Heraclius II of Georgia

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Erekle II of Kartli and Kakheti

Erekle II (Georgian: ერეკლე II) (November 7, 1720, or October 7, 1721 [according to C. Toumanoff – January 11, 1798) was a Georgian monarch of the Bagrationi Dynasty, reigning as the king of Kakheti from 1744 to 1762, and of Kartli and Kakheti from 1762 until 1798. In the contemporary Persian sources he is referred to as Erekli Khan, while Russians knew him as Irakli (Irakly). His name is frequently transliterated in a Latinized form Heraclius.

The penultimate king of the united kingdoms of Kakheti and Kartli in eastern Georgia, his reign is regarded as the swan-song of the Georgian monarchy. Aided by his personal abilities and the unrest in the Persian Empire, Erekle established himself as a de facto independent ruler and attempted to modernize the government, economics, and military. Overwhelmed by the internal and external menaces to Georgia’s precarious independence and its temporary hegemony in eastern Transcaucasia, he placed his kingdom under the formal Russian protection in 1783, but the move did not prevent Georgia from being devastated by the Persian invasion in 1795. Erekle died in 1798, leaving the throne to his moribund heir, George XII.

Early years and reign in Kakheti

Born in Telavi, Georgia, Erekle was a son Teimuraz II of Kakheti and his wife Tamar, daughter of Vakhtang VI of Kartli. His childhood and early teens coincided with the occupation of Kakheti by the Ottomans from 1732 until 1735 when they were ousted from Georgia by Nader, Shah of Iran, in his two successive campaigns of 1734 and 1735. Teimuraz sided with the Persians and was installed as a Persian wali (governor) in neighboring Kartli. However, many Georgian nobles refused to accept the new regime and rose in rebellion in response to heavy tribute levied by Nadir upon the Georgian provinces. Nonetheless, Teimuraz and Erekle remained loyal to the shah, partly in order to prevent the comeback of the rival Mukhrani branch, whose fall early in the 1720s had opened the way to Teimuraz’s accession in Kartli. From 1737 to 1739, Erekle commanded a Georgian auxiliary force during Nadir’s expedition in India and gained a reputation of an able military commander. He then served as a lieutenant to his father and assumed the regency when Teimuraz was briefly summoned for consultations in the Persian capital of Isfahan in 1744. In the meantime, Erekle defeated a coup attempt by the rival Georgian prince Abdulah Beg of the Mukhrani dynasty, and helped Teimuraz suppress the aristocratic opposition to the Persian hegemony. As a reward, Nadir granted the kingship of Kartli to Teimuraz and of Kakheti to Erekle, and also arranged the marriage of his nephew Ali-Qoli Khan, who eventually would succeed him as Adil Shah, to Teimuraz’s daughter Kethevan.

Alliance with Russia and last years

In foreign policy, Erekle was primarily focused on seeking a reliable protector that would guarantee Georgia’s survival. He chose Russia not only because it was Orthodox Christian, but also because it would serve as a link to Europe, which he thought a model for Georgia’s development as a modern nation. Yet, Erekle’s initial cooperation with Russia proved disappointing. His participation in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) did not lead to an anticipated reconquest of the Ottoman-held southern Georgian lands, for the Russian commanders in Georgia behaved in a highly condescending, often treacherous way, and for Empress Catherine II treated the Caucasus front as merely a secondary theater of military operations. Still, Erekle continued to seek firmer alliance with Russia, his immediate motivation being the Persian ruler Karim Khan’s attempts to bring Georgia back into the Persian sphere of influence. Karim Khan’s death in 1779 temporarily relieved Erekle of these dangers, as Persia again became engulfed into chaos.

In 1783, the Russian expansion southward into the Crimea brought the Caucasus into Catherine II’s area of interest. In the Treaty of Georgievsk of 1783, Erekle finally obtained the guarantees he had sought from Russia, transforming Georgia into a Russian protectorate, as Erekle formally repudiated all legal ties to Persia and placed his foreign policy under the Russian supervision. However, during the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), a Tbilisi-based small Russian force evacuated Georgia, leaving Erekle to face new dangers from Persia alone. Mohammad Khan Qajar, who had managed to bring most of central Iranian plateau under his firm control by 1794, was inclined to revive the Persian Empire with the Caucasus as its part. In 1795, he demanded that Erekle acknowledged Persian suzerainty, promising in return to confirm him as wali. Erekle refused, and in September 1795, the Persian army of 35,000 moved into Georgia. After the valiant defense of Tbilisi at the Battle of Krtsanisi, Erekle’s small army was almost completely annihilated, with the king becoming a witness of the fearful devastation of his capital and being forced to retreat into the mountains. The Persian invasion delivered a hard blow to Georgia from which it was not able to recover. Despite being abandoned at the critical moment, he still had to rely on the Russian belated support and fought, in 1796, alongside the Russian expeditionary forces sent by Catherine into the Persian possessions. But her death that year brought an abrupt change of policy in the Caucasus, and her successor Paul I withdrew all Russia troops from the region. Aga Mohammad launched his second campaign to punish the Georgians for their alliance with Russia. However, his assassination in 1797 spared Kartli-Kakheti more devastation.

Erekle died in 1798 still convinced that only Russian protection could ensure the continued existence of his country. He was succeeded by his weak and ill-healthy son, George XII, after whose death Tsar Paul I annexed, in 1801, Kartli-Kakheti to Russia, terminating both Georgia's independence and a millennium-long rule of the Bagrationi Dynasty.