Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti

The Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti (Georgian: ქართლ-კახეთის სამეფო, romanized: kartl-k'akhetis samepo) was created in 1762 by the unification of the two eastern Georgian kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti. It was led by the Georgian royal Bagrationi dynasty.

From the 16th to 18th centuries, these two kingdoms were under Iranian suzerainty because of the spheres of influence created in the region by the Peace of Amasya and mutually agreed with the Ottoman Empire. However, following the death of Nader Shah, local Georgian monarchs Heraclius II and Teimuraz II took advantage of the resulting chaos and obtained de facto independence. Heraclius subsequently united the two smaller kingdoms into one.

To support the newly independent kingdom, in 1783 Heraclius signed the Treaty of Georgievsk with the Russian Empire, by which he formally laid Kartli-Kakheti's investiture in the hands of the Russian monarch, and made the kingdom a Russian protectorate. Amongst others, this provided a written guarantee for protection against any new attacks against Georgia by hostile foreign powers. However, by the 1790s Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar emerged as the newest threat and, after Heraclius II refused to scrap the treaty with Russia, he invaded the Georgian kingdom, capturing and sacking Tbilisi. Although this Iranian invasion was short lived, it was a humiliation for Russia. To restore Russian prestige, Catherine II, on the advice of Ivan Gudovich, belatedly declared war on Persia.

The following years, which were marked by instability, culminated in 1801 with the official annexation of the kingdom by Paul I within the Russian Empire during the nominal ascension of Heraclius's son George XII to the Kartli-Kakhetian throne. Following the Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813, Iran definitively ceded much of the Caucasus to Russia.