Prince Luarsab of Kartli

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For a son of Vakhtang V of Kartli, see Prince Luarsab of Kartli (died 1698).

Luarsab (

Kartli, a great-grandson of King Luarsab I and relative of the childless King Rostom, who adopted him and made him heir apparent in 1639. Luarsab also married Rostom's niece by whom he had a son. Luarsab was killed while on a hunt. A homicide was immediately suspected. The suspect was tried by single combat
and wounded, but acquitted by virtue of being a victor in the duel.

Family background

Luarsab was a son of Prince Teimuraz-Mirza of Kartli (fl. 1600) and his wife, an anonymous daughter of Prince David

Prince Vakhushti erroneously identifies Luarsab as "son of Vakhtang, son of King Simon", who was Luarsab I's son.[1] This genealogy has been accepted by some modern scholars such as Cyril Toumanoff.[2]

Biography

Luarsab was Muslim, living in Isfahan, the capital of the Iranian Safavids. In 1639, he was adopted and designated as heir apparent to the throne of Kartli by his father’s first cousin, the seasoned king Rostom, who had no children of his own. With the shah's approval, Luarsab was brought in Kartli, but the local nobility resented yet another Persian-educated Bagratid.[3] Luarsab was mortally wounded by a bullet while on a hunt in the Karaia grove and died in the presence of the mourning Rostom. The prince's remains were interred at Ardabil.[1]

Prince Luarsab was married to Tamar, daughter of Prince Adam-Sultan

ghulam guard,[4] by an anonymous princess, half-sister of King Rostom. Although Prince Vakhushti claims that with Luarsab's death "the line of the great king Luarsab became extinct",[1] the prince had a son, Giorgi (fl. 1652) and a grandson, Khosro (fl. 1700).[5]

Aftermath

Rostom suspected his heir's death was not an accident and requested an inquiry from Isfahan, but nothing came of this as the shah's government was preoccupied with the war in Kandahar. In the meantime, Prince Shiosh Baratashvili denounced Prince Baindur Tumanishvili as a possible murderer and had him publicly tried by single combat in Tbilisi. Tumanishvili was wounded, but won the duel and was thus acquitted. Baratashvili, also wounded and defeated, was cast in prison by Rostom, but was later pardoned and, the 18th-century Georgian Paris Chronicle says, Prince Luarsab "remained unavenged".[1]

After the loss of his heir, Rostom intended to adopt the late Prince Luarsab's brother Vakhtang and, to the chagrin of many Georgians, give him Luarsab's widow in marriage. Vakhtang, serving to the shah as a prefect of

Bakhuta, Prince of Mukhrani, found Prince Vakhtang already dead of illness. Within three years, the Prince of Mukhrani would become Rostom's new choice as heir apparent and would succeed him on the throne of Kartli as Vakhtang V.[1]

Ancestry

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Brosset, Marie-Félicité (1856). Histoire de la Géorgie depuis l'Antiquité jusqu'au XIXe siècle. IIe partie. Histoire moderne [History of Georgia from Antiquity to the 19th century. Part II. Modern History] (in French). S.-Pétersbourg: A la typographie de l'Academie Impériale des Sciences. pp. 71–73, 538–541.
  2. ^ Toumanoff, Cyrille (1990). Les dynasties de la Caucasie Chrétienne: de l'Antiquité jusqu'au XIXe siècle: tables généalogiques et chronologique [Dynasties of Christian Caucasia from Antiquity to the 19th century: genealogical and chronological tables] (in French). Rome. pp. 141–142, 526.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ISBN 978-1780230306
    .
  4. ^ Maeda, Hirotake (2012). "Slave Elites Who Returned Home: Georgian Vali-king Rostom and the Safavid Household Empire" (PDF). Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko. 69: 107.[permanent dead link]
  5. ISBN 99928-0-623-0
    .
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