Prince Vakhtang-Almaskhan of Georgia

Vakhtang also known as Almaskhan (ალმასხანი) (22 June 1761 – 28 October 1814) was a Georgian prince royal (batonishvili) of the Bagrationi dynasty, born to King Heraclius II and Queen Darejan Dadiani. He distinguished himself in the war with Iran in 1795 and was then active in opposition to his half-brother George XII of Georgia and the newly established Russian administration in Georgia. In 1802 he surrendered to the Russian authorities and spent the rest of his life in St. Petersburg, working on an overview of Georgia's history. In Russia he was known as the tsarevich Vakhtang Irakliyevich Gruzinsky. Prince Royal Vakhtang was born in 1761 into the family of Heraclius II, King of Kakheti (and of Kartli after 1762), and his third wife Darejan née Princess Dadiani. He was a namesake of his late half-brother, Vakhtang (died in 1756), and also bore the second name, Almaskhan. After the death of his brother Levan in 1781, Vakhtang succeeded him to the princely appanage in the mountainous Aragvi valley, for which he codified the criminal and family law (განჩინება ბარისა და მთიურთა ადგილთა, The Regulations for the Lowlands and Highlands) in 1782. In September 1795, Vakhtang fought in his father's ranks against the invading Iranian army of Agha Muhammad Khan at the battle of Krtsanisi in the course of which he commanded the last stand of his highlanders on the approaches of Tbilisi. Civil unrest After the death of Heraclius in 1798, Vakhtang joined his mother Queen Dowager Darejan and brothers, Iulon, Parnaoz, and Alexander, in opposition to his half-brother, King George XII. The crisis was occasioned by George's renegation on the 1791 testament of Heraclius, requiring the king's successor to pass the throne not to his offspring, but to his eldest brother, thereby making Vakhtang the third in the line of succession, behind George and Iulon. George XII renewed Heraclius's quest for Russian protection and obtained from Tsar Paul I recognition of his son, David, as heir-apparent on 18 April 1799. By July 1800, the kingdom faced the prospect of imminent civil war as the rival factions mobilized their loyal forces. Iulon, Vakhtang, and Parnaoz blocked the roads to Tbilisi and attempted to rescue their mother, Queen Dowager Darejan, who had been forced by George XII into confinement at her own palace in Avlabari.