Teimuraz I of Kakheti

Early life[edit]

Teimuraz was the son of David I of Kakheti by his wife Ketevan née Bagration-Mukhraneli. Kakheti, the easternmost Georgian polity that emerged after the fragmentation of the Kingdom of Georgia in the late 15th century, was within the sphere of influence of the Safavid dynasty of Iran. Until the early years of the 17th century, the kings of Kakheti had maintained peaceful relations with their Iranian suzerains, but their independent foreign policy and diplomacy with the Tsardom of Russia had long irked the shahs of Iran. Teimuraz, who was born in Iran himself,^[1] was held as a political hostage at the Safavid court and raised in Esfahan, capital of Iran, under the tutelage of Shah Abbas I.^[4]


He returned home in 1605, after Christian Kakhetians, rallied by Teimuraz's mother Ketevan, revolted and overthrew their Muslim king, Constantine I, who had killed his own father, King Alexander II of Kakheti, in an Iranian-sponsored coup.^[5] The nobles of Kakheti requested that Shah Abbas I confirmed Teimuraz, who was Alexander II's grandson, on the throne. Abbas, frustrated by the rebellion and preoccupied with his new war with the Ottoman Empire, acceded to the Kakhetians’ demand. Teimuraz was crowned King of Kakheti and began a long and difficult reign in conflict with his Safavid overlords.^[6]


Since the new monarch was still underage, Queen Ketevan temporarily assumed the function of a regent and arranged, in 1606, Teimuraz's marriage to Ana, daughter of Mamia II Gurieli, Prince of Guria on Georgia's Black Sea coast. In 1609, Ana died of a throat tumor and Teimuraz remarried, with Shah Abbas's encouragement, Khorashan, sister of Luarsab II of Kartli, Kakheti's western neighbor, while the Shah himself married Teimuraz's sister Helene.

End of reign[edit]

Meanwhile, Teimuraz relations with the new Iranian shah, Safi, progressively deteriorated. In 1631, Teimuraz avenged the mountainous tribes of Dagestan for having joined Shah Abbas in the destruction of Kakheti, and devastated several of their settlements (auls). In 1633, he gave shelter to his brother-in-law Daud Khan, the Iranian governor (beglarbeg) of Ganja and Karabakh of Georgian extraction, who had fled Shah Safi's crackdown on the family of his brother Imam-Quli Khan, the influential governor of Fars, Lar and Bahrain. Teimuraz refused to surrender the fugitive, and, fully appreciating the consequences of this refusal, gathered his forces in haste. Shah Safi retaliated by declaring Teimuraz deposed and replacing him with his favorite, a Muslim Georgian prince Khusraw Mirza (Rostom), who had played an important role in consolidating Safi's hold of power after Shah Abbas's death.


Rostom and his fellow Georgian in the Safavid service, Rustam Khan, led the Iranian army into Georgia and took control of Kartli and Kakheti in 1633. Teimuraz escaped into yet another exile to Imereti, but re-established himself in Kakheti in 1634. In 1638, through Rostom's mediation, Teimuraz was pardoned and reconfirmed as king of Kakheti by the shah. He resumed his quest for alliance with Russia, however, and took an oath of allegiance to Tsar Michael on April 23, 1639, but the Russian protectorate never materialized in practice.


In 1641, Teimuraz, who was intent upon uniting all of eastern Georgia under his rule, backed a nobles' conspiracy against Rostom, which finally ruined his relations with the ruler of Kartli. The plot collapsed and the king of Kakheti, who had already advanced with his troops to the walls of Tbilisi, Rostom's capital, had to withdraw. In 1648, Rostom, joined by an Iranian force, marched against Kakheti and routed Teimuraz's army at Magharo. Having lost his last surviving son, David, on the battlefield, Teimuraz fled to Imereti whence he endeavored to regain the crown with the Russian aid. He sent his grandson and the only heir, Heraclius, to Moscow in 1653, and personally visited Tsar Alexis of Russia in June 1658.


In the meantime, Rostom's willingness to cooperate with his Safavid suzerains won for Kartli a large measure of autonomy and relative peace and prosperity. However, the nobles and the populace of Kakheti continued to rally around the exiled Teimuraz in the hope of ending their subjection to Iran. In order to end resistance in Kakheti once and for all, Shah Abbas II revived a plan to populate the country with the Turkic nomads, a measure that incited a general uprising in 1659. The rebels succeeded in expelling the nomads but still had to grudgingly accept the shah's suzerainty.^[9][10]


Unable to garner the Russian support for his cause, Teimuraz concluded that the prospects for recovering the crown were nil and returned to Imereti to retire to a monastery in 1661, the same year when Rostom's successor to the throne of Kartli, Vakhtang V, crossed into western Georgia to enthrone his son, Archil, as king of Imereti. Vakhtang V sent Teimuraz to Isfahan and the old Georgian ex-monarch was honorably received by Abbas II, but cast into prison when his grandson Heraclius returned from Russia and made a failed attempt at taking control of Kakheti. Teimuraz died in captivity at the fortress of Astarabad in 1663. His remains were transported to Georgia and interred at the Alaverdi Cathedral.^[10]

Teimuraz I was married twice; first, in 1609, to Anna, daughter of Mamia II Gurieli, Prince of Guria, who died of an ulcerated throat within a year, and then, in 1612, to Khorashan of the Bagrationi branch of Kartli (died 1658).


He fathered three sons and two daughters:


By Anna


Both of them were taken in hostage by Abbas I in 1614 and castrated in an act of revenge in 1618^[13] or 1620. The young princes did not survive the mutilation and died shortly thereafter.


By Khorashan