To the Issue of the Marriage of the Kartlian Prince Bagrat and the Ossetian Princess (late XVIIth century)
The article explores the message of Dionigi Carli da Piacenza (1637-1695), a Catholic missionary and Capuchin friar, about the marriage of Prince Bagrat, the son of King George XI of Kartli (1651-1709), to the daughter of an unknown Ossetian ruler. Although this information provided by Dionigi is considered one of the important sources on the history of Ossetian-Georgian relations in the XVIIth century, upon closer examination it seems quite doubtful. Besides, it contradicts the Georgian sources of said period, which report about Rusudan, the daughter of the Circassian prince Kilchiko, getting engaged to Prince Bagrat. Genealogical research data show that a lot of Georgian-Circassian dynastic marriages were concluded in the 1500s-1700s, while nothing is known about the marriages between Ossetian nobles and members of the Georgian royalty during the same period. Studying the original source in the Ossetian language allowed the author to make a number of important clarifications that contributed to a more correct understanding of the text. Dionigi claims that Ossetians usually lived in forests, which was not exactly the case in the XVIIth century. However, it corresponds to the reports of other European authors of the same period, characterizing the Circassians as forest dwellers. All this leads the author to the conclusion that Dionigi might have made a mistake when translating ethnonyms that were not quite familiar to him. Thus, the “Ossetian princess” in Dionigi's message is most likely the daughter of the Circassian prince, who, according to all other sources, was the fiancee (or wife) of Bagrat, Prince of Kartli.