Georgian

The Georgians are the Kartvelian-speaking people of the central Caucasus, heirs to the Colchians and Iberians. King Mirian III made Iberia a Christian kingdom in the 320s through the preaching of Saint Nino, and by the fifth century the language had its own alphabet. Arab armies took Tbilisi in 645 and ruled through an emirate; Bagrat III reunited the country in 1008.

David the Builder shattered a Seljuk army at Didgori in 1121 and retook Tbilisi; under Queen Tamar around 1200 Georgia dominated the Caucasus and held Trebizond as its vassal. The Mongols, the 1226 sack of Tbilisi and Timur's campaigns ended that supremacy; by 1466 the realm had fragmented into kingdoms and principalities, later wedged between Ottomans and Safavids under the 1555 partition.

Eastern Georgia grew strong again under Heraclius II after 1747 and accepted Russian protection in 1783. When Iran sacked Tbilisi in 1795 Russia stood aside, then annexed the kingdom in 1801, deposing the Bagrationi and ending the Church's autocephaly.