Iran's ambassador to Georgia says he wants to help the two nations "know each other better." Mission accomplished, though maybe not in the way he had imagined.
Ambassador Ali Moujani, a historian, chose to illustrate the "differing histories" between Georgia and Iran by choosing Queen Ketevan, a Christian monarch whom Persia's Safavid ruler Shah Abbas I tortured and executed in 1624 for refusing to convert to Islam.
On September 25, the eve of Ketevan's feast day. Moujani posted a photo of himself on Facebook outside the Iranian Embassy, where an image of the queen was projected onto the facade.
He said he would soon share preliminary findings based on sources in Iran and Georgia, and stressed this would be a personal historian's view rather than an official position. A "new reading" of such stories, he wrote in Georgian, could help the two nations "know each other better."
Those words sparked a fierce backlash from Georgians -- as well as a summoning to the Foreign Ministry in Tbilisi -- angered by what they see as an attempt to revise history, especially at a time when relations between the two nations have been strained.
"This man says that there are different views on the matter and that he intends to discuss them. What does he mean by 'different views'?" Georgian historian Beka Kobakhidze told TV Pirveli, an opposition-leaning media outlet.
"It is a firmly established historical fact that Ketevan the Martyr was tortured and put to death by Shah Abbas, and that is precisely why Ketevan the Martyr was canonized as a saint. What 'different views' are we even talking about?”
Moujani has not outlined what those "different views" may be.
Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksander Khvtisiashvili told Moujani, when he was summoned on September 29, that his social media posts "go beyond the scope of diplomatic activity" and damage public sentiment.
Khvtisiashvili also urged Tehran to ensure such incidents are not repeated so that Georgia does not need to take "additional measures." He did not say what those measures might be.
Earlier this year, in the days after the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28, Moujani angered Tbilisi with thinly veiled threats following a phone call between Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Moujani warned that countries aiding the US-Israeli military operation could "pay the price within their own borders."
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Georgia's Iran Embrace Is Costing It WashingtonThe Iranian Embassy has not commented on Moujani's latest statements, but Georgian politicians -- both opposition and governing -- have.
Nikoloz Samkharadze of the ruling Georgian Dream party, who chairs parliament's foreign relations committee, said relations with Persia had a "difficult history."
Grigol Gegelia of the opposition Lelo party said the episode showed how far Georgia's sovereignty had weakened under Georgian Dream. A senior cleric of the Georgian Patriarchate called the post an attempt to rewrite history.
Ketevan (c. 1560-1624) was the wife of King David I of Kakheti and the mother of King Teimuraz I. She was the de facto ruler of the eastern Georgian kingdom and resisted Persian domination.
In 1614, during Shah Abbas I's campaigns in Georgia, she was taken to Persia as a hostage. After a decade in captivity, she refused the Iranian king’s demand that she convert to Islam.
In 1624, she was tortured and killed in Shiraz, the capital of modern-day Iran's southern Fars Province. Georgian and European travelers and clergy recorded her death, and she was later canonized as a saint by the Georgian Orthodox Church.