's side. Her father was killed in a battle with the Persians and their loyal Georgian nobles the same year she was born. Ketevan was reared by her aunt, Darejan, a consort of King Alexander III of Imereti. After Alexander's death on 1 March 1660, Darejan made all efforts to bring his heir and her step-son Bagrat V under her influence, marrying him to her niece Ketevan three days after Alexander's funeral. With Darejan unwilling to give up power, the tensions rose in the royal family. The queen dowager persuaded Bagrat to divorce Ketevan and suggested to the king that he should now marry her. As Bagrat rejected the offer, he was captured and blinded on Darejan's order. Darejan then married a local nobleman, Vakhtang Tchuchunaishvili, and made him king. The coup inaugurated nearly a century of anarchy in Imereti, which left the country in ruins.


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