Erivan Khanate

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Erivan Khanate
Persian: خانات ایروان‎
Khanate
1736–1828 →
Erivan Khanate c. 1800.
Capital Erivan
Languages Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Armenian
Political structure Khanate
History
 -  Established 1736
 -  Disestablished 1828
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The Erivan Khanate (Persian: خانات ایروان‎ — Khānāt-e Īravān; Armenian: Երևանի խանություն Yerevani khanut'yun; Azerbaijani: İrəvan xanlığı — ایروان جانلیغی; Turkish: Revan Hanlığı) also known as Čoḵūr Saʿd,[1] was a khanate that was established in Safavid Persia in the 18th century. It covered an area of roughly 19,500 km2,[1] and corresponded to most of present-day central Armenia, most of the Iğdır Province of present-day Turkey, and the Sharur and Sadarak districts of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of present-day Azerbaijan.

As a result of the Persian defeat in the last Russo-Persian War, it was occupied by Russian troops in 1827[2] and the ceded to the Russian Empire in 1828 in accordance with the Treaty of Turkmenchay. Immediately following this, the territories of the former Erivan Khanate and the Nakhichevan Khanate were joined to form the "Armenian Oblast" of the Russian Empire.

Government

During Persian rule, the Shahs appointed the various khans as beglerbegī to preside over their domains, thus creating an administrative center. These khans from the Qajar tribe,[3][4] which is of Turkic origin,[5][6] also known as the sirdar (Pers. sardār, “chief”), governed the entire khanate, from the mid-17th century until the Russian occupation in 1828.[1] The khanate was divided into fifteen administrative districts called maḥalls. Persian rule was interrupted by Ottoman occupations between 1513–14, 1533–34, 1548–49, 1553–55, 1580–1604, 1635–36 and 1722–36.

Population

Many events led to the demise of the Armenian population from the region. Shah Abbas I's deportation of much of the population from the Armenian Highlands in 1605 was one event, when as high as 250,000 Armenians were removed from the region.[7] To repopulate the frontier region of his realm, Shah Abbas II (1642–1666) permitted the Turkic Kangerli tribe (an Azerbaijani group) to return.[8] Under Nadir Shah, when the Armenians suffered excessive taxation and other penalties, many emigrated, particularly to India.[9] Later on, large number of Armenians were kept captive in Iran since 1804 or as far back as 1795,[10] others were scattered around the world (Russia failed to resettle them) due to the Iranian-Russian wars of 1804 and 1813,[11] including 20,000 who moved to Georgia.[12] At the time of the Russian annexation Armenians formed about less than 20% (about 15,000) of the population of the Erivan Khanate in 1828, while the remaining 80% was made up of Muslims (Persian, Azeri, Kurdish),[1][13] forming a total population of 102,000.[14]

Armenian autonomy

Armenians in the territory of the Khanate lived under the immediate jurisdiction of the melik of Erivan, from the House of the Melik-Aghamalyan family, who had the sole right to govern them with the authorization of the shah. The inception of the melikdom of Erivan appears only after the end of the last Ottoman-Safavid war in 1639 and seems to have been a part of an overall administrative reorganization in Persian Armenia after a long period of wars and invasions. The first known member of the family is a certain Melik Gilan but the first certain holder of the title of "melik of Erivan" was Melik Aghamal and it may be from him that the house had taken its surname. One of his successors, Melik-Hakob-Jan, attended the coronation of Nāder Shah in the Mughan plain in 1736.[1]

Under the melik of Erivan were a number of other meliks in the khanate, with each maḥall inhabited by Armenians having its own local melik. The meliks of Erivan themselves, especially the last, Melik Sahak II, were among the most important, influential and respected individuals in the khanate and both Christians and Muslims alike sought their advice, protection and intercession. Second in importance only to the khan himself, they alone among the Armenians of Erivan were allowed to wear the dress of a Persian of rank. The melik of Erivan had full administrative, legislative and judicial authority over Armenians up to the sentence of the death penalty, which only the khan was allowed to impose. The melik exercised a military function as well, because he or his appointee commanded the Armenian infantry contingents in the khan’s army. All the other meliks and village headmen (tanuters) of the khanate were subordinate to the melik of Erivan and all the Armenian villages of the khanate were required to pay him an annual tax.[1]

List of Khans

Palace of Erivan khans, early 19th-century painting
  • 1736–40 Tahmasp-qulu khan
  • 1740–47 Nader Shah
  • 1745–48 Mekhti-khan Qasımlı
  • 1748–50 Hasan Ali-khan
  • 1750–80 Huseyn Ali Khan
  • 1752–55 Khalil Khan
  • 1755–62 Hasan Ali Khan Qajar
  • 1762–83 Huseyn Ali Khan
  • 1783–84 Qulam Ali (son of Hasan Ali)
  • 1784–1804 Muhammed Khan
  • 1804–06 Mekhti-Qulu Khan
  • 1806–07 Muhammed Khan Maragai
  • 1807–28 Huseyn Qulu Khan Qajar

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Hewsen, Robert H. and George Bournoutian. "Erevan." Encyclopedia Iranica. Accessed January 3, 2009.
  2. ↑ History of the Erivan Khanate on azerbaijans.com. Accessed October 22, 2013.
  3. ↑ Abbasgulu Bakikhanov. Golestan-e Eram. Period V
  4. ↑ Bournoutian, George A. "Hosaynqolikhan Sardār-e Iravani." Encyclopedia Iranica.
  5. ↑ Abbas Amanat, The Pivot of the Universe: Nasir Al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–1896, I.B. Tauris, pp 2–3; "In the 126 years between the fall of the Safavid state in 1722 and the accession of Nasir al-Din Shah, the Qajars evolved from a shepherd-warrior tribe with strongholds in northern Iran into a Persian dynasty.."
  6. ↑ Choueiri, Youssef M., A companion to the history of the Middle East, (Blackwell Ltd., 2005), 516.
  7. ↑ An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires, James S. Olson, Greenwood(1994), p. 44
  8. ↑ Encyclopedia Iranica. Kangarlu
  9. ↑ An Historical Atlas of Islam by William Charles Brice, Brill Academic Publishers, 1981 p. 276
  10. ↑ The Cambridge History of Iran, William Bayne Fisher, Peter Avery, Ilya Gershevitch, Gavin Hambly, Charles Melville, published by the Cambridge University Press, 1991 p. 339
  11. ↑ The Turks: Turkey (2 v.), Murat Ocak, Yeni Türkiye, 2002
  12. ↑ Akty sobrannye, docs. 559, 564, 568, 570, 573, 582, 586, 614; and S. Glinka, Sobranie aktov otnosiashchikhsia k obozrenii istorii Armianskogo naroda, II (Moscow, 1838), pp. 163-166.
  13. ↑ The land was mountainous and dry, the population of about 100,000 was roughly 80 percent Muslim (Persian, Azeri, and Kurdish) and 20 percent Christian (Armenian). Firuz Kazemzadeh. Reviewed Work(s): Eastern Armenia in the Last Decades of Persian Rule, 1807—1828 by George A. Bournoutian. International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 16, No. 4. (Nov., 1984), pp. 566—567.
  14. ↑ Hewsen, Robert H. (2001). Armenia: A Historical Atlas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 168. ISBN 0-226-33228-4. 

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