Teimuraz I of Kakheti - Early Life

Early Life

Teimuraz was the son of David I of Kakheti by his wife Ketevan née Bagration-Mukhraneli. Kakheti, the easternmost Georgian polity that emerged after the fragmentation of the Kingdom of Georgia in the late 15th century, was within the sphere of influence of the Safavid dynasty of Iran. Until the early years of the 17th century, the kings of Kakheti had maintained peaceful relations with their Iranian suzerains, but their independent foreign policy and diplomacy with the Tsardom of Russia had long irked the shahs of Iran. Teimuraz himself was held as a political hostage at the Safavid court and raised in Esfahan, capital of Iran, under the tutelage of Shah Abbas I.

He returned home in 1605, after Christian Kakhetians, rallied by Teimuraz’s mother Ketevan, revolted and overthrew their Muslim king, Constantine I, who had killed his own father, King Alexander II of Kakheti, in an Iranian-sponsored coup. The nobles of Kakheti requested that Shah Abbas I confirmed Teimuraz, who was Alexander II’s grandson, on the throne. Abbas, frustrated by the rebellion and preoccupied with his new war with the Ottoman Empire, acceded to the Kakhetians’ demand. Teimuraz was crowned King of Kakheti and began a long and difficult reign in conflict with his Safavid overlords.

Since the new monarch was still underage, Queen Ketevan temporarily assumed the function of a regent and arranged, in 1606, Teimuraz’s marriage to Ana, daughter of Mamia II Gurieli, Prince of Guria on Georgia's Black Sea coast. In 1609, Ana died and Teimuraz remarried, with Shah Abbas’s consent, Khorashan, sister of Luarsab II of Kartli, Kakheti’s western neighbor, while the shah himself married Teimuraz's sister Helene.