Shalikashvili

Remotely related to the local princely dynasty of Jaqeli, the Shalikashvili were both their most faithful allies and most dangerous rivals at different times.

[1] In the 16th century, the family, in the person of Ot'ar Shalikashvili, was instrumental in restoring the Jaqeli dynasty to the principate of Samtskhe of which they had been dispossessed by the western Georgian kings of Imereti from 1535 to 1547.

By 1578, the family had been coerced to flee Samtskhe to Kartli in central Georgia, where they were recognized as princes (tavadi; confirmed under Russian rule, 1826)[2] and maintained themselves into the 20th century.

The 1921 Sovietization of Georgia and the ensuing crackdown on nobility forced the principal members of the family to relocate to Poland whence they removed to the United States in the wake of World War II.

Another branch of the Shalikashvili, now extinct in a male line, removed to Russia, following the Georgian king Vakhtang VI of Kartli into his exile in 1724.