Tamar of Mukhrani

Tamar (; died 1683) was a Georgian princess of the House of Mukhrani who was married, successively, to three sovereigns of western Georgia—Levan III Dadiani, Prince of Mingrelia, then King Bagrat V of Imereti, and finally, George III Gurieli, Prince of Guria. Tamar's marriages were part of political intrigues and accompanying wife swaps characteristic for the Georgian history of that century. Family background and first marriage Tamar was a daughter of Constantine I, Prince of Mukhrani, by his wife Darejan, daughter of Prince Ghuana Abashidze. She was, thus, a brotherly niece of King Vakhtang V of Kartli. Both eyewitnesses, such as the French traveler Jean Chardin, and historians, such as the 18th-century royal Prince Vakhushti, characterize Tamar as being exceptionally beautiful as well as passionate and seductive.

Tamar's first marriage was occasioned by a military campaign of her uncle, Vakhtang V, into the western Georgian polities in the course of which, in 1661, he replaced King Bagrat V of Imereti with his own son, Archil, and Vameq III Dadiani, Prince of Mingrelia, with his protégé, Levan III Dadiani. Levan was given Tamar in marriage, but the couple became soon estranged from each other. Although Levan was in love with his wife, neither him nor Tamar was faithful. Despite this, Bagrat had to tolerate Tamar's adultery. The Frenchman Chardin, who dined with Tamar in Kutaisi in 1670, was shocked by her flagrant affair with the bishop of Gelati. Bagrat himself joked to Chardin that in Imereti every bishop had nine wives, "not counting those of his neighbors".

Third marriage and death Bagrat and Tamar had three children, a son and two daughters. One of their daughters, Darejan, was married off to George III Gurieli, Prince of Guria, who had an eye both on Tamar and the throne of Imereti. According to Prince Vakhushti, Giorgi was "querulous, godless, bloodthirsty, and a merciless slave-trader". When Bagrat died in 1681, George III Gurieli seized the throne of Imereti, divorced his child-bride Darejan and married his own mother-in-law, the queen dowager Tamar. Tamar died two years later, probably in childbirth, and George Gurieli, abhorred by the Imeretians, was overthrown and killed in an attempt to reconquer Kutaisi in 1684.