Teimuraz I of Kakheti - End of Reign

End of Reign

Meanwhile, Teimuraz relations with the new Iranian shah, Safi, progressively deteriorated. In 1631, Teimuraz avenged the mountainous tribes of Dagestan for having joined Shah Abbas in the destruction of Kakheti, and devastated several of their settlements (auls). In 1633, he gave shelter to his brother-in-law Daud Khan, the Iranian governor (beglarbeg) of Ganja and Karabakh of Georgian extraction, who had fled Shah Safi’s crackdown on the family of his brother Imam-Quli Khan, the influential governor of Fars, Lar and Bahrain. Teimuraz refused to surrender the fugitive, and, fully appreciating the consequences of this refusal, gathered his forces in haste. Shah Safi retaliated by declaring Teimuraz deposed and replacing him with his favorite, a Muslim Georgian prince Khusraw Mirza (Rostom), who had played an important role in consolidating Safi’s hold of power after Shah Abbas’s death.

Rostom and his fellow Georgian in the Safavid service, Rustam Khan, led the Iranian army into Georgia and took control of Kartli and Kakheti in 1633. Teimuraz escaped into yet another exile to Imereti, but re-established himself in Kakheti in 1634. In 1638, through Rostom’s mediation, Teimuraz was pardoned and reconfirmed as king of Kakheti by the shah. He resumed his quest for alliance with Russia, however, and took an oath of allegiance to Tsar Michael on April 23, 1639, but the Russian protectorate never materialized in practice.

In 1641, Teimuraz, who was intent upon uniting all of eastern Georgia under his rule, backed a nobles' conspiracy against Rostom, which finally ruined his relations with the ruler of Kartli. The plot collapsed and the king of Kakheti, who had already advanced with his troops to the walls of Tbilisi, Rostom’s capital, had to withdraw. In 1648, Rostom, joined by an Iranian force, marched against Kakheti and routed Teimuraz’s army at Magharo. Having lost his last surviving son, David, on the battlefield, Teimuraz fled to Imereti whence he endeavored to regain the crown with the Russian aid. He sent his grandson and the only heir, Heraclius, to Moscow in 1653, and personally visited Tsar Alexis of Russia in June 1658.

In the meantime, Rostom’s willingness to cooperate with his Safavid suzerains won for Kartli a large measure of autonomy and relative peace and prosperity. However, the nobles and the populace of Kakheti continued to rally around the exiled Teimuraz in the hope of ending their subjection to Iran. In order to end resistance in Kakheti once and for all, Shah Abbas II revived a plan to populate the country with the Turkic nomads, a measure that incited a general uprising in 1659. The rebels succeeded in expelling the nomads but still had to grudgingly accept the shah’s suzerainty.

Unable to garner the Russian support for his cause, Teimuraz concluded that the prospects for recovering the crown were nil and returned to Imereti to retire to a monastery in 1661, the same year when Rostom’s successor to the throne of Kartli, Vakhtang V, crossed into western Georgia to enthrone his son, Archil, as king of Imereti. Vakhtang V sent Teimuraz to Isfahan and the old Georgian ex-monarch was honorably received by Abbas II, but cast into prison when his grandson Heraclius returned from Russia and made a failed attempt at taking control of Kakheti. Teimuraz died in captivity at the fortress of Astarabad in January 1663. His remains were transported to Georgia and interred at the Alaverdi Cathedral.