Teimuraz II

Teimuraz II (Theimuraz) (Georgian: თეიმურაზ II) (1680 — Saint Petersburg, January 8, 1762), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was a king of Kakheti, eastern Georgia, from 1732 to 1744, then of Kartli from 1744 until his death.

Life

He was a son of Erekle I and his wife Anna. Together with his mother, Teimuraz ruled as regent for his absent brother David II (Imam Quli-Khan) from 1709 to 1715. In 1732, the Turks killed the next king and Teimuraz’s other brother, Constantine, and took control of his kingdom. His successor, Teimuraz, fled to the mountains of Pshavi and fought the occupants from there. In 1735, the resurgent Persian ruler Nadir Shah Afshar invaded Kakheti and forced the Turks out of most of eastern Georgia. Teimuraz was taken prisoner, but he escaped and led a popular uprising against the Persian forces and his nephew Alexander who was appointed by Nadir as his lieutenant in Kakheti. A Persian commander Sefi-Khan led a punitive expedition and captured Teimuraz in 1736, sending him to Isfahan where he was held as hostage for two years.

During these years, part of Georgian nobles staged a powerful rebellion against the Persian yoke. In 1738, the shah had to release Teimuraz to counter the Georgian opposition. The uprising now turned into a brutal civil war between pro- and anti-Persian factions. Teimuraz, aided by his son Erekle II, was able to crush the rebels led by Givi Amilakhvari. As a reward, the shah abolished, in 1742, a heavy tribute laid upon Kakheti, and helped Teimuraz to subdue autonomous duchies of the Aragvi and the Ksani in 1743 and 1744 respectively. For his service against the Ottomans and an anti-Persian revolt, in 1744, Teimuraz was confirmed by the shah as king of Kartli, and his son Erekle was given a Kakhetian crown, thus laying the ground for the eventual reunification of these Georgian kingdoms. Most importantly, they were recognised as Christian kings for the first time since 1632. Both monarchs were crowned at the Cathedral of the Living Pillar (Svetitskhoveli) at Mtskheta on October 1, 1745.

With their power growing increasingly stronger, Teimuraz and Erekle soon repudiated their allegiance to the Persian suzerain. Nadir Shah ordered 30,000 Persian troops to move into Georgia and entrusted a Georgian convert (and a former anti-Persian leader) Amilakhvari with the punitive operation. The shah was, however, murdered in 1747, and his empire became engulf into complete chaos. The rulers of Kartli and Kakheti took advantage of the situation and expelled all Persian garrisons from their kingdoms. From 1749 to 1750, they checked several attempts of Persian pretenders to create their powerbase in the eastern Transcaucasia, and made the neighbouring khanates of Yerevan, Ganja, and Nakhichevan their tributaries. He fought then against the Dagestani clansmen who frequently raided the Georgian marchlands, but without complete success.

Like several previous Georgian rulers, he hoped that the expanding Russian empire would be the only protector for the Christians of Caucasus against the Ottoman and Persian aggressions. He sent an embassy to St Petersburg in 1752, but nothing came of this mission. In 1760, he visited the Russian court himself to gain a support for his project of a Georgian expedition to Persia to put a Russian candidate on the shah’s throne. The Russians were too preoccupied with the Seven Years' War to seriously consider Teimuraz’s idea. He died suddenly in the Russian capital on January 8, 1762, and was buried next to his father-in-law Vakhtang VI in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Astrakhan. On his death, Erekle succeeded as king of Kartli, bringing both eastern Georgian kingdoms into a single state (Kingdom of Kartli and Kakheti)

Although he was constantly at war or on guard, Teimuraz found some time to translate from Persian and compose, virtually on horseback, his own poems and lyrics.

Family

Teimuraz was married thrice. He divorced his first wife, Tamar, daughter of Prince Baadur of the Aragvi, in 1710. Two years later, on February 2, 1712, he remarried Vakhtang VI’s daughter Tamar (born 1697), who died in 1746. The same year, Teimuraz married his third wife, Ana (1734—1784), daughter of Prince Bejan Baratashvili, and former wife of Prince Kaikhosro Tsitsishvili. By his three wives, he had four sons and six daughters.

References and further reading

• (English) The Royal Ark
• (English) Iranian-Georgian Relations in the 16th- 19th Centuries in Encyclopædia Iranica
• Donald Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia: A History (August 16, 2000), Routledge, ISBN 0-7007-1163-5, page 126-7 (about Teimuraz’s poetry)