Tsereteli


The Tsereteli is a noble family in Georgia, 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 or Ossetia, who fled the Islamization of their homeland by Tamerlane and moved, through Circassia, into Christian Georgia in 1395. Constantine II, King of Imereti from 1392 to 1401, enfeoffed them of Sachkhere and conferred the dignity of prince upon them. The Tsereteli held a fiefdom in Upper Imereti called Satseretlo 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.
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 and were absorbed into the Russian nobility.

Princes of Satseretlo

c. 1380-1590 – Twelve anonymous princes
1810 to Russia; henceforth, princes Tsereteli.

Notable members