Vakhtang V of Kartli

Vakhtang V, known in Persia as Shah Nawaz Khan, was the first king of Kartli from the Mukhrani branch of the Bagrationi and briefly brought nearly all the Georgian lands under his family's control. Born in 1618, he was the son of Teimuraz I, prince of Mukhrani, and Ana of Aragvi. His father died in 1625 and the boy lost Mukhrani during the Persian invasions; about 1634 he submitted to King Rostom, who restored his principality under the Muslim name Bakhuta Beg. When Rostom's adopted heir Luarsab was killed on a hunt in 1652, the childless king adopted Vakhtang in 1653 with the approval of Shah Abbas II, who is said to have judged the prince from a portrait. Vakhtang went to Isfahan, accepted Islam, and returned as Shah Nawaz Khan. Rostom died on 17 November 1658, and Vakhtang was crowned at Mtskheta on 1 January 1659 with a crown and insignia sent by the shah. He put down the Bakhtrioni rising in Kakheti in 1660 and 1661, then turned west, defeated Vameq III Dadiani, and placed his son Archil on the throne of Imereti; when Persian policy shifted he moved Archil to Kakheti, where he ruled as Shah Nazar Khan from 1664 to 1675. Vakhtang thus became the first Georgian ruler since the fifteenth century to hold sway over almost the whole country, though factions at the Persian court frustrated his plan for a lasting reunion of the eastern kingdoms. He divorced his first wife, Rodam Qaplanishvili-Orbeliani, in 1659 and married Rostom's widow Mariam Dadiani to strengthen his hold on the west. His sons included Archil, George XI, Levan, and Luarsab; George, Rodam's son, succeeded him. A daughter, Anuka, was married to Shah Abbas II in 1660. In 1676 the shah summoned Vakhtang to Isfahan to answer for Archil's flight to the Ottomans, and he died on the way, in September 1676 at Khoskaro near Ganja; some references give 1675. He was buried at Qom. The Mukhrani line he founded held the throne of Kartli, with interruptions, into the eighteenth century. A contemporary Georgian poem, the Shahnavaziani, celebrates the first years of his reign.