Princess Peyveste Emukhvari

Mavi Boncuk |Princess Peyveste Emukhvari ( 10 May 1873 in Pitsunda/Georgia-1944 in Paris) was born as a daughter of Prince Osman-Bey Emukhvari [1] and Princess Hesna Chaabalurchava.

In 1877 during the War of Caucasia her family emigrated to Istanbul, where she was delivered at the court of the sultan. First she was given to serve the head of the court. However, soon the Sultan Abdulhamid II fell in love with the beautiful Princess with the green eyes and long brunette hair. The sultan married her on January 24, 1893 in the Yildiz palace. (HH Peyvesti Osman Haseki Kadın Efendi) One year later, upon the birth of their son, Abdulhamid II ordered to built a little palace for his young wife.[2]

Anyway, Peyveste did not succeed in binding the sultan to her. Already in 1896 Sultan moved to another young Princess. Soon he made his new favorite Fatma Pesend his eleventh wife. Peyveste, disappointed in her husband, retreated from the court life and got herself busy with upbringing of her son.

During the revolution of the Young Turks Peyveste, who already was raised to a rank of a great duchess, followed her husband in exile. One year later she returned to Istanbul with her son. In 1924 she went into a second exile and lived with her son first in Naples and Rome, and later in Paris, where she died in 1944.

The great duchess Peyveste was buried in the Muslim Bobigny cemetery [3] in Paris.

[1] The Amilkhvari (Georgian: ამილახვარი) was a noble house of Georgia which rose to prominence in the fifteenth century and held a large fiefdom in central Georgia until the Imperial Russian annexation of the country in 1801. They were hereditary marshals (amilakhvar/amilakhor) of Georgia from c. 1433, from which the family takes its name. Subsequently, the family was received among the princes (knyaz) of the Empire under the name of Amilakhvarov (Russian: Амилахваровы, Амилохваровы, 1825) and Amilakhvari (Амилахвари, 1850).The House of Zevdginidze (ზევდგინიძე) or Zedginidze (ზედგინიძე), which subsequently assumed the name of its principal office-fief, of Amilakhvari (amirakhori, i.e., Prince-Master of the Horse; deputy Amirspasalar, i.e., Lord High Constable), is traceable in the province of Upper Kartli (now Inner Kartli) to the middle of the fourteenth century. A family legend holds it, though, that they descend from a Roman officer who accompanied Pompey on his Caucasian campaign in 65 BC. After the Russian annexation of Georgia (1801) the family was received among the princes (knyaz) of the Empire under the name of Amilakhvarov (Амилахваровы, Амилохваровы, 1825) and Amilakhvari (Амилахвари, 1850).
[2] HIH Prince Şehzade Abdurrahim Hayri Efendi (Constantinople, Yıldız Palace, 14 August 1894 – Paris, 1 June 1952), married at Nişantaşı Palace, Pera (today Beyoğlu), on 4 June 1919 and divorced in 1923 his cousin HH HGlory Nabila Emine Halim Hanım Efendi (Constantinople, 1 June 1899 – Constantinople, 6 December 1979)
[3] Lying just a few kilometers to the northeast of Paris, the town of Bobigny is home to the only Muslim cemetery in France. Opened in 1937, this burial ground for some 7,000 Muslims, mostly from North Africa, is rich in history. It was created by the French government at a time when the country’s colonial empire seemed to be at its apogee.