Tamar (vardzia fresco detail)

Tamar the Great

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  • 1178

    Crowing a Qween

    Tamar was the eldest daughter of George III of Georgia (aka Giorgi III, r. 1156-1184 CE). Without any sons of his own, and having blinded and castrated his only nephew after a rebel fomented around him, George had no male heirs. But George made his decision of successor clear, unlike his father Demetrius I of Georgia and grandfather David IV , by having Tamar crowned co-monarch in 1178 CE in front of all the Georgian senior aristocracy and clergy.
  • Period: 1184 to 1213

    King Tamar

    Tamar was the queen of Georgia from 1184 to 1213 CE. She is considered one of the greatest of medieval Georgia's monarchs, and she presided over its greatest territorial expansion, taking advantage of the decline of other major powers in the region. Tamar was the first female monarch of Georgia, and despite initial resistance to a female ruler, her sex helped craft her legacy as Georgia's great medieval queen.
  • Period: 1184 to 1213

    King Tamar

    Tamar was the queen of Georgia from 1184 to 1213 CE. She is considered one of the greatest of medieval Georgia's monarchs, and she presided over its greatest territorial expansion, taking advantage of the decline of other major powers in the region. Tamar was the first female monarch of Georgia, and despite initial resistance to a female ruler, her sex helped craft her legacy as Georgia's great medieval queen.
  • 1185

    An unsuccessful Marriage

    The nobles ordered Tamar to marry to have a head for the army and to provide a successor to the throne. They chose Rus Prince Yuri, son of the assassinated prince Andrei I Bogolyubsky of Vladimir-Suzdal. Approved by Tamar’s aunt Rusudan, Yuri was brought to Georgia to marry Tamar in 1185. The prince was a skilled soldier, but an unreasonable person and not a good husband. Slowly Tamar started to gain confidence in her rights as a queen.
  • 1187

    A second Marriage

    A second Marriage
    In 1187, Tamar divorced Yuri and sent him to Constantinople. She then chose a second husband – David Soslan, an Alan prince and a great military commander, who became Tamar’s primary advocate and was effective in crushing the rebellious aristocracy united behind Yuri. King Tamar and David had two children; Lasha-Giorgi, the future King George IV; and Rusudan, who later replaced her brother as a monarch of Georgia.
  • 1204

    Aunt Tamar the Builder

    While Georgia was victorious in the east, Constantinople had been surrounded by and sacked by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 CE. While the Byzantine Empire was occupied with the Crusaders and then disintegrated into a successor land grab when Constantinople was sacked, Tamar was engaged in a new adventure in Byzantine territory on the Black Sea.