Alexander I of Georgia

File:Georgie au XVI siecle. Alexandre, roi des rois,1417-1442.jpg's reproduction of the Georgian King Alexander I and Queen Nestan-Darejan with other royal figures (1847).]]

Alexander was the eldest son of Constantine I of Georgia and his wife Natia, daughter of the Georgian diplomat prince Kutsna Amirejibi. He was brought up by his grandmother (Natia's mother) Rusa (died 1413), an educated and religious noblewoman, who greatly influenced the future king’s preoccupations and his enthusiasm for religious building.

The talented and brave ruler successfully managed to carry out such a difficult task under those conditions. He dangerously destroyed and expelled Turkomans. Only once, for the last time, Qara Yusuf managed to disturb the Georgian land and water, and that too because of the intolerant exodus of the subjects of Alexander the Great.{{Cite web |title=ქართული ენციკლოპედიის ი. აბაშიძის სახელობის მთავარი სამეცნიერო რედაქცია |url=https://georgianencyclopedia.ge/ka |access-date=2025-02-23 |website=georgianencyclopedia.ge}}.In 1416 Qara Yusuf invaded Akhaltsikhe and he returned his homeland with many loot.{{Cite web |title=Home |url=http://qim.ge/aleqsandre%20didi1.html |access-date=2025-02-23 |website=qim.ge}}{{Cite book |last=Sanikidze |first=Levan |title=Unsharpened swords vol. 2 |date=1991 |isbn=978-9941-32-859-6 |edition=Merani |location=Tbilisi |pages=254}}

With his ascension to the throne (1412), Alexander moved to western Georgia and mediated a peace between his vassals, the rival princes of Mingrelia and Abkhazia. Then he, in 1414, met the rebellious prince Atabeg Ivane Jaqeli of Samtskhe on battlefield and forced him into submission. Having dealt with these powerful feudal lords, he, aided by Catholicos Patriarch Shio II, began a program the restoration of major Georgian fortresses and churches. He imposed a temporary building tax on his subjects from 1425 to 1440, but despite the king’s efforts many towns and villages, once flourished, were left in ruin and overgrown by forest.

File:Alexander_I_of_Georgia_(Nabakhtevi_fresco).jpg in Georgia.|left]]

File:Map–Georgia_and_surroundings,_14-15th_c.–en.svg with Lori and Synuik|alt=|thumb]]

In 1431, he re-conquered Lori, a Georgian marchland occupied by the Kara Koyunlu Turkoman tribesmen of Persia who had frequently raided the southern Georgian marches from there and had even sacked Akhaltsikhe in 1416.According to the 15th-century Armenian historian Thomas of Metsoph (T’ovma Metsobets’i), the Kara Kouynlu leader Kara Yusuf invaded Samtskhe and pillaged its capital Akhaltsikhe in 1416 in response to the profanation inflicted by the local Christian Georgians and Armenians on a mosque. Around 1434/5, Alexander encouraged the Armenian prince Beshken II Orbelian to attack the Kara Koyunlu clansmen in Syunik (Siunia) and, for his victory, granted him Lorri under terms of vassalage.{{Cite book |last=Sanikidze |first=Levan |title=Unsharpened swords |date=1991 |isbn=978-9941-32-824-4 |edition=Merani |location=Tbilisi |pages=828}} In 1440, Alexander refused to pay tribute to Jahan Shah of the Kara Kouynlu. In March, Jahan Shah surged into Georgia with 20,000 troops, destroyed the city of Samshvilde and sacked the capital city Tbilisi. He massacred thousands of Christians,

According to Thomas of Metsoph, Jahan Shah imposed a large tax on the Christians living in Tbilisi in order to convert them to Islam. It is not known from other sources how much this tax was and whether Christians paid it or not.Studies in the history of Georgia, Vol. 3, Tbilisi, 1979, p. 732

File:Constantine_I,_Alexander_I,_Vakhtang_IV,_George_VIII_relief.jpg (his father), Alexander I, Vakhtang IV (his son) and George VIII (his son)]]

In order to reduce the power of frequently rebellious aristocracy, he opposed them by appointing his sons – Vakhtang, Demetre, and George – as his co-rulers in Kakheti, Imereti and Kartli, respectively. This, however, proved to be even dangerous to the kingdom's integrity and the fragile unity kept by Alexander would soon disappear under his sons. For this reason, Alexander the Great is frequently claimed to have disintegrated Georgia and said not to deserve his epithet "the Great" his people bestowed on him.Suny (1994), page 45 This appellation dates almost from his own day, however, and as the modern Georgian historian Ivane Javakhishvili presumes, might have been related to the large-scale restoration projects launched by the king and his initial success in the struggle with the Turkmen nomads.Ivane Javakhishvili (1982), page 243

As worldly problems overwhelmed his kingdom, Alexander abdicated the throne in 1442 and retired to a monastery under the monastic name of Athanasius.

He married c. 1411 Dulandukht, daughter of Beshken II Orbelian, by whom he had two sons:

• Vakhtang IV, King of Georgia
• A daughter (c. 1411 – c. 1438) who married, 1425, the emperor John IV of TrebizondToumanoff, Cyril (1949–51). "The Fifteenth-Century Bagratids and the Institution of Collegial Sovereignty in Georgia", Traditio 7: 181-3.
• Demetrius (c. 1413–1453), co-ruler in Imereti; father of Constantine II

Alexander's second marriage with Tamar (died after 1455), daughter of prince Alexander I of Imereti, took place around 1414. Their children were:

• George VIII, first king of independent Kakheti
• David, Catholicos Patriarch of Georgia consecrated in 1426.
• Zaal (born c.1428 – died after 1442), Alexander's fifth son, sixth and last child. He was made a co-king by his father in 1433.Toumanoff, "The Fifteenth-Century Bagratids", Traditio 7: 190.

• History of Georgia

{{Reflist}}

{{commonscat|Alexander I of Georgia}}

• Ivane Javakhishvili, The History of the Georgian Nation, vol. 3 (1982), Tbilisi State University Press (In Georgian)
• Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation: 2nd edition (December 1994), Indiana University Press, {{ISBN|0-253-20915-3}}
• [http://rbedrosian.com/tm4.htm T'oma Metsobeli's History of Tamerlane and His Successors]
• Sanikidze, Levan (1991). [https://dspace.nplg.gov.ge/handle/1234/80217 Unsharpened swords vol. 2.] Tbilisi: Merani. ISBN 978-9941-32-859-6

{{s-start}}

{{succession box | title= King of Georgia | before= Constantine I | after= Vakhtang IV| years=1412–1442}}

{{s-end}}

{{Kings of United Georgia}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexander 01 Of Georgia}}

Category:Kings of Georgia

Category:1386 births

Category:1440s deaths

Category:Burials at Svetitskhoveli Cathedral

Category:Year of death unknown