Mouravi

(in Georgian, “guardian” or “manager”), an official post in feudal Georgia. Mouravi were appointed from among the higher nobility to supervise the execution of tsarist edicts, the judicial examination of civil affairs, and the collection of taxes from the peasants, one-tenth of which went to the mouravi. In addition to the principal hereditary mouravi, there were also local mouravi, generally small landowners in the villages. After the peasant uprising of 1812–13 in Kakhetia, the Russian authorities abolished the mouravi as an institution.