Kingdom of Kakheti
Encyclopedia
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
in eastern
Eastern Georgia
Eastern Georgia commonly refers to the eastern part of the nation of Georgia, which in historic times included the kingdom of Iberia in the Caucasus. The present-day term refers to the territory of Georgia which lies to the east and south of the Likhi and Meskheti Ranges, but excludes the region...
Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, centered at the province
Mkhare
Mkhare is a subdivision in the country of Georgia. It is usually translated as region.The country is divided, according to the Presidential decrees from 1994 to 1996, into regions on a provisional basis until the secessionist conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are resolved...
of Kakheti
Kakheti
Kakheti is a historical province in Eastern Georgia inhabited by Kakhetians who speak a local dialect of Georgian. It is bordered by the small mountainous province of Tusheti and the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north, Russian Federation to the Northeast, Azerbaijan to the Southeast, and...
, with its capital first at Gremi
Gremi
Gremi is a 16th-century architectural monument – the royal citadel and the Church of the Archangels – in Kakheti, Georgia. The complex is what has survived from the once flourishing town of Gremi and is located east of the present-day village of the same name in the Kvareli district, 175...
and then at Telavi
Telavi
Telavi is the main city and administrative center of Georgia's eastern province of Kakheti. Its population consists of some 21,800 inhabitants . The city is located on foot-hills of Tsiv-Gombori Range at 500-800 meters above the sea level....
. It emerged in the process of a tripartite division of the Kingdom of Georgia
Kingdom of Georgia
The Kingdom of Georgia was a medieval monarchy established in AD 978 by Bagrat III.It flourished during the 11th and 12th centuries, the so-called "golden age" of the history of Georgia. It fell to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, but managed to re-assert sovereignty by 1327...
in 1465 and existed, with several brief intermissions, until 1762 when Kakheti and the neighboring Georgian kingdom of Kartli
Kartli
Kartli is a historical region in central-to-eastern Georgia traversed by the river Mtkvari , on which Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, is situated. Known to the Classical authors as Iberia, Kartli played a crucial role in ethnic and political consolidation of the Georgians in the Middle Ages...
were merged through a dynastic succession under the Kakhetian branch of the Bagrationi dynasty
Bagrationi Dynasty
The Bagrationi dynasty was the ruling family of Georgia. Their ascendency lasted from the early Middle Ages until the early 19th century. In modern usage, this royal line is frequently referred to as the Georgian Bagratids, a Hellenized form of their dynastic name.The origin of the Bagrationi...
. Through most of its turbulent history, Kakheti was tributary
Tributary state
The term tributary state refers to one of the two main ways in which a pre-modern state might be subordinate to a more powerful neighbour. The heart of the relationship was that the tributary would send a regular token of submission to the superior power...
to the Persians
Safavid dynasty
The Safavid dynasty was one of the most significant ruling dynasties of Iran. They ruled one of the greatest Persian empires since the Muslim conquest of Persia and established the Twelver school of Shi'a Islam as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning...
, whose efforts to keep the reluctant Georgian kingdom within its sphere of influence
Sphere of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence is a spatial region or conceptual division over which a state or organization has significant cultural, economic, military or political influence....
resulted in a series of military conflicts and deportations.
Early history
The emergence of the Kingdom of Kakheti was the first step towards the partition of GeorgiaKingdom of Georgia
The Kingdom of Georgia was a medieval monarchy established in AD 978 by Bagrat III.It flourished during the 11th and 12th centuries, the so-called "golden age" of the history of Georgia. It fell to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, but managed to re-assert sovereignty by 1327...
which had been embroiled in fratricidal wars since the mid-15th century. This took place after the king George VIII
George VIII of Georgia
George VIII was a king of Georgia, though already fragmentised and dragged into a fierce civil war, from 1446 to 1465...
, himself a usurper to the throne of Georgia, was captured by his defiant vassal Qvarqvare III, Duke of Samtskhe, in 1465, and dethroned in favor of Bagrat VI
Bagrat VI of Georgia
Bagrat VI , a representative of the Imeretian branch of the Bagrationi royal house, was a king of Imereti from 1463, and a king of Georgia from 1465 until his death.-Life:...
. He then set himself up as an independent ruler in his former princely appanage of Kakheti
Kakheti
Kakheti is a historical province in Eastern Georgia inhabited by Kakhetians who speak a local dialect of Georgian. It is bordered by the small mountainous province of Tusheti and the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north, Russian Federation to the Northeast, Azerbaijan to the Southeast, and...
, the easternmost province of Georgia centered on the river valleys of Alazani
Alazani
The Alazani is a river that flows through the Caucasus.It is the main tributary of the Kura in eastern Georgia, and flows for 351 km...
and Iori
Iori River
The Iori is a river in the South Caucasus which originates in the Greater Caucasus Mountains in eastern Georgia and continues in Azerbaijan where it is also known as Gabirry and flows into the Mingachevir Reservoir. Its length is 320km....
, where he remained, a sort of anti-king, till his death in 1476. Overwhelmed by these difficulties, Constantine II
Constantine II of Georgia
Constantine II , of the Bagrationi dynasty, was a king of Georgia since 1478. Early in the 1490s, he had to recognise the independence of his rival rulers of Imereti and Kakheti, and to confine his power to Kartli....
, king of a reduced Georgia, was obliged to sanction the new order of things. He recognized in 1490 Alexander I
Alexander I of Kakheti
Alexander I , of the Bagrationi Dynasty, was a king of Kakheti in eastern Georgia from 1476 to 1511. Alexander's pliancy and flexible diplomacy earned him security from the neighboring powers, only to be murdered by his own son George II "the Bad".- Biography :Alexander was appointed by his father...
, son of George VIII, as King of Kakheti in the east, and in 1491 Alexander II
Alexander II of Imereti
Alexander II was a king of Georgia in 1478 and of Imereti from 1483 to 1510.In 1478, his father Bagrat VI died and Alexander became king of Georgia, initially ruling its two major regions, Imereti in the west and Kartli in the east. Alexander was expelled from the kingdom by a rival prince...
, son of Bagrat VI, as King of Imereti in the west, leaving himself in control of Kartli
Kartli
Kartli is a historical region in central-to-eastern Georgia traversed by the river Mtkvari , on which Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, is situated. Known to the Classical authors as Iberia, Kartli played a crucial role in ethnic and political consolidation of the Georgians in the Middle Ages...
. In this way the tripartite division of the Kingdom of Georgia was consummated.
Unlike other Georgian polities, Kakheti was spared, for the time being, from major foreign incursions and significant internal unrest. Furthermore, it had the advantage over other parts of Georgia of flanking the important Ghilan-Shemakha-Astrakhan
Astrakhan
Astrakhan is a major city in southern European Russia and the administrative center of Astrakhan Oblast. The city lies on the left bank of the Volga River, close to where it discharges into the Caspian Sea at an altitude of below the sea level. Population:...
“silk route.” The Kakhetian government sponsored this trade and actively participated in it, closely tying the kingdom to the economic life of eastern Transcaucasia and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
. The extensively cultivated fertile lands of Kakheti combined with vibrant Jewish
Georgian Jews
The Georgian Jews are from the nation of Georgia, in the Caucasus...
, Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
and Persian colonies in the trading towns of Gremi
Gremi
Gremi is a 16th-century architectural monument – the royal citadel and the Church of the Archangels – in Kakheti, Georgia. The complex is what has survived from the once flourishing town of Gremi and is located east of the present-day village of the same name in the Kvareli district, 175...
, Zagemi, Karagaji, and Telavi
Telavi
Telavi is the main city and administrative center of Georgia's eastern province of Kakheti. Its population consists of some 21,800 inhabitants . The city is located on foot-hills of Tsiv-Gombori Range at 500-800 meters above the sea level....
, resulted in prosperity, not observable in other parts of a fragmentized Georgia. This relative stability for a time strengthened the monarch’s power and increased the number of his supporters among the nobility.
Threatened by the emerging great empires of the East
Eastern world
__FORCETOC__The term Eastern world refers very broadly to the various cultures or social structures and philosophical systems of Eastern Asia or geographically the Eastern Culture...
– those of the Ottomans and the Safavids– the kings of Kakheti persuaded a carefully staged politics of balance, and tried to establish an alliance with the co-religionist rulers of Muscovy against the shamkhal
Shamkhal
Shamkhal is the title for the rulers of Kumukh in Dagestan during the 8th-17th centuries. In 1642 the Shamkhalate of Kazi-Kumukh broke up into several independent states. Afterwards Shamkhal moved his capital from Kazi-Kumukh to Tarki, where he formed Shamkhalate of Tarki....
s of Tarki
Tarki
Tarki is an urban locality under the administrative jurisdiction of Sovetsky City District of the city of Makhachkala in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia, situated on the Tarkitau Mountain. Population:...
in the North Caucasus
North Caucasus
The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....
. An Ottoman-Safavid peace deal at Amasya
Amasya
- History :Its location in this steep valley makes the city a mountain stronghold, easy to defend, and thus Amasya has had a long and prominent history.-Antiquity:...
in 1555 left Kakheti within the sphere of Safavid Iranian influence, but the local rulers still maintained considerable independence and stability by showing willingness to cooperate with their Safavid overlords. Nevertheless, in 1589, Alexander II of Kakheti
Alexander II of Kakheti
Alexander II , of the Bagrationi Dynasty, was a king of Kakheti in eastern Georgia from 1574 to 1605. In spite of a precarious international situation, he managed to retain relative economic stability in his kingdom and tried to establish contacts with the Tsardom of Russia...
officially pledged his allegiance to Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
Feodor I of Russia
Feodor I of Russia
Fyodor I Ivanovich 1598) was the last Rurikid Tsar of Russia , son of Ivan IV and Anastasia Romanovna. In English he is sometimes called Feodor the Bellringer in consequence of his strong faith and inclination to travel the land and ring the bells at churches. However, in Russian the name...
, but the alliance was never actually implemented in practice. With Alexander’s murder in an Iranian-sponsored coup staged by his own son, a Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
convert Constantine I
Constantine I of Kakheti
Constantine I or Constantine Khan , of the Bagrationi Dynasty, was a king of Kakheti in eastern Georgia from March to October 1605....
, in 1605, the fortunes of Kakheti began to reverse. The people of Kakheti refused to accept the patricide and overthrew him, forcing the energetic Safavid shah Abbas I to reluctantly recognize the rebels’ nominee and Constantine’s nephew Teimuraz I
Teimuraz I of Kakheti
Teimuraz I , of the Bagrationi Dynasty, was a Georgian monarch who ruled, with intermissions, as King of Kakheti from 1605 to 1648 and also of Kartli from 1625 to 1633...
as a new king in 1605. Thus began Teimuraz’s long and difficult reign (1605–1648) in conflict with the Safavids.
Iranian hegemony
In the mid-1610s, Shah Abbas I renewed his effort to bring Georgia more completely into the Safavid empire and subjected Kakheti to repeated invasions from 1614 to 1617. In a series of Georgian insurrections and Iranian reprisals, sixty to seventy thousand people were killed, and more than one hundred thousand Kakhetian peasants were forcibly deported into Iran. The population of Kakheti dropped by two-thirds; once flourishing towns, like Gremi and Zagemi, shrank to insignificant villages; agriculture declined and commerce came to a standstill. By 1648, the indefatigable Taimuraz had finally been ousted from Kakheti. The Safavid government tightened its control of Kakheti, implemented a policy of replacing the native population with nomadic Turkic tribes. At the same time, the DagestanDagestan
The Republic of Dagestan is a federal subject of Russia, located in the North Caucasus region. Its capital and the largest city is Makhachkala, located at the center of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea...
i mountaineers started to attack and colonize the Kakhetian marchlands.
In 1659, the Kakhetians staged a mass uprising, massacred the nomads and surrendered their country to Vakhtang V Shah-Nawaz
Vakhtang V of Kartli
Vakhtang V was the king of Kartli from 1658 until his death, who ruled as a vassal wali for the Persian shah. He is also known under the name of Shah Nawaz, which he assumed on being obliged outwardly to conform to Islam.-Life:...
, a Muslim Georgian king of Kartli, who managed to obtain the shah’s permission to install his son Archil
Archil of Imereti
Archil , was a Georgian prince of the Bagrationi Dynasty and poet. He ruled as king of Imereti in western Georgia and of Kakheti in eastern Georgia...
as king in Kakheti. For a time, the two kingdoms of eastern Georgia were virtually united under Shah-Nawaz and his son, and a period of relative peace ensued. Making the town of Telavi his capital, in place of Gremi which was ruined by the Iranian invasions, Archil set out to implement a program of reconstruction. However, the promising situation was of short duration. Archil’s ascension in Kakheti marked the beginning of a rivalry between the two Bagrationi branches – the Mukhrani
House of Mukhrani
The house of Mukhrani is a Georgian princely family, a collateral branch of the former royal dynasty of Bagrationi of which it sprung early in the 16th century, and received in appanage the domain of Mukhrani located in Kartli, central Georgia...
, to which Archil belonged, and the House of Kakheti, dispossessed of the crown in the person of Teimuraz I. This latter house finally succeeded, at the expense of their apostasy to Islam, in reestablishing themselves in 1703, and ruled, henceforth, at the pleasure of their Safavid suzerains. This proved to be of little benefit, however, and the kingdom continued to be plagued by the incessant Dagestani inroads.
From 1724 to 1744, Kakheti was subjected to the successive Ottoman and Iranian occupations. However, the service rendered by the Kakhetian prince Teimuraz II to Nader Shah
Nader Shah
Nāder Shāh Afshār ruled as Shah of Iran and was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty. Because of his military genius, some historians have described him as the Napoleon of Persia or the Second Alexander...
of Iran in the struggle against the Ottomans resulted in an annulment of heavy tribute paid by Kakheti to the Iranian court in 1743. Teimuraz II’s cooperation with Nader enabled him to secure his power in both Kakheti and Kartli, and to gain recognition for himself as king of Kartli, and for his son, Erekle II
Erekle II
Erekle II was a Georgian monarch of the Bagrationi Dynasty, reigning as the king of Kakheti from 1744 to 1762, and of Kartli and Kakheti from 1762 until 1798. In the contemporary Persian sources he is referred to as Erekli Khan, while Russians knew him as Irakli...
, as king of Kakheti. Both monarchs were crowned in accordance to a Christian tradition in 1745. They exploited the turmoil in Iran that followed Nader’s assassination in 1747 and established themselves as virtually independent rulers. Their rule helped to stabilize the country; economy began to revive, and the Dagestani attacks were reduced, but not eliminated. When Teimuraz died on January 8, 1762, Erekle succeeded him, thus uniting eastern Georgia as a single state for the first time in nearly three centuries.
Further reading
- David Marshall LangDavid Marshall LangDavid Marshall Lang , was a Professor of Caucasian Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He was one of the most productive British scholars who specialized in Georgian, Armenian and ancient Bulgarian history.David M...
, The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, 1658-1832. New YorkNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
: Columbia University PressColumbia University PressColumbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...
, 1957.