George VI of Imereti

Who was George VI of Imereti?

Giorgi-Malakia Abashidze was a Georgian nobleman and King of Imereti as George VI from 1702 to 1707. He was a member of the prominent Abashidze family.

The youngest son of Prince Paata Abashidze, he was served as a priest until about 1684 when he entered politics and began aggressively expanding his patrimonial fiefdom. He dispossessed the Chkheidze family of Shorapani, and the Agiashvili of Tsutskhvati, and took control of the royal domain in Upper Imereti. His daughter, Tamar, was married to the two successive kings of Imereti, Alexander IV and George V. During the reign of the latter monarch, Abashidze effectively ran the government and acted as an all-powerful kingmaker. In 1699, he gave his daughter Anika in marriage to King Simon of Imereti, but they divorced in 1700. In 1701, Abashidze deposed King Mamia of Imereti and seized the throne. He managed to establish a degree of stability in Imereti, ceased to pay tribute to the Ottoman Empire, and patronized culture and learning. Deposed after a revolt by the nobles, in favour of the rightful Bagrationi king George VII, Abashidze took refuge at the court of Vakhtang VI of Kartli in Tbilisi.