Erekle II
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Erekle II (also Irakli) Georgian: ერეკლე (1720-1798), Georgian king of the Bagrationi dynasty, ruled Kingdom of Kakheti in 1744-1762 and Kartl-Kakheti in 1762-1798.
Erekle, the son of Theimuraz II, King of Kakheti (in East Georgia), was born in the town of Telavi on November 7, 1720. Young Erekle had his baptism of fire when defeating large bands of Daghestans In 1735. Soon after this fact, Prince Erekle participated in Persian Campaign against India with Nadir Shah. 1744, Theimuraz became the king of Kartli and granted his throne in Telavi to his only son Prince (Batonishvili) Erekle. Both father and son made a firm alliance to fight Persian occupants and defend the borders from permanent raids of North Caucasians. After the death of Theimuraz, Erekle became the king of a united kingdom of Kartli and Kakheti with the capital in Tbilisi in 1762. He made significant reforms towards the modernization of army, administration, education and economy and restricted the powers of the feudal aristocracy. He established a temporary hegemony of Kartl-Kakheti in the eastern Transcaucasia and attempted to unify all Georgian kingdoms and principalities, but managed to organize only an infirm political and military alliance in 1790. Erekle's foreign policy was strongly pro-European and he sought alliance with several European governments against Persia and Turkey, but could not get any support. At last, he signed the Treaty of Georgievsk with Russia in 1783. However, the latter was too late to help him counter a devastating Persian invasion in 1795, from which Georgia never recovered.
The name of Erekle II is associated with actions aimed at national liberation and unification of Georgia - since his life dedicated to the physical survival of the Georgian people. King Erekle II's reforms touched upon all the aspects of life in the country. they changed fundamentally the political, economical and cultural orientation of Kartli-Kakheti and, subsequently of the whole Georgia. His name became a symbol of freedom and national independence of the Georgian people. King Erekle spent most of his life in military campaigns. All the time, he was in the vaguard when personally commanding his troops that have never exceeded 8000 men in any of those 105 battles in which he participated. During his long military life, Erekle II lost only 3 battles. He often lived a life of a common soldier and was a symbol of bravery and heroism. His personal skills of wielding a sword and shooting often served Georgian troops to shift negative fate of battles to victories. Hundreds of poems, songs and legends are dedicated to this tragic ruler, nicknamed as “Patara Kakhi” (i.e. Little Kakhetian; compare with Napoleon’s famous nickname “Little Corporal”).
Erekle II died on January 1, 1798 in Telavi and was buried in the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta. His death was a real tragedy to most Georgians. Many believed that was the end of his kingdom. Indeed, only two years later, Russia violated the Treaty of Georgievsk and annexed the Kingdom of Kartl-Kakheti in 1801.
