Caucasus Viceroyalty (1801–1917)

Caucasus Viceroyalty Кавказское наместничество (Russian) Кавказское намѣстничество Kavkazskoye namestnichestvo النيابة الملكية على القوقاز (Arabic) al-Niyābah al-Malakīyah ʻalá al-Qawqāz
Viceroyalty
Administrative map of the Caucasus Viceroyalty
Country	Russian Empire
Established	1801
Abolished	1917
Capital	Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi)
Area
• Viceroyalty	410,423.66 km2 (158,465.46 sq mi)
Highest elevation (Mount Elbrus)	5,642 m (18,510 ft)
Population  (1916)
• Viceroyalty	12,266,282
• Density	30/km2 (77/sq mi)
• Urban	15.97%
• Rural	84.03%

The Caucasus Viceroyalty was a colony of the Russian Empire located in the Caucasus region, existing from 1801 to 1917 under the governance of various administrative offices. It included the present-day countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, as well as the partially-recognised states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the Russian republics of Adygea, Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia and North Ossetia–Alania and portions of Russia and Turkey.

Russia conquered the Caucasus in the early 19th century, beginning with the annexation of the Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti and continuing with the Caucasian War and a series of conflicts against the Ottoman and Persian empires. Russian colonial administrators used divide and rule tactics, favouring majority-Christian ethnic groups (particularly Georgians, Armenians and Ossetians) over predominantly-Muslim ones.

History

Main article: Russian conquest of the Caucasus

The first time Russian authority was established over the peoples of the Caucasus was after the Russian annexation of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti (eastern Georgia) in 1801. General Karl Knorring was the first person to be assigned to govern the Caucasus territory, being officially titled as the Commander-in-Chief in Georgia and Governor-General of Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi). Under his successors, notably Prince Pavel Tsitsianov, General Aleksey Yermolov, Count Ivan Paskevich, and Prince Mikhail Vorontsov, Russian Transcaucasia expanded to encompass territories acquired in a series of wars with the Ottoman Empire, the Persian Empire, and local North Caucasian peoples. The scope of its jurisdiction eventually came to include what is now Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the North Caucasus, as well as parts of Northeastern Turkey (today the provinces of Artvin, Ardahan, Kars, and Iğdır).

Russia utilised a divide and rule strategy in the Caucasus, favouring local Christian groups (or, in the case of the Ossetians, converting them to Christianity) over Muslims. Georgians and Armenians were uniquely recognised as "culturally advanced" due to their Christian faith and often collaborated with colonial administration in the South Caucasus, while Muslim Azerbaijanis were designated as "culturally backward" and did so less frequently. The Ossetians, who adhered to a melange of beliefs including Christian, Islam and pagan traditions prior to Russian colonisation, were conscripted into the Imperial Russian Army, separating them from other ethnic groups in the North Caucasus. The Russian government also used Arabic as the official language of colonial administration in the North Caucasus following the defeat of Imam Shamil's Caucasian Imamate; at the time, Arabic was the lingua franca of the region's Muslim population.

Headquartered at Tiflis, the viceroys acted as de facto ambassadors to neighboring countries, commanders in chief of the armed forces, and the supreme civil authority, mostly responsible only to the Tsar. From 3 February 1845 to 23 January 1882, the viceregal authority was supervised by the Caucasus Committee as the Caucasus Krai, which consisted of representatives of the State Council and the ministries of Finances, State Domains, Justice, and Interior, as well as of members of special committees. After the 1917 February Revolution, which dispossessed Tsar Nicholas II of the Russian crown, the Viceroyalty of the Caucasus was abolished by the Russian Provisional Government on 18 March 1917, and all authority, except in the zone of the active army, was entrusted to the civil administrative body called the Special Transcaucasian Committee or Ozakom (short for Osobyy Zakavkazskiy Komitet, Особый Закавказский Комитет).

Administrative divisions

Over more than a century of the Russian rule of the Caucasus, the structure of the viceroyalty underwent a number of changes, with the addition or removal of administrative positions and redrawing of provincial divisions. In 1917, there were six guberniyas ("governorates"), five oblasts ("regions"), two special administrative okrugs ("districts"), and a gradonachalstvo ("municipal district") within the Caucasus Viceroyalty:

Province	Type	Russian name	Capital	Population		Size (km2)	Location
				1897	1916
Baku	Governorate	Бакинская губернія	Baku	826,716	875,746	37,948.97
Baku	Gradonachalstvo	Бакинское градоначальство	Baku		405,829	1,059.76
Batum	Oblast	Батумская область	Batum (Batumi)		122,811	6,975.65
Dagestan	Oblast	Дагестанская область	Temir-Khan-Shura (Buynaksk)	571,154	713,342	29,709.63
Elizavetpol	Governorate	Елисаветпольская губернія	Yelisavetpol (Ganja)	878,415	1,275,131	44,296.15
Zakatal	Okrug	Закатальскій округъ	Zakataly (Zaqatala)		92,608	3,985.77
Kars	Oblast	Карсская область	Kars	290,654	364,214	18,739.50
Kuban	Oblast	Кубанская область	Yekaterinodar (Krasnodar)	1,918,881	3,022,683	94,783.07
Kutaisi	Governorate	Кутаисская губернія	Kutais (Kutaisi)	1,058,241	1,034,468	19,956.06
Sukhumi	Okrug	Сухумскій отдѣльный округъ	Sukhum (Sukhumi)		209,671	6,591.42
Terek	Oblast	Терская область	Vladikavkaz	933,936	1,377,923	72,443.86
Tiflis	Governorate	Тифлисская губернія	Tiflis (Tbilisi)	1,051,032	1,473,308	40,861.03
Black Sea	Governorate	Черноморская губернія	Novorossiysk	57,478	178,306	6,675.68
Erivan	Governorate	Эриванская губернія	Erivan (Yerevan)	829,556	1,120,242	26,397.11
Caucasus Viceroyalty				8,416,063	12,266,282	410,423.66

Demographics

Ethnographic map of Russian Transcaucasia, 1880.

Kavkazskiy kalendar

According to the 1917 publication of Kavkazskiy kalendar, the Caucasus Viceroyalty had a population of 12,266,282 on 14 January [O.S. 1 January] 1916, including 6,442,684 men and 5,823,598 women, 9,728,750 of whom were the permanent population, and 2,537,532 were temporary residents:

Nationality	Urban		Rural		TOTAL
	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%
Russians	757,908	38.68	3,262,359	31.65	4,020,267	32.77
Armenians	518,164	26.45	1,341,499	13.02	1,859,663	15.16
Georgians	163,482	8.34	1,628,128	15.80	1,791,610	14.61
North Caucasians	48,722	2.49	1,469,783	14.26	1,518,505	12.38
Shia Muslims	221,996	11.33	1,287,495	12.49	1,509,491	12.31
Sunni Muslims	82,384	4.20	862,064	8.36	944,448	7.70
Asiatic Christians	38,096	1.94	170,827	1.66	208,923	1.70
Other Europeans	52,000	2.65	87,623	0.85	139,623	1.14
Kurds	3,331	0.17	93,761	0.91	97,092	0.79
Jews	66,260	3.38	26,878	0.26	93,138	0.76
Roma	1,855	0.09	40,785	0.40	42,640	0.35
Yazidis	5,117	0.26	35,765	0.35	40,882	0.33
TOTAL	1,959,315	100.00	10,306,967	100.00	12,266,282	100.00

Largest cities

	Name	Population in 1897		Governorate	Country
		1897	1916
1	Tiflis (Tbilisi)	159,600	346,766	Tiflis Governorate	Georgia
2	Baku	111,900	262,422	Baku gradonachalstvo	Azerbaijan
3	Ekaterinodar (Krasnodar)	65,600	103,624	Kuban Oblast	Russia
4	Vladikavkaz	48,843	73,243	Terek Oblast	Russia, North Ossetia
5	Yeysk	35,446	44,765	Kuban Oblast	Russia
6	Maykop	33,276	54,762	Kuban Oblast	Russia, Circassia
7	Yelisavetpol (Ganja)	33,022	57,731	Yelisavetpol Governorate	Azerbaijan
8	Kutais (Kutaisi)	32,492	58,151	Kutais Governorate	Georgia
9	Alexandropol (Gyumri)	30,735	51,874	Erivan Governorate	Armenia
10	Erivan (Yerevan)	28,910	51,286	Erivan Governorate	Armenia
11	Batum (Batumi)	26,417	20,020	Kutais Governorate	Georgia
12	Shusha	25,656	43,869	Yelizavetpol Governorate	Azerbaijan
13	Kars	20,891	30,514	Kars Governorate	Turkey
14	Nukha (Shaki)	24,734	52,243	Yelizavetpol Governorate	Azerbaijan
15	Shemakha (Shamakhi)	20,007	27,732	Baku Governorate	Azerbaijan

High commissioners and viceroys of the Caucasus

Palace of the Caucasus Viceroy in Tiflis, 1860s.

• Karl Heinrich von Knorring 1801–1802
• Pavel Tsitsianov 1802–1806
• Ivan Gudovich 1806–1809
• Alexander Tormasov 1809–1811
• Philip Paulucci 1811–1812
• Nikolay Rtishchev 1812–1816
• Aleksey Yermolov 1816–1827
• Ivan Paskevich 1827–1831
• Gregor von Rosen 1831–1838
• Yevgeny Golovin 1838–1842
• Aleksandr Neidgardt 1842–1844
• Mikhail Vorontsov 1844–1854
• Nikolay Muravyov-Karsky 1854–1856
• Aleksandr Baryatinsky 1856–1862
• Grigol Orbeliani (acting) 1862
• Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich 1862–1882
• Aleksandr Dondukov-Korsakov 1882–1890
• Sergei Sheremetyev 1890–1896
• Grigory Golitsyn 1896–1904
• Yakov Malama (acting) 1904
• Illarion Vorontsov-Dashkov 1904–1916
• Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolayevich 1916–1917

Bibliography

• Hovannisian, Richard G. (1971). The Republic of Armenia: The First Year, 1918–1919. Vol. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520019843.
• Кавказский календарь на 1917 год [Caucasian calendar for 1917] (in Russian) (72nd ed.). Tiflis: Tipografiya kantselyarii Ye.I.V. na Kavkaze, kazenny dom. 1917. Archived from the original on 4 November 2021.

Further reading

• Atkin, Muriel (1980). Russia and Iran, 1780–1828. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0816609246.
• Baddeley, John F. (1908). The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
• Breyfogle, Nicholas (2005). Heretics and Colonizers: Forging Russia's Empire in the South Caucasus. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0801442421.
• Haxthausen, Baron August von (2016) [1854-55]. Transcaucasia and the Tribes of the Caucasus. Translated by John Edward Taylor. Introduction by Pietro A. Shakarian. Foreword by Dominic Lieven. London: Gomidas Institute. ISBN 978-1909382312.
• Jersild, Austin (2003). Orientalism and Empire: North Caucasus Mountain Peoples and the Georgian Frontier, 1845-1917. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 978-0773523296.
• King, Charles (2008). The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195177756.
• Layton, Susan (1995). Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521444439.
• Tsutsiev, Arthur (2014). Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus. Translated by Nora Seligman Favorov. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300153088.

See also

• Caucasus Viceroyalty (1785–1796)
• Caucasus Viceroyalty (1801–1917) topics
• Viceroyalties of the Russian Empire