Queen Tamara

Georgian queen (r. 1184-1212)

• Born: 1159
• Birthplace: Kingdom of Georgia (now Republic of Georgia)
• Died: 1212
• Place of death: Kingdom of Georgia (now Republic of Georgia)

Queen Tamara ruled the Transcaucasian kingdom of Georgia during the height of its medieval cultural development, the period of the composition of the Georgian national epic, The Knight in the Panther’s Skin.

Early Life

Queen Tamara (tuh-MAW-ruh) was the daughter of Giorgi III of the Bagrationi Dynasty of kings. Giorgi III was the grandson of David the Builder, one of the greatest kings of the Transcaucasian kingdom of Georgia, located between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus, two ranges of mountains running from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea. Western Georgia, or Imerti, was known in classical times as Colchis, and eastern Georgia, or Kartli, was known as Iveria, or Iberia, not to be confused with the Iberian peninsula of Western Europe.

Giorgi III had no sons and wanted his only daughter Tamara to succeed him, but there was no existing tradition for a ruling queen in Georgia. Anticipating resistance and determined to establish her right to the throne, he had her crowned as his coruler in 1178. He had a special coin struck showing both his and his daughter’s names. It is significant that in the Georgian language Queen Tamara is always referred to by the same title, mepe, used for a male ruler, rather than the title usually used for the queen consort of a king.

Life’s Work

On the death of her father in 1184, Tamara assumed the throne in her own right as ruler of the kingdom of Georgia. As her father had anticipated, she faced intense resistance from the powerful noble families, who formed a council known as the darbazi to force their wishes on the monarch. The Georgians can point with some pride to the fact that the formation of this body predates by some twenty-five years the Magna Carta, which allowed the English barons to form Parliament, although the darbazi did not become a permanent political tradition as the English Parliament did. In many ways, the council of Georgian nobles had more in common with the Fronde, the group of rebellious French nobles who sought to wrest control away from the monarchy in the early reign of Louis XIV and produced no lasting parliamentary tradition.

Such was the nobles’ power in the early part of Tamara’s reign that they were able to force her to make Mikel Mirianisdze, the patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, her primary adviser and to demote her military commander in chief, Qubasar. The nobles also forced her to marry Yuri, son of Andrei Bogolyubsky, prince of Rostov-Suzdal, one of the principalities of Kievan Rus, the pre-Tatar Russian state. In Georgia, Yuri was known as Giorgi Rusi, Giorgi being the Georgian equivalent to the Russian Georgi-Yegor-Yuri group of names and Rusi literally meaning “the Russian.” Although Prince Yuri was a successful military commander and won several important battles against Georgia’s hostile Muslim neighbors, he was also an unfaithful husband who preferred the company of slave concubines to that of his wife.

Tamara did not acquiesce peacefully to these demands, although she had to bide her time to overturn some of the more onerous ones. After the death of Mikel Mirianisdze, she obtained a divorce from Yuri and sent him back home to Kievan Rus. Tamara then married David Soslan, an Ossetian prince who had been raised in the Georgian court. By him she had a son and a daughter, both of whom would subsequently rule Georgia. When the rebellious nobles tried to restore Yuri in 1191, Tamara successfully put down the attempted revolt with the aid of the royalist Mkhargrdzeli (Zakarid) family, who subsequently lent their military skills to expand her realm.

Internal dissension was not the only threat Tamara faced. Beyond the borders of Georgia lay several strong Muslim nations that regularly sought to invade and conquer the Christian kingdom. In 1195, Tamara’s armies defeated the Azeri commander Abū Bakr at the Battle of Shamkhor. In 1199, Tamara retook the traditionally Georgian town of Ani, which she gave to the Mkhargrdzelis as a reward for their faithfulness to her. During 1203 to 1204, her forces fought significant battles in the area of Basian, defeating Rukn al-Dīn, sultan of Rum, and subsequently annexed Dwin, Shamkhor, and Ganjak.

At its height, Queen Tamara’s empire stretched throughout the Transcaucasus, including territory that would become modern Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as what would become the modern Republic of Georgia. The later period of Queen Tamara’s reign became known as the golden age of medieval Georgia. The establishment of strong commercial centers brought trade wealth to a nation that already possessed rich soil and a favorable climate.

As a result, Georgia underwent an outburst of literary and artistic culture. It was during this period that Shota Rustaveli composed Vepkhistkaosani (twelfth century; The Knight in the Panther’s Skin, 1968) a lengthy narrative poem dealing with heroic themes of knight errantry. Very little is known about Rustaveli. His name merely means “man from Rustavi,” and Georgia has several towns by this name, so he cannot be definitely connected with the modern-day Rustavi downstream of Tbilisi on the Mtkvari River. Tradition makes Rustaveli a courtier hopelessly in love with Queen Tamara and suggests that he may have ultimately retired to a monastery. However, no evidence exists to confirm or deny these legends.

Queen Tamara donated generously to the Church and particularly to the various monasteries, which were important centers of learning. She funded the second phase of the building of the Vardzia cave-complex monastery in the mountains not far from the modern Turkish border. This religious community had originally been established by her father and is said to have gotten its name from one of her childish escapades while accompanying her father on an inspection of the early work.

One particularly famous icon, the Khakhuli Theotokos (Virgin Mary as Mother of God) in the Gelati monastery, has an interesting legend surrounding the precious stones that adorn it. Supposedly, Queen Tamara was preparing for Divine Liturgy when she was told that an elderly woman was begging for alms outside the door of her chamber. Wanting to finish weaving precious stones into her long hair, the queen ordered the woman to wait outside. When Tamara emerged, the old woman had vanished without a trace. At that moment, Tamara realized that she had turned aside the Lord God himself, who had taken this guise to test her hospitality. In shame, Tamara took the royal headband that had been the cause of her delay and placed it on the icon of the Virgin Mary, where it has remained to modern times.

Queen Tamara died in 1212. She was succeeded by her son, Giorgi IV Lasha (the Resplendent), who ruled from 1212 to 1223, when the Mongol invasion cut short his reign and he was killed in battle. He was succeeded briefly by his sister, but she was forced to flee ahead of the invading horde. Most scholars believe that Tamara was buried in one of the niches in the crypt of the Gelati monastery, which had been established by David the Builder as an intellectual redoubt against Turkish invasion. Literary sources contemporary to her quote her as having commanded that her remains be taken to Gelati as the land of her ancestors, and there given an honorable grave. However, as many as seven other putative grave sites have been identified for Queen Tamara, including one in Zhibiana, one of the four subsettlements of Ushguli, the highest continuously inhabited village in Europe. Archaeologists have been excavating the church under one of the two tall Svanetian watchtowers that folk tradition identify as the summer and winter residences of Queen Tamara in Upper Svaneti.

Significance

Tamara was one of the greatest monarchs of feudal Georgia and one of the most warmly remembered. She was canonized (made a saint) by the Georgian Orthodox Church. Her feast day is May 14 (May 1 in the Julian Calendar, which is retained for purposes of religious observances in the Eastern Orthodox churches), and she is regarded as a healer of infirmities. In the modern Republic of Georgia, Tamara has remained one of the most common names given to girls, and many families bear the surname Tamarashvili, one of the few instance of the usually patronymic -shvili suffix being used with a woman’s name.

Throughout the modern Republic of Georgia, one can find archeological sites associated with Queen Tamara, some genuine, others not. For example, one large cavern in the Uplis-Tsikhe cave village near Gori is known as the Tamara Hall, although there is no evidence that Queen Tamara herself lived there, only that it was reserved as a royal residence. In addition, there is a ruin on the slopes of Mount Kazbek called Tamara’s Castle, which is thought by modern scholars to have been the work of David the Builder, but is associated in local folklore with a different Queen Tamara, unrelated to the beloved Tamara of the Georgian golden age. This legendary queen was supposed to be an evil temptress whose fondest amusement was to seduce handsome travelers for a night of pleasure, only to have them executed the following morning.

The art of the period is greatly treasured by the modern Georgian people. Most prized is Rustaveli’s masterpiece, The Knight in the Panther’s Skin, which has come to be regarded as the national epic and has greatly affected Georgian literature. Many Georgians can recite lengthy passages of the poem. Georgian scholars have created a scholarly journal devoted entirely to the study of Rustaveli and his poem.

Bibliography

Allen, W. E. D. A History of the Georgian People: From the Beginning Down to the Russian Conquest in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1971. This overview of pre-Russian Georgian history includes a fair amount of information on the reign of Queen Tamara but does not include information that has been gained since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Eastmond, Anthony. Royal Imagery in Medieval Georgia. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. A study of artifacts relating to the kings and queens of Georgia, with a fair amount of information on images of Queen Tamara and their importance in the society of the time.

Rosen, Roger. Georgia: A Sovereign Country of the Caucasus. Hong Kong: Odyssey, 1999. A travel guide that includes information about Queen Tamara in relation to archeological sites in modern Georgia.

Suny, Ronald Grigor. The Making of the Georgian Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. Although its focus is primarily on the post-Soviet republic, this book includes an overview of earlier Georgian history, including the era of Queen Tamara.