Bagrat IV of Georgia

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Bagrat IV (1018-1072), of the Bagrationi dynasty, governed the Kingdom of Georgia in 1027-1072. Strong and courageous, he managed to strengthen the nation’s independence despite serious internal and foreign threats.

He was a son of King Giorgi I by his first wife, Mariam of Vaspurakan, daughter of Senakerim II of Vaspurakan, King of Armenia.

In 1022-1025, Prince Bagrat was held hostage in Byzantium as a price for his father Giorgi I’s defeat in the Georgian-Byzantine wars.

He succeeded on Giorgi’s death in 1027. The Queen Dowager Mariam became a regent for his son who was still underage. However, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VIII refused to recognize Bagrat’s rights to the throne and, in 1029, sent an army against Georgia. A powerful party of nobles led by the throne pretender, Bagrat’s cousin Demetre of Artanuji, and supported by the Byzantines revolted against Mariam and Bagrat. With Constantine’s death in 1030, Mariam negotiated a truce with Byzantium. The new Emperor Romanus III married his niece Helene to Bagrat granting him the Byzantine title of Curopalates and recognizing him as king of the “Georgians and Abkhazians”. Helene soon died in Kutaisi and King Bagrat married Princess Borena of Alania.

In 1032, Bagrat’s half-brother Demetre, another pretender to the Georgian throne, revolted in Anakopia, Abkhazia. Bagrat defeated him, but could not prevent loss of the fortress of Anakopia, which was ceded by the rebel prince to Byzantium. Bagrat focused now on the Arab-held city of Tbilisi. Emir Jafar, the Arab ruler of Tbilisi, had been a prisoner of the powerful Georgian feudal lord, Liparit Bagvashi of Kldekari since 1032. However, Bagrat released him due to a disagreement with Liparit. In 1038-1040, the Georgian army under Bagrat and Liparit Bagvashi invested Tbilisi, but the King ceased the campaign in the view of a bitter feud with Liparit. Thereafter, the later became Bagrat’s sworn enemy.

In 1045, Armenians ceded their capital Ani to Bagrat IV to defend the city against the possible Byzantine aggression. The king took control over the city and marched to recapture the Byzantine-held town of Anakopia. However, soon he gave up a campaign to attack Tbilisi again. Bagrat entered the city, but he met a desperate resistance of the Arab garrison of the fortified suburb of Isani.

In 1046, the Byzantines took advantage of the fightings at Tbilisi, allied themselves with Bagrat’s old enemies, Duke Liparit Bagvashi and the Armenian King of Tashir-Dzoraget and invaded Georgia to set up the above mentioned Bagrat’s half-brother, Demetre, on the throne. Though Demetre died in the beginning of a campaign, Liparit Bagvashi took the Artanudji Fortress, defeated Bagrat IV’s Georgian troops and Viking mercenaries at Sasireti and forced him to retreat in Western Georgia. Three years later, in 1048, Liparit was captured by the Seljuks during the Byzantine-Seljuk war. Bagrat took advantage of this, seized the city of Uplistsikhe, captured Liparit’s family and took Tbilisi. However, released by Seljuks, Liparit returned with a Byzantine force and took control over eastern Georgia in 1051. Defeated and fearing of his kingdom’s disintegration, King Bagrat headed to Constantinople to negotiate a peace treaty. In his absence, Liparit became an effective ruler of the country by declaring himself as a regent for Bagrat’s son Giorgi (the future King Giorgi II). After three years of difficult negotiations, Bagrat managed to guarantee the emperor’s neutrality and returned to Georgia to regain what had been lost. In 1058, he forced Liparit into exile and attacked Aghsartan, king of the secessionist eastern Georgian Kingdom of Kakhs and Rans (Kakheti and Hereti).

In 1064, King Bagrat faced a new major problem as the Seljuks under Alp Arslan attacked and ravaged the southern Georgian provinces. The common threat of Seljuk aggression made Emperor Constantine X Dukas and Bagrat to conclude a treaty of peace in 1065. To strengthen the alliance, Bagrat’s daughter Maria married Prince Michael of Byzantium (the future emperor Michael VII Ducas) in 1066. Next year, Bagrat secured the southern borders by recapturing the Armenian-held fortress of Samshvilde in southern Georgia. In 1068, Alp Arslan launched his second expedition against Georgia and plundered some of the kingdom’s eastern provinces. Nevertheless, Bagrat refused to submit and pay a tribute to the Sultan as the latter demanded. Alp Arslan left Georgia, but handed Tbilisi and Rustavi to his ally, Emir Fadlun III of Ganja and restored King Agsartan I on the Kakhet-Heretian throne. In July 1068, Bagrat crushed Fadlun’s 33,000 cavalrymen on the valleys of Kartli, retook Tbilisi and ceded the city to a local Muslim ruler under the terms of vassalage. The next attack of Fadlun turned catastrophic to him: the Georgian-Ossetian army under Prince Giorgi (the future King Giorgi II) routed the enemy decisively and ravaged Ganja.