RESTORING THE LEDGER OF HISTORY
by Rouben Adalian
February 23rd, 2012
Dr. Rouben P. Adalian is the Director of the Armenian National
Institute, founded by the Armenian Assembly of America in 1997, and the
Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum of America project, both in
Washington, DC. He is a specialist on the Caucasus and the Middle East,
and has taught at a number of universities, including George Washington
University, Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University.
See more articles by Rouben Adalian
George Bournoutian’s series of translations of primary sources from
Russian, Armenian, and Iranian, including his most recent, The 1823
Russian Survey of the Karabagh Province: A Primary Source on the
Demography and Economy of Karabagh in the Early 19th Century, can
only be described as linguistic tours de force requiring knowledge
in a wider range of languages than the ones just listed in order to
unravel the historical information embedded in these long-overlooked
records from the 17th through the 19th centuries. In sum, his 20
publications, more than half of which constitute these translated
sources, have created a new basis for understanding history and
society, not to mention war, politics, diplomacy, religion, economy,
and a sundry other topics, for the region called the Transcaucasus,
in the period of Iranian and Russian imperial rule.
The 1823 survey was prompted by the decision of Alexei Ermolov,
the Russian commander-in-chief of Georgia, to annex the khanate of
Karabagh. Formerly a semi-independent principality in the northeastern
reaches of the Iranian state, the khanate had submitted to Romanov
rule in 1805. Continued tensions with Qajar Iran as Russia pressed
its expansion into the Transcaucasus embroiled the region, and Ermolov
ended the vacillation of the khans by bringing the protectorate under
direct military rule. To acquaint himself with the administrative
structure of the former khanate and to redirect its revenues from
Shushi to Tiflis, Ermolov ordered the preparation of the survey.
Since the khanate’s administrative system was still intact, Russian
officials relied upon the services of the chief secretary of the
khan’s chancery, and the process started with the delivery of
the khanate’s tax rolls. On the basis of these records and on-site
inspection under the guidance of local Muslim officials, the Russian
government succeeded in gathering a remarkably detailed survey that
could elicit the envy of any census preparer. The resulting compilation
of 34 registers accounted for virtually everyone, individually or
collectively. The compilation created both a very precise record for
the treasury and a reliable demographic profile of the new province.
As the survey was prepared for purely administrative purposes,
it did not appear in print until 1866 and then in a very limited
edition issued in the regional capital of Tiflis, likely again
for the use of officialdom alone. That is where Dr. Bournoutian’s
detective work began, for having been made aware of its existence
through prior exploration into the Russian administrative records for
the Transcaucasus, his search for a complete original version of the
survey led to his recent unearthing of the single intact copy in the
Russian State Library in Moscow.
The central purpose of the survey was the determination of the amounts
and types of revenue customarily collected. At the same time, the
comprehensive tally also created a fairly complete picture of the
economy of the region, as every piece of useful financial information
was recorded, starting with the tabulation of professions practiced
by town dwellers to the listing of the types of produce grown in
fields, farms, and orchards. Six forms of land tenure are identified,
including Khasseh or crown lands which, since 1805, had passed from
the hands of the Qajar dynasty; Divani lands, whose revenues belonged
to the khan and his family; Mulk or private property; Tiyul, or a type
of un-inheritable fief, whose revenue went to cover the services of
various officials; Yeylaq and qeshlaq or nomadic pastures; and Vaqf,
or charitable trust belonging to a religious institution.
This system of land tenure, with 32 different types of taxes and
duties counted and a considerable amount delivered in kind, leaves
the impression that Karabagh was still in the throes of feudalism. The
catalogue of payments with assessments noted down to the kopek, on the
other hand, also indicates that the region was fast transitioning to a
money economy where a sizable portion of the revenue was paid in cash.
More than hinting at the climatic condition upon the high elevation of
the promontory of Shushi, the obligatory delivery of firewood to the
khan’s troops stationed in its fortress is a notable example among
the requirements of numerous villages for payment in kind.
If, by chance, the responsibility of supplying firewood was equitably
divided among Muslim and Christian villages, Bournoutian calculates
that the brunt of taxation was hoisted on the Armenian population,
which paid 52.85% of the revenue, while the Tatars and the nomads
paid 47.15% of the total in kind and cash. Remarkably, nearly half the
population of both groups was tax-exempt, re-enforcing the privileges
of the well-connected and the burdens of the ordinary peasantry,
regardless of religion and ethnicity. How onerously the tribute fell
upon the shoulders of the Armenian peasantry becomes clearer when
the ethnic composition of the population is considered.
The survey makes a very precise distinction between the nomadic and
sedentary portions of the population, revealing that it was evenly
divided. It is also clear from the survey that the persons, families,
or groups, under the nomadic designation were all members of Muslim
tribes, primarily Turkic and Caucasian, and some even Kurdish, all
identified under the Tatar designation by the Russian authorities. In
sum, Bournoutian calculates 8,584 nomad families (45.66%), 5,209
Armenian families (27.71%), and 5,005 Tatar families (26.63%) at the
time of annexation.
The geographic distribution of the demography of the Karabagh khanate
reveals, however, another pattern whose significance reverberates to
this very day, and that has to do with the non-nomadic and non-Muslim
portion of the population. Regarding this matter, the registers are a
treasure trove of data, for by tabulating village by village per each
of the 20 mahals or districts, the registers also pinpoint the areas of
Armenian concentration. Bournoutian reveals that “the survey clearly
demonstrates that the Armenians formed the overwhelming majority in
the five mahals that later formed Mountainous Karabagh.
They were the sole inhabitants of all the villages of Golestan,
Khachen, and Jraberd mahals. In addition, the Varanda and Dizak mahals
had only one Tatar village each, while the Armenians inhabited the
remaining villages.” In effect, in 1823, Armenians constituted 96.67%
of the population of Mountainous Karabagh.
Nor are the registers confined to the modern understanding of lower
and upper Karabagh, as the khanate extended into parts of current-day
southern Armenia, and thus the demography and ethnography of places
such as Sisian, Bargushat, Tatev, and other adjacent districts in
the Zangezur region are included in the survey.
Because the administrator of each village is named, the survey also
reveals a considerable amount of information about the system of local
governance. Although the khan ruled from Shushi, the Muslim chieftains
doubtless commanded the tribes and the Tatar notables lorded over the
villages, a remarkable number of the Armenian settlements were still
overseen by Armenian meliks, the highland princes of sorts descended
from the ancient ruling families of eastern Armenia. Register 4 of
the survey notes that Melik Tangi administered Sisian mahal. Minbashi
Melik Poghos administered the Armenian villages of Tatev, Shinatag,
Shinger, Khot, Halidzor, and Lor. While it was unlikely that Melik
Poghos commanded a thousand men at any time, the title of Minbashi,
much as that of Yuzbashi, for the commander of a hundred, had passed
down certain lineages dating from the era of Davit Bek a century before
and possibly to that of Shah Abbas another century earlier still.
The list of Armenian administrators continues. In Golestan mahal,
the village of Karachinar was held in fief by Melik Yusef (Hovsep),
where Melik Minas, the son of Melik Abov, also resided. The six
villages of Kuypara mahal in Zangezur were held in fief by Minbashi
Melik Parsadan. In Khachen mahal, the village of Khanderestan was
administered by Melik Kahraman, identified by Bournoutian as the son
of the last titular melik of Jraberd of the Allahverdian house. The
Armenian village of Viankhli is recorded as the mulk, corrected to
vaqf by Bournoutian, of Gandzasar monastery, “administered by the
Armenian Archbishop Sargis for his nephew, Qoli Beg Hasan-Jalalov,”
the direct descendants of the Hasan-Jalalian princely family, which
also contributed a line of catholicoses at Gandzasar when it was a
separate see.
Not only does the survey thereby confirm the existence of settlements
entirely Armenian populated, but the residence of the highland
chieftains further attests to a remarkable continuity in social and
political organization among Armenians sustained despite the pressures
and disturbances regularly testing the capacity and durability of
those isolated communities. It is evident that the upper echelon of
the one-time five Armenian melikdoms of Karabagh, along with their
attendant military structure, had broken down. Yet, the remaining
cohesiveness of the social organization persisted. Moreover, this
remarkable institution preserving local administrative authority
among the Armenian notables was exceptional to Karabagh and Zangezur.
Nowhere else across Armenia was a similar institution preserved,
save for that of the four Armenian ishkhans, or titular princes,
of Zeytun on the summit of the Cilician Mountains.
The cadastre is replete with every sort of interesting detail,
some even attesting to a certain interdependence among the two
religious communities despite the competition for land and resources
apparent from the division of labor revealed by the segregation of the
various ethnic groups, at least as far as the distinction between the
agricultural and pastoral sectors of the economy was concerned. About
the village of Khot, the survey even leaves a record of wine production
and drinking habits among Christians and Muslims. In lieu of payment
of the tax on the orchards of Khot, Singer, and Halidzor, Melik Poghos
and his brother had been awarded the right to 100 jugs of wine and
25 jugs of vodka, and in exchange the khan received all the wine and
vokda he desired, or the vineyards produced.
Above and beyond its self-evident value as a historical record
containing a mass of useful data, another reason impelled Bournoutian
to prepare this careful translation of the Russian survey. In the
current context of the conflict between Armenians and Azeris over
Mountainous Karabagh, it turns out that not even a nearly 200-year-old
record was spared misuse by parties manufacturing a falsified history
of the region. Bournoutian reports that an adulterated version of
the same was published in Baku in 2003, designed to minimize the
historic presence of Armenians in Karabagh in order to strengthen
the mendacious case for their late arrival in the region presumably
under Russian tutelage.
To wit, Bournoutian’s translation reveals for scholarly uses the
limitless possibilities of mining the immense wealth of information
recorded in the Russian survey, for the document is no less an
inventory of the many antecedent populations from whose diverse
backgrounds the modern Azeri nation was forged, and of the Armenians
whose historical presence in the mountains of Karabagh makes them a
native population whose rights were far less disputed then than now.
As such, this instrument of imperial administration appears to have
been misplaced in circulation a decade ago as a new tool for seemingly
retroactive colonization. Bournoutian’s translation restores the survey
to its proper use as the record of a specific time and of a place still
scarred by the legacy of imperial policies and colonial objectives.
George A. Bournoutian’s The 1823 Russian Survey of the Karabagh
Province: A Primary Source on the Demography and Economy of Karabagh
in the Early 19th Century (Mazda Publishers, Costa Mesa, 2011) is
available at Mazda Publishers and other online booksellers.
http://araratmagazine.org/2012/02/george-bournoutian-the-1823-russian-survey-of-the-karabagh-province/