Bagrationi dynasty
The Bagrationi dynasty is a royal dynasty which reigned in Georgia from the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, being among the oldest extant Christian ruling dynasties in the world. In modern usage, the name of the dynasty is sometimes Hellenized and referred to as the Georgian Bagratids, also known in English as the Bagrations.
The [|origins] of the dynasty are disputed. Most scholars agree that the dynasty comes from the Armenian Bagratuni dynasty, and is seen as a smaller branch of the Bagratids. The early Georgian Bagratids gained the Principality of Iberia through dynastic marriage after succeeding the Chosroid dynasty at the end of the 8th century. In 888 Adarnase IV of Iberia restored the Georgian monarchy; various native polities then united into the Kingdom of Georgia, which prospered from the 11th to the 13th century. This period of time, particularly the reigns of David IV the Builder and of his great-granddaughter Tamar the Great inaugurated the Georgian Golden Age in the history of Georgia.
After fragmentation of the unified Kingdom of Georgia in the late 15th century, the branches of the Bagrationi dynasty ruled the three breakaway Georgian kingdoms, the Kingdom of Kartli, the Kingdom of Kakheti, and the Kingdom of Imereti, until Russian annexation in the early-19th century. While the 3rd article of the 1783 Treaty of Georgievsk guaranteed continued sovereignty for the Bagrationi dynasty and their continued presence on the Georgian throne, the Russian Empire later broke the terms of the treaty and fully annexed the protectorate. The dynasty persisted within the Russian Empire as an Imperial Russian noble family until the 1917 February Revolution. The establishment of Soviet rule in Georgia in 1921 forced some members of the family to accept demoted status and loss of property in Georgia. Other members relocated to Western Europe, but some Bagrations repatriated after Georgia regained independence in 1991.
Origins
The earliest Georgian forms of the dynastic name are Bagratoniani, Bagratuniani and Bagratovani, changed subsequently into Bagrationi. These names as well as the Armenian Bagratuni and the modern designation Bagratid mean "the children of Bagrat" or "the house of/established by Bagrat", Bagrat being a given name of Iranian origin. The origins of the Bagratid dynasty is still matter of debate between Georgian and Armenian scholars. Georgian scholars argue that the Bagrationis were of Georgian origin, while Armenian and Western scholars believe them to be a branch of the Armenian Bagratunis.According to a tradition first recorded in the work of the 11th-century Georgian chronicler Sumbat Davitis-Dze and repeated much later by Prince Vakhushti Bagrationi, the dynasty claimed descent from the biblical king and prophet David and came from Israel around 530 AD. The tradition had it that of seven refugee brothers of the Davidic line, three of them settled in Armenia and the other four arrived in Kartli, where they intermarried with the local ruling houses and acquired some lands in hereditary possession, with one of the four brothers, Guaram, founding a line subsequently called Bagrationi after his son Bagrat. A successor, Guaram, was installed as a presiding prince of Iberia under the Byzantine protectorate, receiving on this occasion the Byzantine court title of Kouropalates in 575. Thus, according to this version, began the dynasty of the Bagrationis, who ruled until 1801.
This tradition enjoyed a general acceptance until the early 20th century. The Jewish origin, let alone the biblical descent, of the Bagratids has been discounted by modern scholarship. Cyril Toumanoff's research concluded that the Georgian Bagratids branched out of the Armenian Bagratid dynasty in the person of Adarnase, whose father Vasak passed to Kartli following an abortive uprising against Arab rule in 775. Adarnase’s son, Ashot I, acquired the Principality of Iberia in 813 and thus founded the last royal house of Georgia. Accordingly, the legend of the Davidic origin of the Georgian Bagratids was a further development of the earlier claim entertained by the Armenian dynasty, as given in the work of the Armenian author Moses of Khorene. Once the Georgian branch, which had quickly acculturated in the new environment, assumed royal power, the myth of their biblical origin helped to maintain their legitimacy and became a major ideological pillar of their millennium-long rule of Georgia.
The generation-by-generation history of the Bagrationi dynasty begins only in the late 8th century. Toumanoff claimed that the first Georgian branch of the Bagratids may be traced as far back as the 2nd century AD, when they were said to rule over the princedom of Odzrkhe in what is now southern Georgia. The Odzrkhe line, known in the medieval annals as the Bivritianis, lasted until the 5th century AD. They cannot, however, be considered the direct ancestors of the later Bagratids who eventually restored Georgian royal authority. Pavle Ingorokva suggested that the Bagrations were a branch of the Pharnavazid dynasty of the Kingdom of Iberia.
History
Early dynasty
The Bagrationi family had grown in prominence by the time the Georgian monarchy fell to the Sassanid Persian Empire in the 6th century, and the leading local princely families were exhausted by Arab attacks. The rise of the new dynasty was made possible by the extinction of the Guaramids and the near-extinction of the Chosroids, the two earlier dynasties of Iberia with whom the Bagratids extensively intermarried, and also by the Abbasid preoccupation with their own civil wars and conflict with the Byzantine Empire. Although Arab rule did not allow them a foothold in the ancient capital of Tbilisi and eastern Kartli, the Bagratids successfully maintained their initial domain in Klarjeti and Meskheti and, under the Byzantine protectorate, extended their possessions southward into the northwestern Armenian marches to form a large polity conventionally known in modern history as Tao-Klarjeti. In 813, the new dynasty acquired, with Ashot I, the hereditary title of presiding prince of Iberia, to which the emperor attached the honorific title of kourapalates.Despite the revitalization of the monarchy, Georgian lands remained divided among rival authorities, with Tbilisi remaining in Arab hands. The sons and grandsons of Ashot I established three separate branches – the lines of Kartli, Tao, and Klarjeti – frequently struggling with each other and with neighboring rulers. The Kartli line prevailed; in 888, with Adarnase I, it restored the indigenous Iberian royal authority dormant since 580. His descendant Bagrat III was able to consolidate his inheritance in Tao-Klarjeti and the Abkhazian Kingdom, due largely to the diplomacy and conquests of his energetic foster-father David III of Tao.
Golden Age
This unified monarchy maintained its precarious independence from the Byzantine and Seljuk empires throughout the 11th century, flourished under David IV the Builder, who repelled the Seljuk attacks and essentially completed the unification of Georgia with the re-conquest of Tbilisi in 1122. With the decline of Byzantine power and the dissolution of the Great Seljuk Empire, Georgia became one of the pre-eminent nations of the Christian East, her pan-Caucasian empire stretching, at its largest extent, from the North Caucasus to northern Iran, and eastwards into Asia Minor.In spite of repeated incidents of dynastic strife, the kingdom continued to prosper during the reigns of Demetrios I, George III, and especially, his daughter Tamar the Great. With the death of George III the main male line became extinct and the dynasty continued through the marriage of Queen Tamar with the Alan prince David Soslan, of reputed Bagratid descent.
Downfall
The invasions by the Khwarezmians in 1225 and the Mongols in 1236 terminated Georgia’s "golden age". The struggle against the Mongol rule created a dyarchy, with an ambitious lateral branch of the Bagrationi dynasty holding sway over western Georgia. There was a brief period of reunion and revival under George V the Brilliant, but the eight onslaughts of the Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur between 1386 and 1403 dealt a great blow to the Georgian kingdom. About a century later, its unity was finally shattered by two rival Turkic federations; the Kara Koyunlu, and the Ak Koyunlu. By 1490/91, the once powerful monarchy fragmented into three independent kingdoms – Kartli, Kakheti, and Imereti – each led by a rival branch of the Bagrationi dynasty, and into five semi-independent principalities – Odishi-Mingrelia, Guria, Abkhazia, Svaneti, and Samtskhe – dominated by their own feudal clans.During the three subsequent centuries, the Georgian rulers maintained their perilous autonomy as subjects under the Turkish Ottoman and Persian Safavid, Afsharid, and Qajar domination, although sometimes serving as little more than puppets in the hands of their powerful suzerains. In this period, in order to receive investiture from their suzerains, as a necessary prerequisite, many Georgian rulers converted to Islam. Individuals from the Georgian royal family and nobility were frequently chosen for prominent administrative roles within the Safavid state. Members of the Muslim royals from the Bagrationi dynasty, amongst others, held the esteemed position of darugha of the Safavid royal capital of Isfahan for an extensive period spanning over 100 years, from 1618 to 1722. Despite being seated in Kartli starting from 1632, Rostom Khan, in particular, served as Isfahan's darugha for 40 years. Additionally, he appointed deputies to represent him in the Safavid capital.
The line of Imereti, incessantly embroiled in civil war, continued with many breaks in succession, and the kingdom was only relatively spared from the encroachments of its Ottoman suzerains, while Kartli and Kakheti were similarly subjected to its Persian overlords, whose efforts to annihilate the fractious vassal kingdoms were in vain, and the two eastern Georgian monarchies, survived to be reunified in 1762 under King Erekle II, who united in his person both the Kakhetian and Kartlian lines, the latter surviving in male descent in the branch of Mukhraneli since 1658.