Ketevan Bagration of Mukhrani also known as Khétévane Bagrationi–Orsini, Ketevan Bagrationi–Mukhraneli, or Ketevan Bagrationi–Mukhranbatoni is a French-born Italian–Georgian public figure and diplomat, who was Georgia"s ambassador to the Holy See from 2005 to 2014.
Background
Khétévane Bagration de Moukhrani was born in Talence, France, in 1954. Her father was Prince Constantine Bagration of Mukhrani (1915–1992), a Georgian émigré and scion of Constantine IV, the last Prince of Mukhrani, who descended from a branch of the Bagrationi royal dynasty. Her mother Monique Pauliac (born 1926) married Prince Constantine at Villenave-d"Ornon in 1953.
Career
She has a dual French and Georgian citizenship. Princess Khétévane also has a brother, Alexandré Bagration de Moukhrani (born 1956). Her distant cousins of the Spanish branch of the Mukhrani entertain claims to the throne of Georgia.
Khétévane Bagration de Moukhrani has a degree in philology.
She first visited her ancestral homeland in 1975 on a scholarship from Tbilisi State University. In 1978 Princess Khétévane married the Italian aristocrat Prince Raimondo Orsini d"Aragona and moved to Rome.
Since 1991, she has overseen a series of Italian–Georgian cultural events and directed several humanitarian projects for post-Soviet Georgia. She was also involved in the Italian–Georgian diplomacy.
Bagration helped organize the first official visit of the President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze to Italy in 1997 and the first ever visit of the Pope John Paul II to Georgia in 1999.
She became the first Honorary Citizen of Georgia in 1995 and was granted the dual citizenship by Georgia in 2004. On March 9, 2005, the President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili appointed her as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Georgia to the Holy Secretary She served on this position until 2014.
Khétévane Bagration de Moukhrani married, on June 6, 1978 in Rome, the Italian aristocrat Prince Raimondo Umberto Maria Orsini d"Aragona, a Patrician, Conscript and Noble of Rome, Patrician of Naples, Venice, Genoa, and Ancona, Noble of Corneto, and Honorary Noble of Forlì (born 1931).
Georgiana Maria Orsini (1979–2005), the eldest daughter of the couple was found dead at her apartment in July 2005. Lelio Nicolò Orsini (born 1981).
Luisa Eleonora Orsini (born 1986). Dorothea Orsini (born 1990).
Prince Lelio Nicolò Orsini, like his mother, has been involved in charity and cultural activities in Georgia.
He has been considered by some Georgian monarchists as the most suitable candidate for the throne of Georgia, but Khétévane Bagration herself rejected such a possibility.