Tsotne Dadiani

Tsotne Dadiani
Tsotne Dadiani as a child with his parents. A fresco from the Khobi Monastery
Saint Tsotne Dadiani the Confessor
Born	Kingdom of Georgia
Died	c. 1260
Venerated in	Georgian Orthodox Church
Canonized	1999 by Patriarch Ilia II
Feast	12 August (30 July)

Tsotne Dadiani (Georgian: ცოტნე დადიანი) (died c. 1260) was a Georgian nobleman of the House of Dadiani and one of the leading political figures in the time of Mongol ascendancy in Georgia. Around 1246, he was part of a failed plot aimed at overthrowing the Mongol hegemony, but survived arrest and torture in captivity that befell upon his fellow conspirators when their designs to stage a rebellion was betrayed to the Mongols. A story from the medieval Georgian annals relating Tsotne's insistence on sharing his accomplices' fate that moved the Mongols to mercy made him a popular historical figure and a saint of the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Tsotne Dadiani came of the noble family, which was in possession of Odishi, latter-day Mingrelia, in western Georgia. The principal source on his biography is the early 14th-century anonymous Chronicle of a Hundred Years, which is included in the corpus of Georgian Chronicles and relates the history of Georgia from c. 1213 to c. 1320. Tsotne Dadiani is identified by various modern scholars with several historical persons known from medieval sources. These are:

Tsotne Dadiani's career unfolded against the background of decline of Georgia as a major regional power in the face of the Khwarazmian and Mongol invasions. Around 1228, Tsotne was among the commanders of a large army summoned by Queen Regnant Rusudan to free Georgia from the Khwarazmian troops of Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu. In the ensuing battle at Bolnisi, on route to Tbilisi, the Georgian army was defeated and Tbilisi once again fell to Jalal ad-Din. After Rusudan's death, the throne of Georgia lay disputed in view of rival claims from her son David and his namesake cousin, a natural son of Rusudan's brother and predecessor, King George IV. Tsotne Dadiani was among the supporters of David, son of Rusudan. During this period of interregnum (1245–1250), with the two Davids absent at the court of the Great Khan in Karakorum, the Mongols divided the Kingdom of Georgia into eight districts (tumen), each governed by a leading Georgian noble. In this territorial arrangement, Tsotne Dadiani shared the governorship of western Georgia with Kakhaber, eristavi of Racha.