Vakhushti of Kartli

Vakhushti (; 1696 – 1757) was a Georgian royal prince (batonishvili), geographer, historian and cartographer. His principal historical and geographic works, Description of the Kingdom of Georgia and the Geographical Atlas, were inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme in 2013.

Life Born as a royal bastard, son of King Vakhtang VI , he was born in Tbilisi, 1696. Educated by the Garsevanishvili brothers and a Roman Catholic mission, he was fluent in Greek, Latin, French, Turkish, Russian and Armenian.

His name Vakhushti derives from Old Iranian vahišta- ("paradise", superlative of veh "good", i.e., "superb, excellent"). Its equivalent in Middle Persian is wahišt and in New Persian behešt.

In 1719 and 1720, he participated in two successive campaigns against the rebel Shanshe, Duke of Ksani. From August to November 1722, he served as a governor of the kingdom during his father's absence who was engaged in the Ganja campaign. Later he served as a commander in Kvemo Kartli. After the Ottoman occupation of Kartli, he followed King Vakhtang in his emigration to the Russian Empire in 1724. Retired to Moscow, Tsarevich Vakhusht (as he came to be known in Russia) was granted a pension. He died at Moscow in 1757. He was buried at the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow, a traditional burial ground of Georgian emigrant royalty and nobility.

Works Book of Chemistry by Vakhtang VI. Manuscript of 1740s (copiest Prince Vakhushti). Simon Janashia Museum of Georgia Most of his works were written or completed in Moscow. The best known are Description of the Kingdom of Georgia (completed in 1745), The Geographic Description of Georgia (completed in 1750) and two geographic atlases of the Caucasus region accompanied by the images of several historic coats of arms (1745–46).

His famous Description of the Kingdom of Georgia is essentially an adorned synopsis of the initial texts of the corpus of medieval Georgian annals, Kartlis Tskhovreba. Vakhushti was critical of the re-edition of the corpus assembled by a scholarly commission chaired by his father Vakhtang VI. So as to rectify perceived oversights of Vakhtang's version, Vakhushti compiled his own comprehensive history and geographical description of the Georgian people and lands. One of the chief goals of his corrective was to underscore all-Georgian political and cultural unity despite the fact that Georgia was politically divided among competing kings and princes during Vakhushti's lifetime. The popularity of Vakhushti's tome is evidenced by the many copies made of it, and his narrative significantly shaped the way in which subsequent generations have conceived of an all-Georgian past. It is also a major source on the Georgian history of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Vakhushti's works were soon translated into Russian and later into French Prince Ioane (died 1781), general in the Russian service; Prince Iotam ; Prince Petre ; Princess Alexandra (12 August 1721 – 8 April 1789); Princess Guka . Prince David (1723–1819); Princess Mariam (1724–1807); Prince Nikoloz (died 6 November 1784); Prince Domenti (1728–1737); Princess Ana (1744–1779).