Abstract

The author studies George V the Brilliant’s reign as a model of state restoration and political consolidation in 14th‑century Georgia. Drawing on institutional, elite‑management, and foreign‑policy evidence, the research shows how strategic adaptation, skilful balancing of powerful feudal groups, and prudent leadership turned the post‑Mongol crisis into sustained recovery. George V pursued gradual centralisation, legitimacy-building, and incremental military, fiscal, and administrative reform, creating durable institutions and greater international autonomy. The study presents a sequential framework – legitimacy, elite rearrangement, centralisation, economic stabilisation, autonomy – as both a historical account and analytical model for post‑imperial state reconstruction.