Bagrat V of Imereti

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Bagrat V (Georgian: ბაგრატ V) (1647 – 1681), of the Bagrationi Dynasty, was a king of Imereti, whose troubled reign in the years of 1660-1661, 1663-1668, 1669-1678, and 1679-1681, was marked by extreme instability and feudal anarchy in the kingdom.

The eldest son of Alexander III of Imereti by his first wife, he succeeded on his father’s death in 1660, but was captured and blinded on the orders of his stepmother Queen Dowager Darejan who remarried an insignificant aristocrat, Vakhtang Tchutchunashvili, and had him crowned as king. The move drew many nobles into opposition. They enlisted the Ottoman and Mingrelian support and restored Bagrat. Darejan was exiled to Akhaltsikhe, in the Ottoman-held Georgian province. In 1668, Bagrat was once again dethroned by Darejan’s party with the military support of the pasha of Akhaltsikhe. However, both Darejan and his favorite were soon murdered, and Bagrat reclaimed the crown in 1669. These events had been closely watched by the royal court in Tbilisi, eastern Georgia. King Vakhtang V Shahnawaz of Kartli, whose cooperation with the Persian suzerains allowed him to bring the whole eastern Georgia under his control, campaigned in Imereti and crowned his son Archil as king of Imereti in 1678. Under the Ottoman pressure, however, Archil was soon recalled from Kutaisi, and Bagrat was replaced on the throne again in 1679.

[edit] References

• (Russian) Вахушти Багратиони (Vakhushti Bagrationi) (1745). История Царства Грузинского: Жизнь Имерети.
• David Marshall Lang, The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, 1658-1832. New York: Columbia University Press, 1957.

Preceded by Alexander III	King of Imereti 1660-1661	Succeeded by Vakhtang Tchutchunashvili
Preceded by Vakhtang Tchutchunashvili	King of Imereti 1663-1668	Succeeded by Vakhtang Tchutchunashvili
Preceded by Vakhtang Tchutchunashvili	King of Imereti 1669-1678	Succeeded by Archil
Preceded by Archil	King of Imereti 1679-1681	Succeeded by George IV