Quick Facts
Biography
Rusudan (Georgian: რუსუდანი) was a 12th-13th-century Georgian princess of the Bagrationi royal family. She was a daughter of King Demetrius I of Georgia, sister of the kings David V and George III, and a paternal aunt of the famous Queen Tamar of Georgia.
Before 1152 she married sultan Masud Temirek, but the marriage only lasted a few years before his death 2 October 1152. She later married Hiyas ad-Din Sanjar Shah, a Seljuq sultan. When her second husband died, she returned to Georgia and ruled over it as a regent in the first years of Queen Tamar’s reign. She was also a tutor and patron of the Alan prince Soslan-David whom Tamar married as her second husband in 1189. Some historians believe that in 1154 Rusudan was also married to Iziaslav II of Kiev, possibly confusing her with her sister Bagrationi.
In her eighties, Rusudan withdrew to a monastery c. 1210.