George XI
Georgian king of Kartli (1651–1709)
George XI (Georgian: გიორგი XI, romanized: giorgi XI; died 21 April 1709), also known as Shah Navaz Khan II and Gurgin Khan in Iran, was a Georgian monarch (mepe) who ruled the Kingdom of Kartli as a Safavid Persian subject from 1676 to 1688 and again from 1703 to 1709. He is best known for his struggle against the Safavids which dominated his weakened kingdom and later as a Safavid commander-in-chief in what is now Afghanistan.
Life
He was the son of Vakhtang V, whom he succeeded as the ruler of Kartli in 1676, by his first wife, Princess Rodam Qaplanishvili-Orbeliani. As with many other Georgian rulers, he had to nominally accept Islam and take the name of Shahnawaz II before being able to be confirmed as a viceroy by Shah Solayman I.
When nearly half-century-long peaceful relations between Kartli and its Persian suzerains significantly deteriorated, George attempted to centralise loose royal authority in Kartli and weaken the Persian influence. He patronised Catholic missionaries and had correspondence with Innocent XI. After the Ottoman defeat in the Battle of Vienna, George XI hoped to exploit that Empire's new weakness. In a letter to Innocent XI dated April 29, 1687 he vowed to be a Catholic King and declared his readiness and willingness and that of his troops to obey any order of the Roman Pope. According to Catholic missionaries, George remained until his death a faithful Catholic.
In 1688, George headed an abortive coup against a Persian governor of the neighboring Georgian region of Kakheti, and attempted, though vainly, to gain Ottoman support against the Safavid overlordship. In response, Shah Solayman deposed George and gave his crown to the rival Kakhetian prince Erekle I, who then embraced Islam and took the name Nazar-Ali Khan. Abbas Qoli-Khan, the beglarbeg (governor general) of Ganja, was placed in charge of the government in Kakheti and commissioned to reinforce Erekle's positions in Kartli.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “George XI” as georgian king of Kartli (1651–1709). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as georgian king of Kartli (1651–1709). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2992314. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1709, 1676, 1688 and 1703.
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This entry incorporates text from “George XI” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.