List the ruling princes (mtavari) of Samegrelo from the Dadiani house, columns: name, years of rule, father, how rule ended, sources.
Asked (follow-up, summary):Correct the factual, chronological, structural and sourcing errors of the earlier report: count endings per reign period rather than per prince; fix Giorgi IV's 1704 abdication; explain why the list begins with Levan I; add Nino's 1804–1811 regency; flag the disputed dates (Levan IV, Katsia II, the 16th-century Vakhushti/Toumanoff chronology); state the 1691 Chikovani transition; name Vameq III and Bandza for Liparit III; drop invented numerals from Bezhan, Otia, Grigol and David; restore Levan I's hunting-accident death; and replace Wikipedia mirrors with Georgian, institutional or scholarly sources where available.
The table covers all 19 princes (mtavari) of Samegrelo (Odishi/Mingrelia) of the House of Dadiani, from Levan I's accession in 1533 to the abolition of the principality in 1867, broken into 26 reign segments. Two regencies (Nino, 1804–1811; Ekaterine, 1853–1857) are listed separately. Forced removals recur throughout, but the counts below distinguish reign-segment events from ruler totals. Mamia III, Levan I's father, ruled only as an eristavi and is given as context, not as one of the listed princes.
16th-century bars follow the traditional Vakhushti chronology; the Toumanoff alternative is stated in the chronology-conflicts panel below. The vertical rule at 1691 marks the break between the original Dadiani line and the Dadiani-Chikovani line. Hover or tap a bar for the full story and its source.
His father Mamia III (r. 1512–1533, with an alternative start c. 1503) ruled Odishi only as an eristavi under the Imeretian crown and never became mtavari (en.wikipedia.org). Levan I entered office in 1533 under that same eristavi/eristavt-eristavi framework and became the first Dadiani in this sequence to assert and receive sovereign mtavari status during his tenure. The transition was gradual and its dates vary: an NPLG account puts the de facto break at his 1543 refusal of royal military obligations (nplg.gov.ge); the Georgian Encyclopedia dates Ottoman recognition of Odishi's independence and his title of sovereign (ხელმწიფე) to 1557 (georgianencyclopedia.ge); the traditional narrative gives renewed Ottoman-backed recognition in 1568, and some secondary summaries say 1542 (en.wikipedia.org). 1533 is therefore the start of Levan's rule, not an uncontested date of an already-independent principality.
| Prince | Years of rule | Father | How rule ended | Source |
|---|
Nino Bagrationi-Dadiani, 1804–1811 — regent for her underage son Levan V, recognized 3 November 1804, presiding over a Russian-appointed regents council; sidelined in 1811, when Levan took full rule. mematiane.ge · nplg.gov.ge
Ekaterine Chavchavadze-Dadiani, 1853–1857 — effective regent for her son Niko, disrupted during the Crimean War; her 1857 departure and the "temporary" Russian military authority were the de facto end of the principality. Niko's titular reign nevertheless ran until his renunciation on 4 January 1867. a.osmarks.net
16th century. The table follows the traditional Vakhushti chronology. Cyril Toumanoff instead dates Giorgi III's accession to Levan I's deposition in 1546, giving him 1546–1574 and 1574–1582, and shifts Mamia IV's first accession from 1573 to 1574. reference.org
Levan I's capture is dated 1546 or 1548 (NPLG: imprisoned 1548 in the Gelati bell tower), so the table shows 1546/48. nplg.gov.ge
Levan IV's accession is given as 1680, 1681 or 1683; the Georgian NPLG biography dates his rule 1683–1691. The apparent gap after Levan III's 1680 death is a source conflict, not an interregnum. nplg.gov.ge
Otia / Katsia II. Otia died in 1757, but NPLG and the Georgian Encyclopedia date Katsia II's rule 1758–1788 — a one-year accession discrepancy shown as an uncertain transition. nplg.gov.ge · georgianencyclopedia.ge
Levan IV was the last ruler of the original Dadiani male line; the NPLG biography records that after he left for Constantinople in 1691 (dying there in 1694) the Dadiani title passed to the Chikovani family. nplg.gov.ge
Giorgi IV was born Giorgi Lipartiani, son of Katsia Chikovani; after forcing Levan IV out he assumed the Dadiani surname and founded the Dadiani-Chikovani line that ruled until 1867. en.wikipedia.org · georgianencyclopedia.ge
Several generic House-of-Dadiani summaries mistakenly call the ruler forced out in 1691 "Levan III"; the prince deposed in 1691 was Levan IV. en.wikipedia.org
Method: corrected list of the 19 Dadiani mtavari of Samegrelo, 1533–1867, encoded as 26 reign segments plus 2 regencies; rebuilt from 613 page-level evidence rows across Georgian institutional (nplg.gov.ge, georgianencyclopedia.ge, the Dadiani digital collection and its Smithsonian web archive), Georgian- and Russian-language, and secondary sources, checked February 2025 against the brief's corrections. Years are reign years; disputed dates are shown as ranges or alternatives rather than smoothed. Several English-language secondary pages derive from the same underlying Wikipedia text; Wikipedia is cited directly only where no stronger row-level source was found, and mirror sites are not cited. Per-page evidence quotations were cut for space.