Incorporation of Imeretia in the Structure of the Russian Empire (1804-1810): from kingdom to province
In April 1804, the Imereti king Solomon II signed the so-called “petition points” and took the oath of allegiance to the Russian emperor Alexander I. These acts were confirmed by the emperor and, thus, Imeretia joined the Russian Empire as a protectorate state. Military and political control over Imereti was carried out, according to “petition points”, the Commander-in-Chief in Georgia, the highest person in the Russian military-administrative system in the South Caucasus. The Russian government and personally Alexander I considered the Imereti experience of incorporation optimal for subsequent territorial increments. Moreover, the idea was expressed to restore the institution of supreme power in Georgia, entrusting the administration to the representative of the Bagration dynastic house. In 1805-1807 there was a phased rejection of the spirit and content of the RussianImereti treaty, which ended in February 1808 with a decree of Alexander I, which ordered the commander-in-chief in Georgia to remove Solomon by political and military methods and turn the vassal state into a Russian province called the Imeretinskaya oblast. The incorporation of Imeretia into the Republic of Ingushetia completely repeated the somewhat earlier Georgian trajectory. Nevertheless, within the framework of its real policy, the Russian cabinet in 1804 perceived the Imeretian experience as positive and considered the issue of restoring the institution of tsarist power in Georgia.