Tavdgiridze is a Georgian

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

 noble family, known since the 14th century. They hailed from the southern provinces of Georgia which fell under the Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 rule in the 16th century. This forced many of the Tavdgiridze to relocate to relatively safer areas such as Kartli

Kartli

Kartli is a historical region in central-to-eastern Georgia traversed by the river Mtkvari , on which Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, is situated. Known to the Classical authors as Iberia, Kartli played a crucial role in ethnic and political consolidation of the Georgians in the Middle Ages...

, Imereti

Imereti

Imereti is a province in Georgia situated along the middle and upper reaches of the Rioni river. It consists of the following Georgian administrative-territorial units:#Kutaisi #Baghdati region#Vani region#Zestafoni region...

, and Guria

Guria

Guria is a region in Georgia, in the western part of the country, bordered by the eastern end of the Black Sea. The region has a population of 143,357 and Ozurgeti is a regional capital.-Geography:...

. In the latter province, in the 17th century, the family was bestowed by the local ruling prince Giorgi III Gurieli

Giorgi III Gurieli

Giorgi III Gurieli , of the Georgian House of Gurieli, was a prince of Guria from 1664 to 1684 and a de facto king of Imereti from 1681 to 1683. He succeeded his father, Kaikhosro I, as prince of Guria and secured his throne through paying tribute to the Ottoman Empire. He was energetically...

 with an estate in Lower Guria and the hereditary office of Chief Bailiff

Bailiff

A bailiff is a governor or custodian ; a legal officer to whom some degree of authority, care or jurisdiction is committed...

 (bok’auli). The Ottoman expansion into Lower Guria in the 1770s divided the Tavdgiridze family along religious lines. Mamuka Tavdgiridze and his household fled the Ottomans norther in Guria. His Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 descendants received among the princely nobility

Knyaz

Kniaz, knyaz or knez is a Slavic title found in most Slavic languages, denoting a royal nobility rank. It is usually translated into English as either Prince or less commonly as Duke....

 of the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 in 1850. One of Mamuka’s sons, Maxime, became Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

, adopted the name of Süleyman and was conferred by the Ottoman government with the sanjak

Sanjak

Sanjaks were administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. Sanjak, and the variant spellings sandjak, sanjaq, and sinjaq, are English transliterations of the Turkish word sancak, meaning district, banner, or flag...

 of Çürüksu (Kobuleti

Kobuleti

Kobuleti is a town in Georgia's southwestern region of Ajaria. It is situated on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Kobuleti is a sea resort, visited annually by Georgians and many former Soviet Union residents. From the 17th century into the 19th, Kobuleti was a fiefdom of the Tavdgiridze...

). His descendants remained loyal local rulers to the Ottoman Empire, fighting the Russians in the wars of 1853-6

Crimean War

The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

 and 1877-8. One of these, Hasan-Bey was killed in 1854, while Ali-Paşa and Osman-Paşa (“of Adjara

Adjara

Adjara , officially the Autonomous Republic of Adjara , is an autonomous republic of Georgia.Adjara is located in the southwestern corner of Georgia, bordered by Turkey to the south and the eastern end of the Black Sea...

”) had to resettle to Turkey as muhajirs

Muhajir (Caucasus)

Circassians, the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Caucasus were cleansed from their homeland at the end of the Caucasian War by victorious Russia, which by its manner of suppression of the Caucasus directed at the Crimean Tartars and Circassians can be credited with "inventing the strategy of...

in 1878. Hasan and Ali are satirized in local folk songs of Guria.