Kingdom of Imereti

The Kingdom of Imereti was the west Georgian monarchy of the Bagrationi house, established in 1463 when the united Kingdom of Georgia dissolved into rival kingdoms. Before that a cadet branch had already worn its crown as a kingdom inside the kingdom, and George the Brilliant had once reunited it with the east. From 1463 Imereti became the permanent battlefield of Georgians and Ottomans, its kings reigning from Kutaisi over a land that shrank with every campaign. Pressed from the south, its rulers looked north: in 1649 Imereti sent ambassadors to Moscow, and in 1651 Alexander III swore allegiance to Tsar Alexis before Russian envoys. Internal Bagrationi feuds squandered the Russian opening, Archil's reigns flickered out in chaos, Mingrelia, Abkhazia and Guria broke away under Russian eyes, pressured by Tsitsianov Solomon II accepted Russian suzerainty in 1804, and in 1810 the Russian Empire annexed the kingdom outright, ending three and a half centuries of west Georgian kingship.