This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the Russian Wikipedia. (July 2011) Don't speak Russian? Click here to read a machine-translated version of the Russian article. Click [show] on the right to review important translation instructions before translating. Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. After translating, {{Translated|ru|Ираклий II (царь Грузии)}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Heraclius II
King of Kartli and Kakheti
Heraclius II of Kartli and Kakheti
Reign	1744 - 11 January 1798
Coronation	1 October 1745 (Svetitskhoveli)
Predecessor	Teimuraz II
Successor	George XII
Consort	Ketevan Orbeliani Anna Abashidze Darejan Dadiani
among others... Issue
George XII
Dynasty	Bagrationi
Father	Teimuraz II
Mother	Tamar of Kartli
Born	(1720-11-07)7 November 1720 Telavi
Died	11 January 1798(1798-01-11) (aged 77)
Signature
Religion	Georgian Orthodox Church

Heraclius II (Georgian: ერეკლე II, Erekle) (November 7, 1720, or October 7, 1721 [according to C. Toumanoff^[1]] — 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 because both names Erekle and Irakli are Georgian versions of this Greek name.^[2]

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.^[3] Aided by his personal abilities and the unrest in the Persian Empire, Heraclius 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. Heraclius died in 1798, leaving the throne to his moribund heir, George XII.

Early years and reign in Kakheti[link]

monument of Heraclius II in Telavi

Born in Telavi, the center of Kakheti region of Georgia, Heraclius 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 Heraclius 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, Heraclius 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, Heraclius defeated a coup attempt by the rival Georgian prince Abdullah Beg of the Mukhrani dynasty, and helped Teimuraz suppress the aristocratic opposition to the Persian hegemony led by Givi Amilakhvari. As a reward, Nadir granted the kingship of Kartli to Teimuraz and of Kakheti to Heraclius, and also arranged the marriage of his nephew Ali-Qoli Khan, who eventually would succeed him as Adil Shah, to Teimuraz’s daughter Kethevan.^[1]

Yet, both Georgian kingdoms remained under heavy Persian tribute until Nadir was assassinated in 1747. Teimuraz and Heraclius took advantage of the ensuing political instability in Persia to assert their independence and expelled Persian garrisons from all key positions in Georgia, including Tbilisi. In close cooperation with each other, they managed to prevent a new revolt by the Mukhranian supporters fomented by Ebrahim Khan, brother of Adel Shah, in 1748. They concluded an anti-Persian alliance with the khans of Azerbaijan who were particularly vulnerable to the aggression from Persian warlords and agreed to recognize Heraclius’s supremacy in eastern Transcaucasia. In 1752, the Georgian kings sent a mission to Russia to request 3,000 Russian troops or a subsidy to enable them to hire Circassian mercenaries in order to invade Persia and install a pro-Russian government there. The embassy failed to yield any results, however, for the Russian court was preoccupied with European affairs.^[1]

King of Kartli and Kakheti[link]

The Palace of King Heraclius II in Telavi

In 1762, Teimuraz II died while on a diplomatic mission to the court of St. Petersburg, and Heraclius succeeded him as King of Kartli, thus uniting eastern Georgia politically for the first time in three centuries.

While maintaining certain Persian-type pomp at his court, he launched an ambitious program of "Europeanization" which was supported by the Georgian intellectual élites, but was not overwhelmingly successful because Georgia remained physically isolated from Europe and had to expend all available resources on defending its precarious independence. He strove to enlist the support of European powers, and to attract Western scientists and technicians to give his country the benefit of the latest military and industrial techniques. His style of governing resembled that of contemporary enlightened despots in Central Europe. He exercised executive, legislative, and judicial authority and closely supervised the activities of government departments. Heraclius’s primary objective in internal policy was to further centralize the government through reducing the powers of the aristocracy. For this purpose, he attempted to create a governing élite composed of his own agents to replace the self-minded aristocratic lords in local affairs. At the same time, he encouraged peasant-vassals to supply the military force necessary to overcome the aristocracy's resistance and protect the country from incessant marauding assaults from Dagestan known to Georgians as Lekianoba. In the words of the British historian David Marshall Lang, "his vigilance in the care of his people knew no bounds. On campaign, he would sit up at night watching for the enemy, while in time of peace, he spent his life in transacting business of state or in religious exercise, and devoted but a few hours to sleep."^[4]

Alliance with Russia and last years[link]

In foreign policy, Heraclius 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, Heraclius’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,^[4] and Empress Catherine II treated the Caucasus front as merely a secondary theater of military operations. Still, Heraclius 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 Heraclius of these dangers, as Persia again became engulfed into chaos.^[1]

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, Heraclius finally obtained the guarantees he had sought from Russia, transforming Georgia into a Russian protectorate, as Heraclius 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 Heraclius 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 Heraclius acknowledged Persian suzerainty, promising in return to confirm him as wali. Heraclius 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, in which the king participated personally in the advance guard, Heraclius’s small army of 5000 men was almost completely annihilated. While becoming a witness of the fearful devastation of his capital and slaughter of its civilians, king Heraclius, who did not want to leave the battlefield and the city was spirited away by the very last of his bodyguards and a few family members. 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 belated Russian support and fought, in 1796, alongside the Russian expeditionary forces sent by Catherine into the Persian territories. 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.^[1]

The tomb of Heraclius II in Svetitskhoveli cathedral.

Heraclius died in 1798 still convinced that only Russian protection could ensure the continued existence of his country. He was succeeded by his weak and sickly 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.

Family[link]

He was married three times; first, he married in 1738 Princess Ketevan née Orbeliani (died 1750), but divorced her in 1744.^[5] They had two children:

• Vakhtang (b. 1742 - d. Tbilisi, 1 February 1756), Duke of Aragvi (1747); married Princess Kethevan of Muchrani, no issue.
• Rusadan (b. before 1744; died young)

In 1745 Heraclius remarried Princess Anna née Abashidze (b. 1730 - d. Tbilisi, 6 December 1749). They had two children:

• George (b. 10 October 1746 - d. Tbilisi, 28 December 1800), the last King of Georgia.
• Thamar (b. 11 July 1749 - d. Tbilisi, 4 August 1786), married in 1762 Prince David Orbeliani.

In 1750, Heraclius married thirdly Darejan née Dadiani (Daria; b. 20 July 1734 - d. 8 November 1808). They had twenty children:

• Mariam (c. 1750—1829), married 1777 Davit Tsitsishvili, Prince of Zemo-Satsitsiano
• Solomon (died 1765)
• Helene (1753—1786), married 1stly 1770, Prince Archili of Imereti; 2ndly 1785 Prince Zakaria Andronikashvili
• Sophia (c. 1756; died young)
• Levan (1756—1781)
• Yolon (1760—1816)
• Vakhtang (1761—1814)
• Salome (c. 1761; died young)
• Teimuraz (1763—1827)
• Anastasia (b. Tbilisi, 3 November 1763 — d. St. Petersburg, 17 January 1838), married 1797 Prince Revaz Eristavi of Ksani ^[6]
• Keteven Thamar (1764—5 July 1840), married 1stly 1781, Ioane Bagrationi, 18th Prince of Mukhrani (1755—1 October 1800), with living descendants; 2ndly Prince Abel Andronikashvili^[6][7]
• Mirian (1767—1834)
• Soslan-David (died c. 1767)
• Alexander (1770—1844) who headed several insurrections against the Russian rule in Georgia between 1800 and 1832.
• Archil (died c. 1771)
• Luarsab (born 1772; died young)
• Thekla (b. c. 1775 - d. Tbilisi, 11 March 1846), married in 1800 Prince Vakhtang Jambakurian-Orbeliani.
• Ekaterina (b. c. 1776 - d. Georgiyevsk, 30 March 1786), married in 1793 Prince Giorgi Irubakidzé-Cholokashvili.

(1776—1818)

• Parnaoz (1777—1852)

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Erekle II

Georgia King (born 18 November 1986) is a Scottish actress.^[1]

Career[link]

King made her professional debut in Jane Eyre.^[2] She was nearly unable to play the role, however. "A week before the day she began filming, King felt stomach pains, then had her appendix rupture. Her agent told the producers that she was unlikely to recover from the operation to remove it for at least ten days."^[3] Another actress was cast, but King recovered in time and was able to get the required medical clearance to film.

She is best known for her roles as Harriet, the head girl, in the 2008 film, Wild Child, and as the cruel and conniving Sophie in the 2009 slasher film, Tormented. She also performed in 'One Night In November' at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, October–November 2010, as well as being featured in the 2011 film Chalet Girl.

She has also appeared as Princess Elena in the episode The Changeling of the third series of the BBC fantasy drama series Merlin^[4].

King also has completed filming the comedy horror film Cockneys vs Zombies, directed by Matthias Hoene, about a team of bank robbers battling the undead. The film also stars Michelle Ryan, Rasmus Hardiker and Jack Doolan, and it is currently in post-production, slated to be released later in 2012^[5].

Her father is actor Jonathan Hyde.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Georgia King at the Internet Movie Database
• Photo

This article about a British film actor or actress is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Teimuraz II
King of Kakheti
Teimuraz II
Reign	1732-8 January 1762
Titles	King of Kartli
Born	1680
Died	8 January 1762
Place of death	Saint Petersburg
Buried	Ascension Cathedral in the Astrakhan Kremlin
Predecessor	Constantine II
Successor	Erekle II
Royal House	Bagrationi
Father	Erekle I
Mother	Ana née Cholokashvili

Teimuraz II (Theimuraz) (Georgian: თეიმურაზ II) (1680 — Saint Petersburg, January 8, 1762), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was a king of Kakheti, eastern Georgia, from 1732 to 1744, then of Kartli from 1744 until his death.

Life[link]

He was a son of Erekle I and his wife Anna. Together with his mother, Teimuraz ruled as regent for his absent brother David II (Imam Quli-Khan) from 1709 to 1715. In 1732, the Turks killed the next king and Teimuraz’s other brother, Constantine, and took control of his kingdom. His successor, Teimuraz, fled to the mountains of Pshavi and fought the occupants from there. In 1735, the resurgent Persian ruler Nadir Shah Afshar invaded Kakheti and forced the Turks out of most of eastern Georgia. Teimuraz was taken prisoner, but he escaped and led a popular uprising against the Persian forces and his nephew Alexander who was appointed by Nadir as his lieutenant in Kakheti. A Persian commander Sefi-Khan led a punitive expedition and captured Teimuraz in 1736, sending him to Isfahan where he was held as hostage for two years.

During these years, part of Georgian nobles staged a powerful rebellion against the Persian yoke. In 1738, the shah had to release Teimuraz to counter the Georgian opposition. The uprising now turned into a brutal civil war between pro- and anti-Persian factions. Teimuraz, aided by his son Erekle II, was able to crush the rebels led by Givi Amilakhvari. As a reward, the shah abolished, in 1742, a heavy tribute laid upon Kakheti, and helped Teimuraz to subdue autonomous duchies of the Aragvi and the Ksani in 1743 and 1744 respectively. For his service against the Ottomans and an anti-Persian revolt, in 1744, Teimuraz was confirmed by the shah as king of Kartli, and his son Erekle was given a Kakhetian crown, thus laying the ground for the eventual reunification of these Georgian kingdoms. Most importantly, they were recognised as Christian kings for the first time since 1632. Both monarchs were crowned at the Cathedral of the Living Pillar (Svetitskhoveli) at Mtskheta on October 1, 1745.

With their power growing increasingly stronger, Teimuraz and Erekle soon repudiated their allegiance to the Persian suzerain. Nadir Shah ordered 30,000 Persian troops to move into Georgia and entrusted a Georgian convert (and a former anti-Persian leader) Amilakhvari with the punitive operation. The shah was, however, murdered in 1747, and his empire became engulf into complete chaos. The rulers of Kartli and Kakheti took advantage of the situation and expelled all Persian garrisons from their kingdoms. From 1749 to 1750, they checked several attempts of Persian pretenders to create their powerbase in the eastern Transcaucasia, and made the neighbouring khanates of Yerevan, Ganja, and Nakhichevan their tributaries. He fought then against the Dagestani clansmen who frequently raided the Georgian marchlands, but without complete success.

Like several previous Georgian rulers, he hoped that the expanding Russian empire would be the only protector for the Christians of Caucasus against the Ottoman and Persian aggressions. He sent an embassy to St Petersburg in 1752, but nothing came of this mission. In 1760, he visited the Russian court himself to gain a support for his project of a Georgian expedition to Persia to put a Russian candidate on the shah’s throne. The Russians were too preoccupied with the Seven Years' War to seriously consider Teimuraz’s idea. He died suddenly in the Russian capital on January 8, 1762, and was buried next to his father-in-law Vakhtang VI in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Astrakhan. On his death, Erekle succeeded as king of Kartli, bringing both eastern Georgian kingdoms into a single state (Kingdom of Kartli and Kakheti)

Although he was constantly at war or on guard, Teimuraz found some time to translate from Persian and compose, virtually on horseback, his own poems and lyrics.

Family[link]

Teimuraz was married thrice. He divorced his first wife, Tamar, daughter of Prince Baadur of the Aragvi, in 1710. Two years later, on February 2, 1712, he remarried Vakhtang VI’s daughter Tamar (born 1697), who died in 1746. The same year, Teimuraz married his third wife, Ana (1734—1784), daughter of Prince Bejan Baratashvili, and former wife of Prince Kaikhosro Tsitsishvili. By his three wives, he had four sons and six daughters.

References and further reading[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Teimuraz II

• (English) The Royal Ark
• (English) Iranian-Georgian Relations in the 16th- 19th Centuries in Encyclopædia Iranica
• Donald Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia: A History (August 16, 2000), Routledge, ISBN 0-7007-1163-5, page 126-7 (about Teimuraz’s poetry)

Paata Burchuladze

Paata Burchuladze (Georgian: პაატა ბურჭულაძე) (born February 12, 1955) is a Georgian operatic bass.

Born in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, he graduated from the Tbilisi State Conservatory and began his operatic career at Tbilisi and Moscow, with subsequent appearances at Covent Garden (1984), Salzburg Festival under Herbert von Karajan (1987), Metropolitan Opera in New York City, Verona (Italy), Hamburg (Germany), etc.

Repertorio[link]

• Ludwig van Beethoven
  • Fidelio (Pizarro)

• Arrigo Boito
  • Mefistofele (Mefistofele)

• Alexander Borodin
  • Prince Igor (Konchak)

• Charles Gounod
  • Faust (Méphistophélès)

• Fromental Halévy
  • La Juive (Brogni)

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Osmin)
  • Don Giovanni (The commendator)
  • Die Zauberflöte (Sarastro)

• Modest Mussorgsky
  • Boris Godunov (Boris)
  • Khovanshchina (Dosifey, Ivan Khovansky)

• Amilcare Ponchielli
  • La Gioconda (Alvise Badoero)

• Sergei Prokofiev
  • The Fiery Angel (Inquisitor)

• Giacomo Puccini
  • La Bohème (Colline)
  • Turandot (Timur)
• Ottorino Respighi
  • La Fiamma (L'Esorcista)

• Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov
  • The Golden Cockerel (King Dodon)

• Gioacchino Rossini
  • Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Basilio)

• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
  • Eugene Onegin (Prince Gremin)
  • Iolanta (René)

• Giuseppe Verdi
  • Aida (Ramfis)
  • Attila (Attila)
  • Don Carlo (Filippo II, Grand Inquisitore)
  • Ernani (Don Ruy Gomes de Silva)
  • I Lombardi (Pagano)
  • La Forza del Destino (Padre Guardiano)
  • Luisa Miller (Conte Walter)
  • Macbeth (Banco)
  • Nabucco (Zaccaria)
  • Otello (Ludovico)
  • Rigoletto (Sparafucile)
  • Simon Boccanegra (Fiesco)
  • I Vespri siciliani (Procida)

External links[link]

• The artist’s official website
• Burchuladze, Paata. In: Dictionary of Georgian National Biography.

This Georgian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This article about an opera singer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Gia Gugushvili with his painting "Eastern Melody". Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev

Gia Gugushvili (Georgian: გია გუგუშვილი; born August 16, 1952) is a prominent Georgian painter.

He was born in Tbilisi. Graduated from the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts and Applied Arts after studying from 1971 to 1977. He finished professor Koki Makharadze’s studio.

He is now the dean of the Georgian Art Academy, a professor and laureate of a State Prize.

His paintings are in museums and private collections all over the world.

Solo Exhibitions:

• 1991 — Basel, Switzerland
• 1998 — Gertsev Gallery. Moscow, Russia
• 1999 — TMS Gallery. Tbilisi, Georgia
• 2000 — Gertsev Gallery. Moscow, Russia; TMS Gallery. Tbilisi, Georgia
• 2001 — Gertsev Gallery. Moscow, Russia; Gertsev Gallery. Atlanta, U.S.
• 2002 — Universe Gallery. Tbilisi, Georgia
• 2003 — Hamburg, Germany; Bremen, Germany
• 2004 — "Caucasian house", Paris, France; Gertsev Gallery, Atlanta, USA
• 2005 — ARD, Berlin, Germany; Am Roten Hof Gallery, Vienna, Austria

External links[link]

• Selected work represented in the Gertsev gallery
• Gia Gugushvili at Tiflis Avenue