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Loyal to his Safavid
overlords, Rostom managed to expand the autonomy
of Georgia
within the disintegrating empire. He supervised the revival of trade and the
growth of cities. Iranian influence grew in eastern Georgia, as Kartli-Kakheti's fate was tied ever closer to that of the
empire. Rostom was opposed by the indefatigable Taimuraz until the latter was forced finally to flee Kakheti in 1648.35 To his people Rostom
left a legacy of cooperation with the Iranians and the benefits to be derived
from acceptance of the status quo, but it was not an example that his
successors were willing to follow.
In the second half of the seventeenth century attempts by Georgians to alter
the status quo - to unite the divided kingdoms or to replace Muslim with
Russian overlordship—were successfully thwarted by
the Ottomans and Safavids. The vali of Kartli, Vakhtang
V (Shahnavaz 1; 1658-1676), tried to find a throne
for his energetic son, Archil, first in Imereti (1661) and later in Kakheti
(1664-1675), but ultimately the restless prince was driven into exile in
Russia. Much more successful were those princes and nobles of Kartli-Kakheti who found
positions in the Safavid civil and military
service, even as the empire was threatened by invasions from the east. Giorgi XI of Kartli (1676-1688,
1703-1709) enjoyed a splendid career as the Iranian commander in chief of the
Afghan front. Known as Gurjin Khan, Giorgi led an Iranian-Georgian army against the rebel Mir
Wais. The clever Afghan surrendered without a fight and invited Gurjin Khan to a banquet; there he had his Georgian
guests murdered.
Others in Safavid
service fared better than Giorgi. A French
missionary noted toward the end of the century that the shah "knows how
to keep [the Georgians] divided by self-interest. He promotes all the great
nobles in such an advantageous manner that they forget their fatherland an d their religion to attach themselves to him. The
greatest posts of the empire are today in their hands." Chardin reported that "the greatest part of the
Georgian lords are outwardly Mahometan; some
professing that religion to obtain preferment at court and pensions of
state. Others, that they may have the honor to
marry their daughters to the king, and sometimes merely to get them in to
wait upon the king's wives."
Vakhtang VI,
King of Kartli
 
Diplomats: Artemis Volunski
(left) and Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani
(right)
The choice faced by all rulers of early modern Georgia was between faithful
service to their Muslim sovereigns or pursuit of the elusive prize of
independence. The history of eighteenth-century Georgia is dominated by two
extraordinary monarchs, Vakhtang VI and Erekle II, who between them managed the affairs of their
realms for nearly three-quarters of the century. Both were, for a time,
successful servants of their Iranian sovereigns, yet when opportunities were
presented by civil wars in Iran,
both sought the phantom aid promised by Russia's autocrats. From 1703, Vakhtang ruled as regent for his uncle, Giorgi XI, and his brother, Kaikhosro
(1709-1711). His administration was distinguished by long-needed reforms and
the collection of laws (dasturlamali) that he had
compiled in 1707-1709. Then, when he should rightly have received the shah's
sanction to ascend the throne of Kartli, Vakhtang thwarted custom by refusing to convert to Islam,
as his predecessors had nominally done. For two years he was a virtual
prisoner in Isfahan while his convert brother,
Iese (Ali-Quli-Khan),
ruled in Tbilisi.
To maintain his faith, Vakhtang sent his learned
uncle and tutor, Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani,
to France
to plead with Louis XIV to put pressure on the Iranians. But nothing came of
the mission, and Vakhtang reluctantly converted in
1716. Almost immediately, however, Vakhtang made contact
with the Russian ambassador, Artemis Volynski, and
informed him of his true religious and political convictions. Not long after
his return to Georgia, Vakhtang declared his support for Russian intervention in
Transcaucasia. Clearly, Kartli's
leaders, like the Kakhetian kings of the preceding
century, calculate continued decline of Iran
and the expansion of Russia
to the south. After a series of delays, Peter the Great, buoyed by his recent
victory over the Swedes, led a small force of Russians south from Astrakhan in 1722. The
moment was well chosen, for the Iranians were engulfed by chaos, as Isfahan had fallen to
the Afghans. Vakhtang refused to come to the aid of
the Iranians preferring to await the arrival of the Russians.
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Unfortunately for the Georgians - and
for the Armenians of Karabagh, also engaged in a
complex struggle against the Muslims—Peter's campaign stopped short of
linking with the Christian rebels, and the tsar withdrew so as not to
antagonize the Turks. Vakhtang was left exposed and
alone. Facing a Turkish invasion and opposed by the king of Kakheti, Konstantin, to whom the shah had given the
throne of Kartli as well, Vakhtang
was forced to evacuate Tbilisi.
He made his way across the Caucasus to Russia, where he died in 1737.
The first Russian invasion of Transcaucasia
thus proved a disaster for the pro-Russian elements among the local Christian
people. The most immediate result was the establishment of Turkish authority
throughout Caucasia, the brief but terrible
period known in Georgian as the osmanloba (1723-1735).
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Despite their own misfortunes, the Iranians were unwilling to cede eastern
Georgia to the Turks, but until the rise to power of the rough and able
soldier, Nadir, they were unable to prevent this loss. The revival of Iranian
imperialism began in the 1730s and coincided with Georgian resistance to the
Turks. In 1732, Konstantin of Kakheti made a fatal
attempt to break with the Turks and was murdered. The Turks gave his throne
to his brother, Taimuraz II (1732-1744), thus
laying the ground for the eventual reunification of Kartli
and Kakheti.39 The next year the Abkhaz dealt the Turks a devastating blow in
western Georgia, and in
1734-1735, Nadir made two campaigns into Transcaucasia.
Taimuraz defected to the Iranians, and together the
Iranian-Georgian forces liberated Tbilisi
in August 1735. The osmanloba
was replaced by the kizilbasboba
(rule by the kizilbash,
or "redheads," as the Safavids were
known).
Taimuraz,
King of Kakheti
As long as Nadir Shah (1736-1747) dominated Iran,
the Iranians were able to maintain their sway over eastern Georgia, Armenia,
and Azerbaijan.
The Russians, who in the post-Petrine period had
neither the interest nor the ability to hold their outposts in the Caucasus,
signed a treaty by which they abandoned the conquests of Peter the Great
south of the Sulak River.
Taimuraz ruled in Kakheti
as an Iranian governor, while his son, Erekle,
campaigned for Nadir in India.
The Iranian governor of Kartli, Killij-Ali-Khan
(Khanjal), levied new taxes on the Georgians to
finance Nadir's wars. Peasants migrated westward to escape the new burdens,
and prominent nobles, like the eristavi of Ksani, Shanshe, and the vakili (ruler)
of Kartli, Givi Amilakhori, rose in rebellion. Taimuraz
and Erekle joined forces with the shah and helped
to defeat their rebellious countrymen. As a reward, Taimuraz
was crowned king of Kartli (1744-1762), and Erekle became king of Kakheti
(1744-1762). Thus, all of eastern Georgia was ruled by Kakhetian Bagratids, father
and son, but Nadir Shah, their overlord, continued to Impose new taxes on his
Georgian subjects. In 1746 Kartli-Kakheti was required to pay three hundred thousand tumanebi in
tribute. When, the next year, Nadir was murdered in his tent while on a
campaign in the east, Iran fell into civil disarray, and the wily Bagratid kings of Kartli-Kakheti found themselves arbiters of Transcaucasian
politics. In the vacuum left by Iran's
troubles and Russia's
withdrawal, Taimuraz II and his son set out to
rebuild Georgia
and create a multinational Caucasian state
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Transcaucasia
in the mid-eighteenth century was a mosaic of kingdoms, khanates, and
principalities, nominally undr either Turkish or Iranian
sovereignty but actually maintaining varying degrees of precarious autonomy
or independence.
Taimuraz and Erekle were
faced by three sources of opposition to the expansion of their authority:
Georgian rivals, particularly the exiled Mukhranian
Bagratids; ambitious Muslim khans of eastern
Transcaucasia; and mountaineers from the North Caucasus, who raided the
Georgian valleys.
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