THE EURASIAN STATE OF GEORGIA IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURYTHE EURASIAN STATE OF GEORGIA IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY The Mongol Era and Its End Vazha Kiknadze With a Foreword by Giorgi L. Kavtaradze The Edwin Mellen Press Lewiston*Queenston*LampeterLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kiknadze, Vazha_ ‘The Eurasian state of Georgia in the fourteenth century : the Mongol era and its end / Vazha Kiknadze ; with a foreword by Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze. Pages cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7734-4071-5 (hardcover) ISBN-10: 0-7734-4071-2 (hardcover) 1. Georgia (Republic)—History--To 1801. 2. Georgia (Republic) History~To 180|—Sources. 3, Mongols~Georgia (Republic)—History~ To 1500. 4, Georgia (Republic)--Politics and government. 5, Georgia (Republic}-Economic condition. |. Title DK677.3.K55 2013 947.58'03-de23 2012044040 hors série, ACIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2013 Vazha Kiknadze Cover Photo: Fresco ftom a 14" century painting. Ubisi Monastery (photo by T. Deal. All rights reserved. For information contact, The Edwin Mellen Press ‘The Edwin Mellen Press Box 450 Box 67 Lewiston, New York Queenston, Ontario USA 14092-0450 CANADA LOS ILO ‘The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd. Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales UNITED KINGDOM SA48 8LT Printed in the United States of AmericaDedicated to the memory of my mother — geneticist, Trina Sakvarelidze, Ph. D.THE EURASIAN STATE OF GEORGIA IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY The Mongol Era and Its End This book has bee The Adbie Mellen for its distinguished contribution to scholarship,The Analytical Table of Contents Foreword by Giorgi L. Kavtaradze i Preface va Introduction vat Historiography and Review of Sources Historiography x Overview of Sources AIX Bibliography XXVIE The Sources XLIV Chapter GEORGIA AND ILKHANATE ON THE TURN OF THE 13-14" CENTURY 1 The Governing Sistem of Ilkhanate. Social-Economic Tendencies J The Types of Land Property, Commerce and Manufacture in Ilkhanate 8 § I.GEORGIA AT THE END OF THE 13°" CENTURY 10 The State Borders of Georgia at the End of the 13" Century 10 The Political Situation in Georgia at the End of the 13" Century 14 Emir Togachar's Rebellion in Rum 7 The Reign of Vakhiang If 22Commendatory Foreword by Giorgi L. Kavtaradze The monograph by Professor Vazha Kiknadze, “The Eurasian State of Georgia in the Foruteenth Century,” prepared recently for publication in the United States of America by Edwin Mellen Publishers, covers a period of Georgian history which has few written sources or other contemporary documentary materials. This was a very crucial time in Georgian history. the days of King George V the Brilliant, who released Georgia from Mongolian domination and reunited the country. In addition to the surviving Georgian and well-known foreign written sources, the author makes use of previously unknown manuscripts examined by him (Georgian synaxarions of the 13th and 14th centuries from the libraries of St. Petersburg and the unpublished manuscripts of the most famous Georgian historian of the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, Ivane Javakhishvili). On the basis of these materials, first brought to light for scolarly analysis and interpretation by the author and using all existing primary sources together with materials of different types, Dr. Kiknadze restores the complex internal and external political processes that occurred in Georgia from the 1990s until the 1890s — the time of the invasions of Tamerlane, and puts forward a quite new vision of the events of historic character of this period. Dr. Kiknadze detected and added to scholarly circulation, among other documents, a letter of the year 1332 or 1333 of George V the Brilliant to the Valois king of France Philip VI (1328-1350) who planned together with Edward III of England,a crusade in 1332, which was never executed and an epistle of the year 1330 from the Catholic Bishop of Sukhumi, Peter Gerald, to the Archbishop of Canterbury — both in Latin. Remarkable is the fact that in the monograph the data concerning the events of the 14th century from the “Geography of the Georgian Kingdom” by Vakhushti Bagrationi, which are based on the now lost Georgian written sources of the 13th-14th century, correlate the foreign sources such as that of Hafizi Abru and Abu Bakr al-Qutbi al-Ahri. This correlation proved the great importance of the data appearing in the work of Vakhushti Bagrationi. A comprehensive consideration and a new interpretation of the well-known European historical data, on the one hand, with that of the Middle East, on the other, permitted Dr. Kiknadze to adopt a thoroughly well-reasoned opinion that the unification of eastern and western Georgia took place in 1330 A.D. and that the final liberation of Georgia from the Mongolian domination was brought about between 1327 and 1335. This conclusion isa substantial contribution to Medieval history, not only of Georgia or Transcaucasia, but of the much wider Middle Eastern area. Dr. Kiknadze’s study sheds light on the nature of relations between the Georgians and the Mongols; it gives us an opportunity to reconsider not only the time length, but as well the character of Mongolian dominance in Georgia. In the monograph, special focus is concentrated on the complicated numismatic situation of 14th century Georgia. The fact that Mongol coins were still struck in 14th century Georgia is generally explained in literature by the dominance of the ILMongols in Caucasia at the time, but Dr Kiknadze proves that the Georgian king, George V the Brilliant (1318-1346), and his successor and descendant, David [X (1346-1360), struck coins with the names of the puppet Ilkhanian khans, whose power in reality had diminished by that time to a mere formality, only with the aim to strengthen their economic interests and to gain more influence in the commercial world of the contemporary Middle East. Such a pragmatic use of coinage for commercial or political intentions was not rare in Transcaucasia of the Ilkhan period. We can recall the silver dirham struck in Tbilisi under the Mongol Ilkhans by Abaga (1265-1282). son of Hulagu, in the mame of the the Great Khan Khubilai, in the period of undoubted and strong Mongol dominance. While the obverse side of the coin has a legend and design in Uyghur, the reverse bears a Christian cross and an Arabic inscription: “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God”. Abaga, son-in-law of the Byzantine emperor, Michael VIII Palaeologus, taking this step, hoped to form a coalition with Christian powers against the Muslims. The author has succeeded in correcting a whole range of historical dates, among them the years of the reign of various Georgian kings and political figures: George V the Brilliant, George VI the Small, Vakhtang II] and Demetre, the unknown king of the 14th century, ete. Dr. Kiknadze based his research on the data of the Anonymous Chronicler of the 14th century and of Vakhushti Bagrationi (1696-1757) and correlating them with the inscription in the church of Daba, near Borjomi, he Ilcame to the conclusion that the year of the accession of George V the Brilliant to the throne was 1318 and not 1314, as was traditionally thought, and that the years of his reign should be therefore recorded as from 1318 to 1346. The author suggests that in the information about George V the Brilliant’s struggle with the Mongol noyans of Azerbaijan in the 1330s, in reality was meant the invasion of Chobanid Hasan Kiigiik. The author gives a detailed analysis of the article dedicated to George V the Brilliant by the well-known British scholar, David M. Lang. Through a detailed study of documentary material and by discussing nearly all the arguments put forth by Dr. Lang, Dr, Kiknadze makes it obvious that the main conclusions reached by the British scholar are not entirely accurate. ‘A separate chapter is devoted in the book to the problem of identifying the Anonymous Chronicler of the 14th century. A close examination of the Chronicle allows the author to consider the Chronicler as a contemporary of the events described and even as an eyewitness. Moreover, in the person mentioned in the same Chronicle and referred to as Hieromonk (Priestmonk) Moses, who accompanied the Georgian king, Demetre II the Martyr (1270-1289), to the Mughan Valley and who was present at the time of his execution there on March 12, 1289, Dr. Kiknadze believes that the Chronicler himself must be meant. The author pays special attention to the specifying of the reasons contributing to the country's political integrity; as well as to the understanding of the causes which helped Georgia to Vvregain its sovereignty in the background of Georgian-IIhanian relations and to free the country from the Mongolian yoke. Moreover, the various aspects of the political development of Georgia are discussed constantly as a background to the main stages of the state development of Ihanian Iran itself. From the author's view-point, as in the Middle Ages a strong royal power was a helpful circumstance for the creation of a powerful state, all measures taken by George V the Brilliant, including the bloody oppression of his opponents, ought to be considered as a favourable precondition for his future successful fight against his country’s conquerors — the Mongols. Dr. Kiknadze critically analyses the objective causes which helped Georgia to regain its independence: George V the Brilliant’s successful energetic activities, both within the country, as well as abroad and the decline and powerlessness of the Ikhanian state. Special attention is given to the great importance of what remained from the period of pre-Mongolian Georgia, i.e. the substrata of the system of feudal state organization. The monograph includes a separate chapter dedicated to the material and spiritual heritage dating from 14th century Georgia, showing the continuity of the local cultural traditions and the high level of cultural development of Georgia, despite all the cataclysms characterizing this epoch: invasions, foreign rule, earthquakes and devastating epidemics. Taking into consideration the vastness of the territory conquered by the Mongols from Japan to Egypt and from VvIndochina to Poland and the significant role they played in the history of the whole of Eurasia, we hope that the English- speaking reader will be interested in becoming acquainted with the topic of Mongol rule in Georgia. It is also very interesting which model of mile the Mongols were using in Georgia and whether it was or was not unique, when and how the Mongols ran out of power in Georgia, and what factors determined the country's liberation from their oppressors. This monograph provides in this regard a new and well-substantiated viewpoint, based on extensive evidence which is partially unknown in scholarly literature and which was subjected to a thorough and scrupulous analysis. Professor Vazha Kiknadze has actually managed to restore our past, the period of the history of Georgia most shrouded in mist. This past has a special value for us, — it determines the subsequent development of the Georgian state; the author has succeeded in running back the pages of history, which were considered as forever lost, not only to history, but also to a wide circle of readers. Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze (Dr. habil., Ph.D.) Chief Researcher in the Ivane Javakhishvili Institute of History and Ethnology Tbilisi, Georgia Founder of the Kvtaradze Centre of Caucasian & Anatolian Studies VIWazha Kiknadze Dr. Vazha Kiknadze received the Doctor of Historical Science (Doctor Habil.). He is the Director of Ivane Javakhishvili Institute of History and Ethnology (Tbilisi). Dr. Kiknadze is a Full Professor of Tbilisi State University in the Faculty of Humanities. He investigates the history of Georgia in Medieval Ages as well as the problems of the ecclesiastic history of Georgia in the 19” century.