George XII (; 10 November 1746 – 28 December 1800), contemporaneously known as George XIII, of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the second and last king (mepe) of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti in eastern Georgia from 1798 until his death in 1800.
The second son of King Heraclius II, George was raised in a country at war, facing regular attacks from the Persian and Ottoman empires in its south, and constant Lezgin raids from its northeast, and became heir to the throne after the early death of his older brother. As prince, he was a diligent governor of royal domains, seeking to repopulate devastated regions in Georgian Armenia, while seating on his father's royal council, assisting him in leading Georgian forces against Ottoman incursions, and representing him in diplomatic negotiations to bring peace to Western Georgia. However, he had to face the ambitions of his step-mother Queen Darejan and her sons, ambitions that would grow into open tensions and a 1794 deal in which King Heraclius changed the law of succession to make George's younger brothers next in line after George.
Taking over after his father's death in 1798, George sought closer relations with Russian Empire as a guarantee to secure his succession, especially after reverting the 1794 deal and appointing his son David as crown prince. This led to a civil war, with the king's younger brothers rebelling, and Russia dispatching troops in 1799 to restore peace in Kartli-Kakheti. An astute diplomat, he also sought alliances with Persia and the Ottoman Empire and was proposed a military partnership by Napoleon, but was forced to use Russia's power to prevent further devastations of his kingdom by his southern neighbors.
Weakened by illness, he was considered a failed monarch, paralyzed by paranoia, who could not put an end to the constant rebellions of his brothers. The poor economic state of the country led to a collapse in bureaucracy and a rise in crime, while he failed to implement any of the major public, financial, and educational reforms his son Ioane proposed. Supporting his kingdom's integration into the Russian Empire, he trusted Russian diplomats without realizing their own role in dividing Georgian nobility. In 1800, George secured from Emperor Paul I an approval of what his "Petitionary Articles", which provided for Eastern Georgia's integration into Russia as an autonomous kingdom, although he died without knowing about its ratification. His death opened the doors for Russia to break its agreements and fully annex Georgia.
Early life
Youth George was born on October 9, 1746, son of King Heraclius II of Kakheti and his second wife, Queen Anna (herself a daughter of the influential prince Zaal Abashidze). He was the royal couple's third child, his elders being Prince Vakhtang and Princess Rusudan, the latter having died in her childhood. George grew up during a tumultuous time that saw the slow unification of Eastern Georgian states, his father ruling over Kakheti and his grandfather Teimuraz II leading the Kingdom of Kartli. He was raised at the royal court, in the shadow of his half-brother Vakhtang, who was appointed Duke of Aragvi by their father at 9 years old.
His youth was marked by several family tragedies. Queen Ana died in December 1749 when George was only 3. Vakhtang, the presumptive heir of Heraclius II and considered by many to be the hope for a Georgian reunification, died in February 1756.
In 1762, shortly after the death of King Teimuraz II, Heraclius II proclaimed the unification of the Georgian states east of the Likhi Range and was crowned King of Kartli-Kakheti in Mtskheta. A young George and the royal family lived from then on in the new capital, Tbilisi, while the Prince Castle of Telavi was rebuilt by the king.
Heir With the death of Prince Vakhtang, George became the oldest surviving son of the royal family and thus, the presumptive heir to his father's crown. One year later, Heraclius II decided to formalize the future of his dynasty, following the failure of Prince Paata of Kartli's rebellion. Seeking more responsibility within the country, George asked for the governorship of the Armenian province of Pambak, where he launched a program of repopulation of the region, devastated by centuries of invasion.
George was officially named Heir to the Throne of Two Georgias in 1766. As an apanage, he received large swaths of territories in southern Georgia, at the border with neighboring Persia and largely populated by Armenians and Turkmens, as well as the title of "Lord of Ksani, Tianeti, Aghja-Qala, Lore, and Pambak". This secured George's position as his step-mother, Queen Darejan, increased her influence within the royal court in favor of her own children. One of them, Prince Levan, received the title of Duke of Aragvi, a major domain in the center of Georgia.
This distribution, which continued later with the granting of the Duchy of Ksani to Prince Iulon in 1790, was an attempt to diminish the large powers of the nobility and to centralize the influence of the Bagrationi royal dynasty. With several governors appointed to replace deposed princes, George married in 1766 the young princess Ketevan Andronikashvili, daughter of the Governor of Kiziki, at the time 12 years old. She soon became popular at the royal court, notably after taking charge herself of a 300-strong army to defeat a Lezgin raid in 1778 at the Battle of Ghartiskari. The princely couple gave birth to six sons and six daughters before Ketevan's death on 3 June 1782. On 13 July 1783, George remarried to Princess Mariam Tsitsishvili, daughter of Governor George Tsitsishvili of Pambak and Shuragali.
As heir to the throne, George's status within the court was important. He became a member of the Great Council of State, responsible for advising the king in national decision-making. Both this power and his numerous children contributed to increasing an obvious jealousy from his step-mother.
Energetic Prince
As heir, Prince George increasingly became involved in the country's national affairs. In April 1770, he joined his father's forces against the Ottomans and recaptured Akhaltsikhe. Leading an army of 7,000 men, reinforced by a Russian battalion of 1,200 mercenaries, he sought to capture the Atskuri Fortress in the Borjomi Valley, following which the Russian forces left the expedition and left the Georgian troops facing the Turkish invaders alone. Heraclius II and George managed to defeat the Ottomans in Akhalkalaki and Khertvisi, before delivering a decisive victory at the Battle of Aspindza on April 20. During that battle, George led the left flank of the Georgian army.
Shortly after the Aspindza victory, George and Patriarch Anton I are sent to Imereti in May 1770 to negotiate a peace between King Solomon I and the influential princes Katsia II Dadiani and Simon III Gurieli. Their goal was to form a united Georgian front against a probable Ottoman invasion.
The same year, he was sent by his father to put an end to the noble rebellion in Ksani, along with his half-brother Levan. After this campaign, during which George was made responsible for the detachment of Higher Kartli, the two princes captured the rebellious leader George of Ksani and annexed his domains to the royal territories. In 1777, George of Ksani, pardoned by the king and restored in his duchy, revolted once more and Heraclius sent his two sons once more to defeat him. A brief siege of the Siata Fortress led to a victory by the royal princes and George of Ksani was imprisoned in Tbilisi, while Prince George received as gift the Ksani lands.
On 1 January 1774, King Heraclius II introduced a mandatory military draft throughout the kingdom. To lead by example, George joined the service and was garrisoned in Ghartis-Kari, a border fortress facing constant Lezgin raids. In 1779, he followed his father to besiege Yerevan, whose sovereign Hoseyn Ali Khan had rebelled against Kartli-Kakheti. Chronicler Papuna Orbeliani would describe his "exemplary bravery" and his defeat of the khan in single combat.
Crises During that time, George saw the status of his brothers rise. As early as 1772, Heraclius II sent the younger prince Levan to Saint Petersburg at the head of a delegation asking for Russia's protection of Georgia against the Ottoman Empire, a responsibility traditionally bestowed upon the heir to the throne. Levan died, however, in 1782 and on July 24, 1783, the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti and the Russian Empire signed the Treaty of Georgievsk, placing Georgia under Russian protectorate and formally recognizing Prince George as heir to the throne.
As Heraclius II grew older and weaker, his influence at the royal court was replaced by that of Queen Darejan. In 1790, Iulon, her oldest son since the death of Levan, was made Duke of Ksani. A year later, Darejan's sons received a donation of 6,000 peasant households, against only 4,000 for George. Finally, in 1794, Heraclius II signed a decree changing the rule of succession that had been in place since the creation of the Kingdom of Georgia in 1008 to install the concept of agnatic seniority, making Prince Iulon second in the line of succession. This decree remains one of the most controversial decisions of Heraclius II, but contemporary sources reveal that the king's signature on the document may have been forced. A royal letter addressed to Prince George dated May 1794 said:
The decree is nonetheless never cancelled by the King, who spent his last years fearing the outcomes of his pro-Russian orientation. In September 1795, the Persian army invaded Kartli-Kakheti and defeated the small Georgian forces at the Battle of Krtsanisi, which ended in a humiliating defeat for Heraclius II, who saw his capital Tbilisi burned down and pillaged. George, in charge of the Kakhetian contingent, was blamed for the loss as he failed to reach Tbilisi in time, held back by his troops' hunger and disease in Signagi.
George was nonetheless forgiven by his father after the battle and tasked with reconquering the capital. In the summer of 1796, George and his Kakhetian soldiers, aided by Russian colonel Sirikhnev and his forces, retook Tbilisi and chased down the Persian garrison. The prince was then charged with rebuilding the capital, while Heraclius II moved to Telavi. In Tbilisi, Prince George rebuilt the main bridge of the city and organized the repopulation of the capital, while using his diplomatic skills to avoid a Lezgin-Ottoman invasion.
In December, George took on the regency of the kingdom as his father became too weak to govern. On December 7, to preserve the family unity, he signed an act recognizing his younger brother Iulon as his heir. The king died on January 12, 1798, at 77 years old, at the Telavi Palace, recently rebuilt by George.
Reign
Accession
On his deathbed, Heraclius II had George returned from Tbilisi to formally hand him over the state's affairs. On 14 January 1798, two days after his father's death and on the Day of Saint Nino, George was recognized King of Kartli-Kakheti by the nobility and the Georgian Orthodox Church in a ceremony in the town of Kazakh. His title showcased his father's ambitions toward unifying the South Caucasus:
King George is stylized George XII, though Russian historian Nikolai Dubrovyn claims he has often been called George XIII during his reign because of King George XI's two reigns.