Zakarid Armenia

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Zakarid Armenia, the Zakarid-Mxargrzeli Princes, military commanders under the Georgian crown, were able to liberate parts of Greater Armenia from the Seljukid Turkish tyranny. The first decades of the thirteenth century in northeastern Armenia are known as the Zakarid period, after its most influential family. ^[1]

[edit] History

The Seljuk Empire soon started to collapse. In the early 1100s, Armenian princes of the Zakarid noble family established, under the Georgian protectorate, a vast Armenian principality in Northern and Eastern Armenia, known as Zakarid Armenia. Their capital was in Ani, an ancient city of the Armenians which is now in Turkey. The noble family of Orbelians shared control with the Zakarids in various parts of the country, especially in Vayots Dzor and Syunik. Southern parts of Armenia remained under control of Kurdish dynasties of Shaddadids and Ayyubids. During the reign of the great queen Tamara of Georgia (1184-1212/3), the Zacharid-Mxargrzeli princes successfully commanded Georgian-Armenian armies against the Muslim rulers, but the Mongol invasion of Christian Caucasia put an end to this period of prosperity and the family gradually went in decline.

[edit] The Zakarids-Mxargrzeli

• Sargis (1185-1191)
• Zakarē (1191-1212)
• Ivanē (1212-1227)

[edit] References