Prince Mirian of Georgia

Mirian was born in 1767 into the family of Heraclius II, King of Kartli and Kakheti and his third wife Darejan née Princess Dadiani.

Arriving at home, he found Heraclius dead and his family descending into a dynastic crisis as his mother, Queen Dowager Darejan, insisted that Heraclius's successor and her step-son, George XII, remained pursuant to the late ruler's 1791 testament, requiring the king's successor to pass the throne not to his offspring, but to his eldest brother.

[2][6][5] During his years in St. Petersburg, Mirian translated from Russian the sermons of the Greek religious author Ilias Miniatis and Der Freigeist, a tragedy by the German playwright Joachim Wilhelm von Brawe.

Better known is Mirian's poetic address to his fellow Georgian exiles, "Come, young men, gather, valiant warriors" (მოვედით, მოყმენო, შეკრებით, ჯომარდნო).

[7] Mirian helped preserve and transmit the poetry of Guramishvili, who, a seasoned veteran of the Russian army, lived in obscurity at his provincial estate in Ukraine.

[2][9] Mirian married in St. Petersburg on 22 April 1814 Princess Maria (17 June 1788 – 31 May 1815), daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Prince Alexander Yakovlevitch Khilkov.