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Princess Rodam of Kartli

18th-century Queen of Imereti From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Princess Rodam of Kartli
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Rodam (Georgian: როდამი) (died 1730) was a Georgian royal princess (batonishvili) of the Bagrationi dynasty from the House of Mukhrani branch.[1] She married King George VII of Imereti and served as queen of the Kingdom of Imereti twice, from 1707 to 1711 and again from 1712 to 1713. The daughter of King George XI of Kartli, Rodam was married to the Imeretian ruler in an effort to strengthen relations between the Bagrations of the Kingdom of Kartli and their cousins in Imereti. During the multiple reigns of George VII, her position as queen contributed to several civil wars among Georgian nobles and rulers, who sought to expand their influence over Kutaisi by controlling the royal marriage.

Quick facts Rodam of Kartli, Born ...

Despite her status as a royal princess and queen of Imereti in the 18th century, little is known about her life, which disappears from records after 1716 during the civil war.

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Biography

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Little is known about the early life of Rodam, she was born between 1687 and 1695. She was the only child of King George XI of Kartli and his wife, Queen Khoreshan Mikeladze, and was named after her paternal grandmother, Rodam Qaplanishvili-Orbeliani. In 1703, while her father was appointed viceroy of Kandahar by Shah Soltan Hoseyn of Persia,[2] Rodam was entrusted to her maternal grandfather, the Imeretian prince Giorgi Mikeladze. That same year, Mikeladze persuaded the heir apparent of Imereti, Prince George, to take Rodam as his wife.[3]

The marriage marked a difficult rise for the crown prince, who received financial support from Rodam’s cousin, King Vakhtang VI.[3] The union, however, provoked the opposition of the powerful Abashidze family, whose patriarch, Giorgi Abashidze, had sought to marry one of his daughters to Prince George. In response, Giorgi Abashidze prevented the coronation of the royal couple and waged war against George Mikeladze, forcing him into exile in Kartli.[3] The civil war continued until 1707, when Prince George finally seized the throne as George VII of Imereti, and Rodam was crowned queen.[4]

The reign of George VII, however, remained turbulent. In 1711, he was overthrown by a noble revolt, and the royal couple sought refuge in Kartli, where King Vakhtang VI’s diplomacy succeeded in establishing peace between the Abashidze family and the deposed king.[3] The relationship between George VII and Rodam subsequently deteriorated, to the point that the historian Donald Rayfield claims the king “hated” his wife and took Tamar Abashidze, the daughter of his former enemy, as his mistress.[4] While in exile, the king had Giorgi Nizharadze, Tamar’s husband, blinded,[4] and secretly married Tamar in 1712.

Between 1712 and 1713, George VII temporarily regained the throne of Imereti, while the fate of Rodam remains unknown. In January 1714, King Jesse of Kartli offered to restore George VII to power in Kutaisi, on the condition that he swear on a cross to abandon Tamar Abashidze and reinstate Rodam as queen of Imereti. He agreed, divorced Princess Abashidze, and returned to power for a third time.[4] However, he broke his promise and exiled Rodam and their son Alexander to the mountains of Svaneti, divorcing her later that same year.[5]

During the civil war following George VII’s third accession to the throne, Princes Bezhan Dadiani and Zurab Abashidze devastated Svaneti in 1716, including the castle of Queen Rodam, after which she disappears from historical records, except that she died in 1730.[6]

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Marriage and issue

Princess Rodam married King George VII of Imereti and had 5 children:[7]

  • Alexander V of Imereti (c. 1703/4 – March 1752), King of Imereti from 1720 until his death in 1752.
  • Mamuka of Imereti (1719 – 1769), he twice tried to seize the crown of Imereti from his brother, Alexander V.
  • Princess Tamar (fl. 1735), married Prince David Abashidze in 1735.
  • Princess Tuta, who married a certain Mahmoud-Beg in 1735, then Prince Papuna Chichua in 1738.
  • Anonymous daughter (fl. 1735), married to Mamuka, Prince of Mukhrani.

Rodam was the direct ancestor of the last kings of Imereti and of the claimants to the throne until the end of succession claims in 2007.

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References

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