Saint Solomon I of Imereti

Solomon I the Great (Georgian: სოლომონ I დიდი) (1735 – April 23, 1784) was a king (mepe) of Imereti from 1752 to 1765 and again from 1767 until his death in 1784. Solomon was a son of Alexander V of Imereti by his second wife, Princess Tamar Abashidze and succeeded upon his father's death in 1752. He immediately launched a series of stringent measures against the renegade nobles and slave trade from which they profited in conjunction with the Ottoman authorities. In 1752, the aristocratic opposition staged a coup, but Solomon quickly regained the crown and began a program of reforms aimed at stabilizing the kingdom torn apart by chronic civil wars. The Ottomans, which saw Imereti as the sphere of their influence, sent in an army, but Solomon succeeded in mobilizing his nobles around him and defeated the invaders at the Battle of Khresili in 1757. The same year, he forged an alliance with his kinsman, Heraclius II, who ruled in eastern Georgia. He defeated two more Ottoman invasions (20,000 strong and 13,000 strong). The Ottoman instigated invasions of North Caucasian tribes, one of which succeeded, while a second one was thwarted. Briefly, Ottomans took Kutaisi in 1765 and placed his cousin, Teimuraz on the throne. In 1767, Solomon managed to stage a comeback, and freed Imereti of the Turks again. Next year, another Russo-Turkish war broke out, and in May 1769, Solomon traveled to Tbilisi to meet with Heraclius II. The two kings decided to request five Russian regiments and join the war with the Ottoman Empire in exchange of the guarantee that Georgian interests would be protected in the final Russo-Turkish peace deal. The Russians sent a small force under General Gottlieb Heinrich Totleben, but the general's rudeness and condescension alienated the Georgians; Totleben was quickly recalled from Georgia. A few of the battles Solomon was involved in was the 1769 siege of Şorapani and the 1770–1771 siege of Poti.