01 — Foundations
The world into which St. Ketevan was born and married: the small east-Georgian kingdom of Kakheti in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, a Christian buffer state pressed between the Ottoman and Safavid empires, and the Bagrationi dynastic order to which she belonged on both sides. This section sets out that world and then Ketevan’s own place in it — her marriage to Prince (later King) David, her early widowhood, and the regency she exercised over Kakheti during the minority and troubles of her son Teimuraz I.
Tradition: Georgian Orthodox
This section provides the historical and dynastic groundwork for everything that follows. Ketevan cannot be understood apart from the predicament of Kakheti: a kingdom that had preserved the ancient Georgian Orthodox faith of St. Nina through more than a millennium, but that by 1600 survived only as a vassal caught between two Muslim great powers, its kings compelled to manoeuvre, submit, and rebel by turns. Into that predicament Ketevan was born a Bagrationi princess of the Mukhrani line and married into the ruling house of Kakheti, and it was that predicament — not any private quarrel — that would ultimately deliver her to the court of Shah Abbas.
The two files treat, first, the kingdom and the dynasty, and second, the woman: her marriage, her widowhood, and the regency that made her a political figure in her own right and set the stage for her fatal embassy to Persia.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| the-kingdom-of-kakheti.md | Early-seventeenth-century Kakheti and Georgia between the Ottoman and Safavid empires; the fragmentation of the medieval Georgian kingdom into rival principalities; the ancient Georgian Orthodox Church of St. Nina; and the Bagrationi dynastic context. |
| ketevan-queen-of-kakheti.md | Ketevan’s birth into the Bagrationi house of Mukhrani; her marriage to Prince David of Kakheti; his brief reign and early death; her widowhood; and the regency she exercised in the turbulent minority and reign of her son Teimuraz I. |
See Also
- Shah Abbas and the Devastation of Kakheti — how the pressure of the empires became catastrophe
- St. Nina of Georgia — the enlightener whose Church Ketevan’s Kakheti preserved and Ketevan died confessing
- Orthodoxy: World Orthodoxy — the Georgian Church among the autocephalous Orthodox Churches
References
- Rayfield, Donald. Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia. London: Reaktion Books, 2012.
- Suny, Ronald Grigor. The Making of the Georgian Nation. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.
- Lang, David Marshall. A Modern History of Georgia. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962.