Teimuraz I of Kakheti

Teimuraz I
Teimuraz I and his wife Khorashan. A sketch from the album of the contemporaneous Roman Catholic missionary Cristoforo Castelli
King of Kakheti
Reign	1605–1616 1625–1633 1634–1648
King of Kartli
Reign	1625–1633
Predecessor	Simon II of Kartli
Successor	Rostom of Kartli
Born	1589
Died	1661 Gorgan, Iran
Burial	Alaverdi Monastery
Spouse	Anna Gurieli Khorashan of Kartli
Issue	Prince Levan Prince Alexander Princess Tinatin Prince David of Kakheti Darejan of Kakheti, Queen of Imereti
Dynasty	Bagrationi dynasty
Father	David I of Kakheti
Mother	Ketevan the Martyr
Religion	Georgian Orthodox Church
Signature

Teimuraz I (Georgian: თეიმურაზ I) (1589–1661), of the Bagrationi Dynasty, was a Georgian monarch who ruled, with intermissions, as King of Kakheti from 1605 to 1648 and also of Kartli from 1625 to 1633. The eldest son of David I and Ketevan, Teimuraz spent most of his childhood at the court of Shah of Iran, where he came to be known as Tahmuras Khan. He was made king of Kakheti following a revolt against his reigning uncle, Constantine I, in 1605. From 1614 on, he waged a five-decade long struggle against the Safavid Iranian domination of Georgia in the course of which he lost several members of his family and ended up his life as the shah's prisoner at Astarabad at the age of 74.

A versatile poet and admirer of Persian poetry, Teimuraz translated into Georgian several Persian love-stories and transformed the personal experiences of his long and difficult reign into a series of original poems influenced by the contemporary Persian tradition.

Teimuraz was the son of David I of Kakheti by his wife Ketevan née Bagration-Mukhraneli. Kakheti, the easternmost Georgian polity that emerged after the fragmentation of the Kingdom of Georgia in the late 15th century, was within the sphere of influence of the Safavid dynasty of Iran. Until the early years of the 17th century, the kings of Kakheti had maintained peaceful relations with their Iranian suzerains, but their independent foreign policy and diplomacy with the Tsardom of Russia had long irked the shahs of Iran. Teimuraz himself was held as a political hostage at the Safavid court and raised in Esfahan, capital of Iran, under the tutelage of Shah Abbas I.