Niko Dadiani
| Niko I Dadiani | |
|---|---|
Late 19th-century portrait of Niko Dadiani
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| Prince of Megrelia | |
| Reign | 30 August 1853 – 4 January 1867 |
| Predecessor | David Dadiani |
| Successor | Principality abolished |
| Born |
4 January 1847 Zugdidi |
| Died | 23 January 1903 (aged 56) Saint Petersburg |
| Burial | Martvili |
| Spouse | Countess Maria Alexandrovna Adlerberg |
| Issue | Ekaterina Nikolay Salomé Menik |
| Dynasty | Dadiani |
| Father | David Dadiani |
| Mother | Ekaterina Chavchavadze |
| Religion | Georgian Orthodox Church |
Nikoloz "Niko" Dadiani (Georgian: ნიკოლოზ "ნიკო" დადიანი) or Nikolay Davidovich Dadian-Mingrelsky (Russian: Николай Давидович Дадиан-Мингрельский) (4 January 1847 – 23 January 1903) was the last Prince of Mingrelia from 1853 to 1867. Of the House of Dadiani, one of the leading Georgian noble families, he succeeded on the death of his father, David Dadiani, but he never ruled in his own right; in his minority, the government was run by regency presided by his mother, Princess Ekaterina and, in 1857, Mingrelia was placed under a provisional Russian administration. In 1867, Dadiani formally abdicated the throne and Mingrelia was directly incorporated into the Russian Empire. Niko Dadiani mostly lived in St. Petersburg, being close to the court. He was an officer in the Imperial Russian Army, distinguished himself in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), and retired with the rank of major-general.
Niko Dadiani was born in Zugdidi, Mingrelia's capital, in 1847. Niko was seven years old in August 1853, when his father David died and he became Prince of Mingrelia as an autonomous subject of the Russian Empire. With the approval of Tsar Nicholas I, Niko was placed under the regency of his mother, Princess Ekaterina; the Russian bureaucrat Kornely Borozdin was assigned to him as a tutor. The regency council also included Niko's paternal uncles, Grigol and Konstantin.
The Dadiani family's luxurious life in Zugdidi was interrupted by the Crimean War, in the course of which, in 1854, the Ottoman troops advanced into Mingrelia. The Russian forces temporarily withdrew from the principality; Princess Ekaterina and Prince Niko took refuge in the mountains of Lechkhumi, at the monastery of Tsageri. After the war, in 1856, the mother and the son repaired to Moscow to attend the coronation of Tsar Alexander II and then followed the imperial family to St. Petersburg. On this occasion, Niko—enlisted at his birth as a cornet in the Life Guards Cossack regiment—he was made aide-de-camp to the Tsar and commissioned as a poruchik in the Life Guards Caucasian Squadron of His Imperial Majesty's Personal Escort.
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