Vakhtang VI of Kartli

Who was Vakhtang VI of Kartli?

Vakhtang VI, also known as Vakhtang the Scholar and Vakhtang the Lawgiver, was a Georgian monarch of the royal Bagrationi dynasty. He ruled the East Georgian Kingdom of Kartli in the time of kingdom's vassalage at the hands of Persia from 1716 to 1724. One of the most important and extraordinary statesman of the early 18th Georgia, he is known as a notable legislator, scholar, critic, translator and poet. His reign was terminated by the Ottoman invasion, which forced Vakhtang into exile to the Russian Empire. With Russia still short of reaching its Imperial zenith, Vakhtang was unable to get the tsar’s support for his kingdom and instead had to permanently stay with his northern neighbors for his own safety. On his way to a diplomatic mission sanctioned by Empress Anna, he fell ill and died in southern Russia in 1737, never reaching Georgia.