They are a good-looking couple
The marriage was morganatic because Maria Vladimirovna’s mother had been married before and was divorced with a child. The Bagration dynasty was long deposed and was absorbed into the Russian nobility in spite of its antiquity. Plus Leonida’s mother was from untitled Polish nobility.
The Bagrations were not given mediatized status, the Georgian kingdom was simply annexed into Russia. There is a precedent of a divorcee with unequal status not being an acceptable bride, Olga Karnovich, second wife of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich with descendants not having succession rights . People have also brought up, her ancestress Grand Duchess Vladimir’s religious conversion being convenient (as in she only converted to Orthodoxy later on after her marriage). The Bagration family had not reigned since Georgia was exiled
The video from Useful Charts made me look into the Georgian House Bagration history and their association with the family they branched out, the Armenian Bagratids that are related to everyone in antiquity.
Yes it’s because a branch of the family left the battlefield breaking off an agreement so at that point Russia just decided to annex Georgia. Yes, but just like in the early days, there’s still division between two branches of the dynasty and the issue is Russia’s position
Has this been confirmed by other sources? If true, she was conceived around the time that a Georgian minister confirmed that the marriage had been arranged for dynastical reasons. Apparently, on 12 November 2010 Davit and Anna retook their marital vows -in Madrid- and the intended heir was conceived shortly afterwards (and born on 27 September 2011 - so would be a little less than 9 months younger than his half-sister).
Most information on this family seems to be coming from Eurohistory.
See the first view posts of this thread. I quoted the specific sentence from the interview he gave a few years ago.
