| Battle of Ertsukhi | |||||||
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| Part of the Georgian–Seljuk wars | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Kingdom of Georgia | Seljuk Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| David IV | Atabeg of Ganja | ||||||
The Battle of Ertsukhi was fought in 1104 between the armies of the Kingdom of Georgia and the Seljuk Empire in southeastern part of Georgia, near Ertsukhi.
Prior to David IV's reign, the Kingdom of Georgia was confronted by several major threats. The country was invaded by the Seljuks, which were part of the same wave which had overrun Anatolia, defeating the Byzantine Empire and taking captive the emperor Romanos IV Diogenes at the battle of Manzikert in 1071. [1] In what the medieval Georgian chronicle refers to as didi turkoba, "the Great Turkish Invasion", several provinces of Georgia became depopulated and King George II was forced to sue for peace, becoming a tributary of Seljuk sultan Malik-Shah I in 1083. The great noble houses of Georgia, capitalizing on the vacillating character of the king, sought to assert more autonomy for themselves; Tbilisi, the ancient capital of Kartli, remained in the hands of the Emirate of Tbilisi, and a local dynasty, for a time suppressed by George's father Bagrat IV, maintained its precarious independence as the Kingdom of Kakheti-Hereti in the eastern region of Kakheti under the Seljuk suzerainty. [2] [3]
King David IV decides to unify the Georgian realm. To accomplish this task, he must succeed in reunifying western Georgia with the rest of the country. [4] Indeed, the Kingdom of Kakheti-Hereti had declared its independence during the reign of George I (r. 1014-1027), thus depriving Georgia of a significant part of its territories. Understanding that only war could help him in his project, the king launched a short attack against King Kvirike IV (r. 1084-1102) and managed to capture the fortress of Zedazeni, north of Mtskheta, in 1101 or 1103. [5]
Kvirike IV died a year later and was succeeded his nephew Aghsartan II, [6] who was said to have been "the complete opposite of his paternal uncle". [7] Converted to Islam, he declared himself a vassal of the Seljuk Empire to avoid a new Georgian attack. [8] However, he cannot foresee the discontent of the nobility of his own country, who are hardly satisfied by the change of religion of their sovereign. In 1104, a plot led by the Heretian Arishiani, Baram and their uncle Kavtar Baramisdze, dethroned Aghsartan II and delivered him to David IV, the latter reincorporated Kingdom of Kakheti-Hereti within his realm, [9] [10] and Aghsartan was imprisoned in Kutaisi. [11]
The Seljuks, who still consider Kingdom of Kakheti-Hereti as their vassal, are not resigned to a new defeat against the Georgians. [12] The death of Sultan Malik-Shah I (1092) and the Pope's call for the Crusade against the Turks (1095) had already enabled David IV to call into question Muslim vassalage by ceasing the payment of the annual tribute established in 1080.
The Seljuk Sultan Berkyaruq sent a large army to Georgia to retake Kakheti-Hereti under the command of the Atabeg of Ganja who fought a decisive battle at the southeastern part of the Kingdom, near the Ertsukhi. [13] The Seljuk army was annihilated by Georgian troops, personally led by David IV, whose exploits are recounted in the Georgian Chronicles. His chronicler thus compares the bravery of David IV to the biblical David and reports the ferocity of his blows. Three of his horses died during the battle, but the monarch, installed on his fourth mount, managed to make his sword flow “a mass of thickened and frozen blood”. [14] [15]
According to a legendary tradition described in The Georgian Chronicles, when David removed his armor after the battle, blood splashed down from behind his armor plate. This led the by-standers to believe that their king was wounded, when in fact the blood belonged to the enemies that the king had slain in battle. [11] [16]
David IV, also known as David IV the Builder (1073–1125), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the 5th king (mepe) of Georgia from 1089 until his death in 1125.
Bagrat III, of the Georgian Bagrationi dynasty, was a king (mepe) of Abkhazia from 978 on and King of Georgia from 1008 on. He united these two titles by dynastic inheritance and, through conquest and diplomacy, added more lands to his realm, effectively becoming the first king of the Kingdom of Georgia. Before Bagrat was crowned as king, he had also reigned in Kartli as co-ruler with his father Gurgen from 976 to 978.
Vakhtang IV, of the Bagrationi dynasty, was a king (mepe) of Georgia who reigned from 1433 to his death, associated to the throne of his father Alexander I from 1433 to the latter's abdication in 1442 and sharing the throne with his three brothers until his death.
George VIII was de facto last king (mepe) of the formerly united Kingdom of Georgia from 1446 to 1465, though the kingdom was already splintered and embroiled in a civil war. Defeated by his rivals, he was left with an eastern province Kakheti alone, where he reigned as George I from 1465 until his death, founding a local branch of the Bagrationi royal house.
Alexander II was a king (mepe) of Georgia in 1478 and of Imereti from 1483 to 1510.
Rostom or Rustam Khan was a Georgian royal, from the House of Bagrationi, who functioned as a Safavid-appointed vali /king of Kartli, eastern Georgia, from 1633 until his death.
George II, of the Leonid dynasty was a king of Abkhazia from 923 to 957 AD. His lengthy reign is regarded as a zenith of cultural flowering and political power of his realm. Despite being independent and locally titled as a Mepe (king), he is also regarded as Exousiastes, the title that was addressed to him by Byzantines.
George XII, sometimes known as George XIII, of the House of Bagrationi, was the second and last King of the Kingdom of Kartl-Kakheti in eastern Georgia from 1798 until his death in 1800.
Prince Nugzar Petres dze Bagration-Gruzinsky is the head of the princely House of Gruzinsky and represents its disputed claim to the former crown of Georgia.
David of Kakheti was a Choreposcopus of Kakheti, a principality of Eastern Georgia, who ruled from 976 until his death 1010.
Gagik was a King of Kakheti and Hereti in eastern Georgia from 1039 to 1058.
Aghsartan I was a King of Kakheti and Hereti in eastern Georgia from 1058 until his death in 1084.
Aghsartan II, was the last King of medieval Kakheti and Hereti in eastern Georgia from 1102 to 1105.
Constantine III was King of Abkhazia from c. 894 to 923 AD. He was the son and successor of Bagrat I of the Anchabadze dynasty.
Khorashan was a member of the Georgian Bagrationi dynasty, a daughter of King George X of Kartli and a consort of Teimuraz I of Kakheti, whom she married as his second wife in 1612. She spent more than four decades of her life with Teimuraz, whose eventful reign ended with his final overthrow by a pro-Iranian faction in 1648. Khorashan accompanied him in his flights and comebacks. She was involved in diplomacy and patronized Catholic missionaries.
The Kingdom of Kakheti-Hereti was an early Medieval monarchy in eastern Georgia, centered at the province of Kakheti, with its capital first at Telavi. It emerged in c. 1014 AD, under the leadership of energetic ruler of principality of Kakheti, Kvirike III the Great that finally defeated the ruler of Hereti and crowned himself as a king of the unified realms of Kakheti and Hereti. From this time on, until 1104, the kingdom was an independent and separated state from the united Kingdom of Georgia. The kingdom included territories from riv. Ksani to Alijanchay river and from Didoeti to southwards along the river of Mtkvari.
Adarnase Sumbatishvili, also known as Atrnerseh was a South Caucasus prince of the 10th century who founded the Kingdom of Hereti in 897.
The Kiurikian or Kiurikid dynasty was a medieval Armenian royal dynasty which ruled the kingdoms of Tashir-Dzoraget (978-1118) and Kakheti-Hereti (1029/1038-1105). They originated as a junior branch and vassals of the Bagratid dynasty, but outlived the main branch of the dynasty after the fall of the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia. They became vassals of the Seljuk Turks in the second half of the 1060s. After the fall of the Kingdom of Tashir-Dzoraget to the Seljuks in the early 12th century, members of the dynasty continued to rule from their fortresses of Tavush, Matsnaberd and Nor Berd until the 13th century.
The collapse of the Georgian realm was a political and territorial fragmentation process that resulted in the dynastic triumvirate military conflict of the Bagrationi monarchs and war of succession in the united Kingdom of Georgia culminating during the second half of the 15th century.
The Kingdom of Western Georgia was a late medieval de facto independent fragmented part of the Kingdom of Georgia that emerged during the Mongol invasions of the realm, led by King David VI Narin in 1259 and later followed by his successors. Over the decades, the monarchy would fall into chaos and transform into a federation of autonomous principalities unruly of the central or regional royal power and authority.
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