Prince Nugzar Petres dze Bagration-Gruzinsky (Georgian: ნუგზარ პეტრეს ძე ბაგრატიონ-გრუზინსკი; 25 August 1950 – 1 March 2025) was a Georgian theatrical director and head of the princely House of Gruzinsky and represented its disputed claim to the former crown of Georgia.

Biography

Prince Nugzar was the son of Prince Petre Bagration-Gruzinsky of Georgia (1920–1984), a prominent poet and claimant to the headship of the Georgian dynasty from 1939 until his death, by his second wife, Liya Mgeladze (b. 8 August 1926). Prince Nugzar was the director of the Tbilisi theatre of cinema artists.

On 18 December 2007, Nugzar met with Kristiina Ojuland, the Vice-President of the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) at the Marriott-Tbilisi Hotel in which Ojuland "paid homage to the Bagrationi dynasty, which has made an extraordinary contribution in support of Georgia".

Prince Nugzar was the senior descendant by primogeniture in the male line of George XII, the last King of the eastern Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti to reign.

Family

Nugzar married Leila Kipiani (b. Tbilisi 16 July 1947), an actress, on 10 February 1971, and they have two daughters:

• Princess Ana Bagration-Gruzinsky, b. Tbilisi 1 November 1976. Married
  - firstly to Grigoriy Malania and had two daughters with him, Irina and Mariam Bagration-Gruzinsky, and
  - secondly, to Prince David Bagration of Mukhrani with whom she has a son, Prince Giorgi Bagrationi (see below). She became the Heiress General of the Gruzinsky branch on Nugzar's death.
• Princess Maia Bagration-Gruzinsky, b. Tbilisi 2 January 1978. She married Nikolai Chichinadze and has two children with him, Themour and Ana Chichinadze.

As Nugzar had no male issue, Yevgeny Petrovich Gruzinsky (born 1947–died 17 July 2018), the great-great grandson of Bagrat's younger brother Ilia (1791–1854), who lived in the Russian Federation, was considered to be Nugzar's heir presumptive within the primogeniture principle. Yevgeny died without issue. Nugzar himself argued in favor of having his elder daughter, Ana, designated as his heir in accordance with the Georgian dynastic law of "Zedsidzeoba" according to which every child of Princess Ana would inherit eligibility for dynastic succession through their mother, thus continuing the elder line of George XII.

Dynastic marriage of the Gruzinsky and Mukhrani heirs

Nugzar's daughter, Princess Ana, a divorced teacher and journalist with two daughters, married Prince David Bagration of Mukhrani, on 8 February 2009 at the Tbilisi Sameba Cathedral. The marriage united the Gruzinsky and Mukhrani branches of the Georgian royal family, and drew a crowd of 3,000 spectators, officials, and foreign diplomats, as well as extensive coverage by the Georgian media.

The dynastic significance of the wedding lay in the fact that, amidst the turmoil in political partisanship that has roiled Georgia since its independence in 1991, Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia publicly called for restoration of the monarchy as a path toward national unity in October 2007. Although this led some politicians and parties to entertain the notion of a Georgian constitutional monarchy, competition arose among the old dynasty's princes and supporters, as historians and jurists debated which Bagrationi has the strongest hereditary right to a throne that has been vacant for two centuries. Although some Georgian monarchists support the Gruzinsky branch's claim, others support that of the repatriated Mukhrani branch.] Both branches descend in unbroken, legitimate male line from the medieval kings of Georgia down to Constantine II of Georgia who died in 1505.

Whereas the Bagration-Mukhrani were a cadet branch of the former Royal House of Kartli, they became the genealogically senior-most line of the Bagrationi family in the early 20th century: yet the elder branch had lost the rule of Kartli by 1724. Meanwhile, the Bagration-Gruzinsky line, although junior to the Princes of Mukhrani genealogically, reigned over the Kingdom of Kakheti, re-united the two realms in the kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti in 1762, and did not lose sovereignty until Russian annexation in 1801.

Prince Giorgi, the son of David and Ana, was born on 27 September 2011 in Madrid, Spain. Nugzar did not officially recognize his grandson as heir to the Georgian throne. He continued to demand that David sign a written agreement in which he would recognize Nugzar and the Gruzinsky branch as the sole rightful heir to the Georgian throne and to the legacy of the Georgian kings.

Nevertheless, in 2013, Prince Giorgi returned to Georgia with his mother and father and was baptised by Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia at the cathedral in Mtskheta. This service was attended by Prince Nugzar, who after the christening of his grandson said:

Prince Giorgi is the direct descendant of the last king of united Georgia, George VIII of Georgia and the last king of Kartli-Kakheti George XII of Georgia through his mother's side and we have a big hope that he will get the royal dignity from his mother in the future.

Patronages

• Director of Tiflis Theatre of Cinema Artists.

Honours

• House of Bagrationi: Sovereign Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Saint Queen Ketevan the Martyr
• House of Bagrationi: Sovereign Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Saint David
• House of Bagrationi: Sovereign Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of King Erekle II

• Rwandan Royal Family: Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Royal Order of the Drum