Tamar of Georgia in the context of "Coregency"

Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region on the coast of the Black Sea. It is located at the intersection of Eastern Europe and West Asia, and is today generally regarded as part of Europe. It is bordered to the north and northeast by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. Georgia covers an area of 69,700 square kilometres (26,900 sq mi). It has a population of 3.9 million, of which over a third live in the capital and largest city, Tbilisi. Ethnic Georgians, who are native to the region, constitute a majority of the country's population and are its titular nation.

Georgia has been inhabited since prehistory, hosting the world's earliest known sites of winemaking, gold mining, and textiles. The classical era saw the emergence of several kingdoms, such as Colchis and Iberia, that formed the nucleus of the modern Georgian state. In the early fourth century, Georgians officially adopted Christianity, which contributed to their unification under the Kingdom of Georgia. Georgia reached its Golden Age during the High Middle Ages under the reigns of King David IV and Queen Tamar. Beginning in the 15th century, the kingdom declined and disintegrated due to internal discord and pressure from various regional powers, including the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire, and Persia, before being gradually annexed into the Russian Empire starting in 1801.

The Empire of Trebizond or the Trapezuntine Empire was one of the three successor rump states of the Byzantine Empire that existed during the 13th through to the 15th century. The empire consisted of the Pontus, or far northeastern corner of Anatolia, and portions of southern Crimea.

The Trapezuntine Empire was formed in 1204 with the help of Queen Tamar of Georgia after the Georgian expedition in Chaldia and Paphlagonia, which was commanded by Alexios Komnenos a few weeks before the Sack of Constantinople. Alexios later declared himself emperor and established himself in Trebizond (now Trabzon in Turkey).

The Kingdom of Georgia (Georgian: საქართველოს სამეფო, romanized: Sakartvelos samepo), also known as the Georgian Empire, was a medieval Eurasian monarchy that was founded in c. 1008 AD. It reached its Golden Age of political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar the Great from the 11th to 13th centuries. Georgia became one of the pre-eminent nations of the Christian East, and its pan-Caucasian empire and network of tributaries stretched from Eastern Europe to Anatolia and northern frontiers of Iran, while Georgia also maintained religious possessions abroad, such as the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem and the Monastery of Iviron in Greece. It is the principal historical precursor of present-day Georgia.

Kingdom of Georgia emerged in the early 11th century out of unification of various Georgian kingdoms, most notably the Kingdom of the Iberians and the Kingdom of Abkhazia. Lasting for nearly five centuries, the kingdom fell to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, but managed to re-assert sovereignty by the 1340s. The following decades were marked by the Black Death, as well as numerous invasions under the leadership of Timur, who devastated the country's economy, population, and urban centers. The Kingdom's geopolitical situation further worsened after the conquest of the Byzantine Empire and the Empire of Trebizond by the Ottoman Turks. As a result of these processes, by the end of the 15th century Georgia turned into a fractured entity. This whole series of events also led to the final collapse of the kingdom into anarchy by 1466 and the mutual recognition of its constituent kingdoms of Kartli, Kakheti, and Imereti as independent states between 1490 and 1493—each led by a rival branch of the Bagrationi dynasty, and into five semi-independent principalities—Odishi, Guria, Abkhazia, Svaneti, and Samtskhe.

The Bagrationi dynasty (/bʌɡrʌtiˈɒni/; Georgian: ბაგრატიონი, romanized: bagrat'ioni [ˈbäɡɾätʼio̞n̪i]) is a royal dynasty which reigned in Georgia from the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, being among the oldest extant Christian ruling dynasties in the world.

The origins of the dynasty are disputed. Most scholars agree that the dynasty comes from the Armenian Bagratuni dynasty, and is seen as a smaller branch of the Bagratids. The early Georgian Bagratids gained the Principality of Iberia through dynastic marriage after succeeding the Chosroid dynasty at the end of the 8th century. In 888 Adarnase IV of Iberia restored the Georgian monarchy; various native polities then united into the Kingdom of Georgia, which prospered from the 11th to the 13th century. This period of time, particularly the reigns of David IV the Builder (1089–1125) and of his great-granddaughter Tamar the Great (1184–1213) inaugurated the Georgian Golden Age in the history of Georgia.

The nation of Georgia was first unified as a kingdom under the Bagrationi dynasty in 1008 AD, arising from several successor states of the ancient kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia. The Kingdom of Georgia flourished during the 11th and 12th centuries under King David IV of Georgia and Queen Tamar the Great. It fell to the Mongol invasion by 1243 but saw restoration of its former strength under the leadership of George V the Brilliant. Throughout the Middle Ages, Georgia was one of the preeminent powers of the Eastern Orthodox world.

Facing relentless invasions from much larger empires, by 1490 Georgia finally collapsed into several petty kingdoms and principalities, which throughout the Early Modern period feuded with one another and struggled to defend themselves against external threats, such as Ottoman and Persian encroachment. This prompted Georgian monarchs to increasingly seek an alliance with the Russian Empire, their Orthodox Christian neighbor to the north, culminating in the annexation of Georgia by the Russian Empire beginning in 1801.

The siege of Trebizond from 1205 to 1206 was an attempt by the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm to take the city along the coast of the Black Sea. William Miller explains this action as punishment for "the disobedience of Alexios to his Kaykhusraw I commands."

Michel Kuršanskis explains that this unsuccessful siege was in response to the Trapezuntine ally, Queen Tamar of Georgia, who had attempted to capture Erzurum in 1205 but failed. When Sultan Kaykhusraw began his punitive campaign against Trebizond, he found his route limited to a few passes in the Pontic Alps, where the locals harassed his forces. Further, Alexios could respond to his attacks by "closing the sea" to all merchants, who could neither travel to the Crimea nor return from there. According to Ali ibn al-Athir, merchants from throughout the Middle East suffered a severe injury because of his siege of Trebizond. When they met at the great fair in Sivas, they delivered their complaints to the sultan in loud shouts.

The Bagrationi dynasty (/bʌɡrʌtiˈɒni/; Georgian: ბაგრატიონი, romanized: bagrat'ioni [ˈbäɡɾätʼio̞n̪i]) is a royal dynasty which reigned in Georgia from the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, being among the oldest extant Christian ruling dynasties in the world. In modern usage, the name of the dynasty is sometimes Hellenized and referred to as the Georgian Bagratids, also known in English as the Bagrations. Originally comes from the Armenian Bagratuni dynasty.

The origins of the dynasty are disputed. Most scholars agree that the dynasty comes from the Armenian Bagratuni dynasty, and is seen as a smaller branch of the Bagratids. The early Georgian Bagratids gained the Principality of Iberia through dynastic marriage after succeeding the Chosroid dynasty at the end of the 8th century. In 888 Adarnase IV of Iberia restored the Georgian monarchy; various native polities then united into the Kingdom of Georgia, which prospered from the 11th to the 13th century. This period of time, particularly the reigns of David IV the Builder (1089–1125) and of his great-granddaughter Tamar the Great (1184–1213) inaugurated the Georgian Golden Age in the history of Georgia.