Teimuraz I of Kakheti

Who was Teimuraz I of Kakheti?

Teimuraz I, of the Bagrationi Dynasty, was a Georgian monarch who ruled, with intermissions, as King of Kakheti from 1605 to 1648 and also of Kartli from 1625 to 1633. The eldest son of David I and Ketevan, Teimuraz spent most of his childhood at the court of Shah of Iran, where he came to be known as Tahmuras Khan. He was made king of Kakheti following a revolt against his reigning uncle, Constantine I, in 1605. From 1614 on, he waged a five-decade long struggle against the Safavid Iranian domination of Georgia in the course of which he lost several members of his family and ended up his life as the shah's prisoner at Astarabad at the age of 74.

A versatile poet and admirer of Persian poetry, Teimuraz translated into Georgian several Persian love-stories and transformed the personal experiences of his long and difficult reign into a series of original poems influenced by the contemporary Persian tradition.