The Kingdom of Georgia and the Russian Empire sign the Treaty of Georgievsk.
The Treaty of Georgievsk (Russian: , romanized: Georgievskiy traktat; Georgian: , romanized: georgievsk'is t'rakt'at'i) was a bilateral treaty concluded between the Russian Empire and the east Georgian kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti on July 24, 1783. The treaty established eastern Georgia as a protectorate of Russia, which guaranteed its territorial integrity and the continuation of its reigning Bagrationi dynasty in return for prerogatives in the conduct of Georgian foreign affairs. By this, eastern Georgia abjured any form of dependence on Persia (who had been its suzerain for centuries) or another power, and every new Georgian monarch of Kartli-Kakheti would require the confirmation and investiture of the Russian tsar.
The Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti (Georgian: ქართლ-კახეთის სამეფო, romanized: kartl-k'akhetis samepo) (1762–1801) was created in 1762 by the unification of two eastern Georgian kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti. From the early 16th century, according to the 1555 Peace of Amasya, these two kingdoms were under Iranian control. In 1744, Nader Shah granted the kingship of Kartli to Teimuraz II and that of Kakheti to his son Heraclius II, as a reward for their loyalty. When Nader Shah died in 1747, Teimuraz II and Heraclius II capitalized on the instability in Iran proper, and declared de facto independence. After Teimuraz II died in 1762, Heraclius succeeded him as ruler of Kartli, thus unifying the two.
Heraclius was able, after centuries of Iranian suzerainty over Georgia, to guarantee the autonomy over his kingdom throughout the chaos that had erupted following Nader Shah's death. He became the new Georgian king of a politically united eastern Georgia for the first time in three centuries. Though Heraclius tendered his de jure submission to the newly established Zand dynasty quickly after the unification in 1762, the kingdom remained de facto autonomous for the next three decades to come. 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 the nominal guarantee for protection against new Iranian attempts, or by any others, to (re)conquer or attack eastern Georgia. By the 1790s, a new strong Iranian dynasty, the Qajar dynasty, had emerged under Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, which would prove pivotal in the history of the short-lived kingdom.
In the next few years, having secured mainland Iran, the new Iranian king set out to reconquer the Caucasus and to re-impose its traditional suzerainty over the region. After Heraclius II refused to denounce the treaty with Russia and to voluntarily reaccept Iran's suzerainty in return for peace and prosperity for his kingdom, Agha Mohammad Khan invaded Kartli-Kakheti, captured and sacked Tbilisi, effectively bringing it back under Iranian control. This was short-lived, however, for Agha Mohammad Khan was assassinated two years later. Heraclius II himself died a year after that.
The following years which were spent in muddling and confusion, culminated in 1801 with the official annexation of the kingdom by Alexander 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 officially ceded the kingdom to Russia, marking the start of a Russian-centred chapter in Georgian history.