Khanates of the Caucasus

Political map of the eastern part of the Southern Caucasus between 1795 and 1801

The khanates of the Caucasus, also known as the Azerbaijani khanates, Persian khanates, or Iranian Khanates, were various administrative units in the South Caucasus governed by a hereditary or appointed ruler under the official rule of Iran. The title of the ruler was khan, which was identical to the Ottoman rank of pasha. Following the assassination of Nader Shah (r. 1736–1747) in 1747, internal chaos erupted in Iran, particularly in the South Caucasus, where semi-autonomous khanates emerged as a result of the lack of a centralized government. The khans neither had territorial or religious unity, nor an ethnic/national identity. They were mostly interested in preserving their positions and income.

In Persian, the khanates were historically referred to as ulka or tuman, governed by a hakem (governor). The word "khanate" is an Anglicized form of the Russian word khanstvo and the Armenian word khanut'iun. The shah could promote a hakem's status to that of a khan, but the hakem could also adopt the title himself. In terms of structure, the khanates were a miniature version of Iranian kingship. The administrative and literary language in the South Caucasus until the end of the 19th century was Persian, with Arabic being used only for religious studies, despite the fact that most of the Muslims in the region spoke a Turkic dialect.

The Russo-Iranian War of 1804–1813 ended with the Treaty of Gulistan, which amongst other things led to the Iranian loss of seven khanates; Ganja, Karabakh, Quba, Derbent, Baku, Shirvan, and Shaki. The northern and central part of the Talysh Khanate, along with a part of northern Erivan (Shuregol), was also ceded to the Russian Empire. Following the conclusion of the Russo-Iranian War of 1826–1828 and the signing of the Treaty of Turkmenchay, Iran also lost the Erivan and Nakhichevan khanates to the Russians. Politically, the loss of the khanates was devastating for the Qajar dynasty because it damaged their reputation as the guardian of the Guarded Domains of Iran.

A certain amount of earlier Iranian political procedures were initially preserved by the Russian government in the Caucasus, such as using Persian documents to determine the status and property rights of distinguished Muslim figures. Thus, some of the Muslim begs, aqalars, and khans managed to fit their previous rank into the new Russian imperial structure.

List

The khanates that soon emerged after the death of Nader Shah in 1747 were the following:

• Baku Khanate (1806 occupied and annexed to Russia)
• Derbent Khanate (1806 occupied and annexed to Russia, same year abolished)
• Erivan Khanate (1827 occupied by, 1828 annexed to Russia)
• Ganja Khanate (1804 occupied and annexed to Russia)
• Javad Khanate (1805, became part of the Shirvan Khanate)
• Karabakh Khanate (1805 protectorate of Russia, 1822 abolished)
• Nakhchivan Khanate (1827 occupied by, 1828 annexed to Russia)
• Quba Khanate (1805 protectorate of Russia, 1816 abolished)
• Shaki Khanate (1805 protectorate of Russia, 1819 abolished)
• Shirvan Khanate (1805 protectorate of Russia, 1820 abolished)
• Talysh Khanate (1802 protectorate of Russia, 1828 abolished)

Coinage

A number of these khanates, including Ganja, Shirvan, Shaki, Derbent, and Karabakh, produced their own coins, first in the name of Nader Shah and then in the name of the Zand ruler Karim Khan Zand. A large portion of their coinage was completely nameless by the end of the 18th-century. While a few uncommon issues of Derbent contain a vague reference to one of their khans, none of the khans ever put their names on their coins, due to lacking the legitimacy of an sovereign monarch and any claims to independence. These northern Iranian coins were made entirely of silver and copper.

While the value of the copper coin in the khanates are unknown, the silver coins' value continued to be the same as the abbasi and its divisions. In 1770, the German scholar Johann Friedrich Gmelin made the observation that the full worth of a coin could only be understood in the region in which it was originally struck, and that relocating cost money. As had been the circumstance with copper money prior to the 1730s, this implied that silver coins were used as tokens in the khanates.

See also

• Treaty of Gulistan
• Treaty of Turkmenchay
• North Caucasus
• South Caucasus
• Russo-Persian Wars
• Armenia
• Azerbaijan Democratic Republic
• Azerbaijan
• Baku Governorate
• Elisabethpol Governorate
• Erivan Governorate
• Nagorno-Karabakh
• Western Azerbaijan (irredentist concept)
• Khoy Khanate

Sources

• Akopyan, Alexander; Petrov, Pavel (2016). "The Coinage of Īrawān, Nakhjawān, Ganja and Qarabāḡ Khānates in 1747–1827". State Hermitage: 1–9.
• Amanat, Abbas (2017). Iran: A Modern History. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300112542.
• Behrooz, Maziar (2023). Iran at War: Interactions with the Modern World and the Struggle with Imperial Russia. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0-7556-3737-9.
• Bournoutian, George (1976). The Khanate of Erevan Under Qajar Rule: 1795–1828. University of California. ISBN 978-0-939214-18-1.
• Bournoutian, George (1994). A History of Qarabagh: An Annotated Translation of Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi's Tarikh-e Qarabagh. Mazda Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56859-011-0.
• Bournoutian, George (2016a). "Prelude to War: The Russian Siege and Storming of the Fortress of Ganjeh, 1803–4". Iranian Studies. 50 (1). Taylor & Francis: 107–124. doi:10.1080/00210862.2016.1159779. S2CID 163302882.
• Bournoutian, George (2016b). The 1820 Russian Survey of the Khanate of Shirvan: A Primary Source on the Demography and Economy of an Iranian Province prior to its Annexation by Russia. Gibb Memorial Trust. ISBN 978-1909724808.
• Bournoutian, George A. (2016c). "Quick Overview". The 1819 Russian Survey of the Khanate of Sheki: A Primary Source on the Demography and Economy of an Iranian Province Prior to its Annexation by Russia. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers. ISBN 978-1568593159.
• Bournoutian, George (2021). From the Kur to the Aras: A Military History of Russia's Move into the South Caucasus and the First Russo-Iranian War, 1801–1813. Brill. ISBN 978-9004445154.
• Daniel, Elton L. (2001). "Golestān Treaty". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume XI/1: Giōni–Golšani. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 86–90. ISBN 978-0-933273-60-3.
• Deutschmann, Moritz (2015). Iran and Russian Imperialism: The Ideal Anarchists, 1800-1914. Routledge. ISBN 978-1317385301. OCLC 945764907.
• Kazemzadeh, F. (1991). "Iranian relations with Russia and the Soviet Union, to 1921". In Avery, Peter; Hambly, Gavin R. G.; Melville, Charles Peter (eds.). The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 7: From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 314–349. ISBN 0-521-20095-4.
• Matthee, Rudi; Floor, Willem; Clawson, Patrick (2013). The Monetary History of Iran: From the Safavids to the Qajars. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-0-85772-172-3.
• Swietochowski, Tadeusz (1995). Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231070683.