Tamar of Georgia

Tamar of Georgia, commonly called Tamar the Great, ruled the Kingdom of Georgia from 1184 until her death in 1213 and was the first woman to reign in her own right as sovereign of that kingdom. She was the daughter of King George III and of Burdukhan, a princess of Alania. In 1178 George III associated Tamar with himself as co-ruler and designated heir, a step that provoked resistance among some of the high nobility. After her father's death in 1184 she was crowned, taking the royal style mep'e, the Georgian word for king, rather than a merely consort-like title. The early phase of her reign required her to negotiate with a powerful aristocracy and with the Georgian Orthodox Church, whose catholicos-patriarch participated in the coronation and in the political settlement that followed.

Internal opposition and an unsuccessful first marriage dominated the mid-1180s. In 1185 Tamar was married to Yuri Bogolyubsky, a Rus' prince and son of Andrei Bogolyubsky of Vladimir-Suzdal. The union was childless and politically disappointing; it was dissolved about 1187. Yuri later invaded Georgia twice with noble support and was defeated. Tamar then married David Soslan, an Alan prince connected to the Bagrationi line, around 1189. David Soslan served as her consort and as a principal commander of Georgian armies. They had two children who are securely attested: a son, George, later King George IV Lasha, and a daughter, Rusudan, who would herself rule Georgia after her brother's death.

Tamar's reign is conventionally described as the high point of the Georgian Golden Age. Georgian forces won the Battle of Shamkor in 1195 against the Eldiguzid atabegs and the Battle of Basian about 1202 against the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. Georgian power extended through much of the Caucasus, into Armenian lands, Shirvan, and toward northern Iran. In 1204, in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, Georgian policy contributed to the foundation of the Empire of Trebizond under the Komnenoi, who were related to the Georgian court. The kingdom's territory and influence reached from the Black Sea toward the Caspian. Royal patronage supported church building, manuscript production, and literature; the poet Shota Rustaveli, author of the epic The Knight in the Panther's Skin, is associated with Tamar's court and dedicated his work to her.

Tamar died in 1213 and was succeeded by her son George IV. Tradition holds that she was buried at Gelati Monastery, the Bagrationi dynastic necropolis near Kutaisi, although the exact grave has not been identified with certainty. The Georgian Orthodox Church venerates her as Saint Tamar, commemorating her on 1 May and also on the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women. Later Georgian literature and folklore elaborated her image as a pious, just, and victorious ruler, sometimes blending documented events with legend. Modern historians regard her as one of the most effective medieval monarchs of the Caucasus while distinguishing contemporary evidence from subsequent hagiography.