Tsereteli

Coat of arms of Princes Tserreteli

The House of Tsereteli (Georgian: წერეთელი), also known as Tsertelev (Russian), is a noble family in Georgia (and partly, a Russian noble family) which gave origin to several notable writers, politicians, scholars, and artists.

History

According to traditional accounts, the family's ancestors had been chieftains in Dagestan[1] or Ossetia,[2] who fled the Islamization of their homeland by Tamerlane and moved, through Circassia, into Christian Georgia in 1395. Constantine II, King of Imereti (west Georgia) from 1392 to 1401, enfeoffed them of Sachkhere and conferred the dignity of prince (tavadi) upon them. The Tsereteli held a fiefdom in Upper Imereti called Satseretlo (საწერეთლო; "of Tsereteli") with their residence at Modinakhe, and eventually turned into one of the preeminent aristocratic families in Georgia. They frequently intermarried with other Georgian noble houses and even with the branches of Bagrationi royal dynasty in both western and eastern Georgia (e.g., Prince David Tsereteli married the sister of Alexander V of Imereti in 1736, while Zurab Tsereteli married his daughter, Kethevan, to the royal prince Ioann of Georgia in 1787).

A branch of the family followed King Vakhtang VI of Kartli in his 1724 emigration to Imperial Russia, where they came to be known as Tsertelev (Russian: Цертелев, Церетели) and were absorbed into the Russian nobility.[2]

Princes of Satseretlo

c. 1380-1590 – Twelve anonymous princes

• Kveli (c. 1590-1620)
• Bezhan, son (c. 1620-39)
• Kaikhosro, son (c. 1640-60)
• Kveli, brother (c. 1660-63)
• Kveli, son of Kaikhosro (c. 1663-1710)
• Papuna, son (c. 1710-38)
• Kaikhosro, son (1738–69)
• Papuna, son (1769–90)
• Kaikhosro, son (1790–1810)

1810 to Russia; henceforth, princes (knyaz) Tsereteli.

Notable members

• Akaki Tsereteli (1840–1915), a prominent Georgian poet and public figure
• Gigi Tsereteli (born 1964), Politician and the President of OSCE PA
• Giorgi Tsereteli (1842–1900), Georgian writer and journalist
• Giorgi Tsereteli (orientalist) (1904–1973), Georgian Orientalist
• Grigol Tsereteli (1878–1938), Georgian philologist
• Irakli Tsereteli (1882–1959), Georgian Social-Democrat politician
• Mikheil Tsereteli (1878–1965), Georgian scholar, politician, and journalist
• Tamara Tsereteli (1900–1968), Georgian songstress
• Vasil Tsereteli (1862–1937), Georgian politician and physician
• Zurab Tsereteli (born 1934), modern Russo-Georgian painter and sculptor. President of the Russian Academy of Arts
• Zurab Semyonovich Tsereteli (1953–1992), Georgian footballer

References

1. (in Georgian) იოანე ბატონიშვილი (Ioane Bagrationi; 1768-1830). "წერეთელი (იმერეთის თავადნი)" (Tsereteli [Princes of Imereti]). შემოკლებით აღწერა საქართველოსა შინა მცხოვრებთა თავადთა და აზნაურთა გვარებისა (The Brief Description of the Georgian Noble Houses). Retrieved on April 12, 2007.
2. (in Russian) Церетели. Russian Biographic Lexicon. Retrieved on April 12, 2007.