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The history of the Caucasus region may be divided by geography into the history of the North Caucasus (Ciscaucasia), historically in the sphere of influence of Scythia and of Southern Russia (Eastern Europe), and that of the South Caucasus (Transcaucasia; Caucasian Albania, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) in the sphere of influence of Persia, Anatolia, and (for a very brief time) Assyria.
Throughout history, Southern Caucasus and parts of the North Caucasus have come under the control of various empires, including the Achaemenid, Neo-Assyrian Empire, [1] Parthian, Roman, Sassanian, Byzantine, Mongol, Ottoman, and successive Iranian (Safavid, Afsharid, and Qajar). In 1813 and 1828 by the Treaty of Gulistan and the Treaty of Turkmenchay respectively, Qajar Iran officially ceded its territories in the Caucasus in what is now Dagestan, eastern Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the Russian Empire. [2] Russia conquered and annexed the rest of the North Caucasus in the course of the 19th century in the Caucasian Wars (1817–1864).
The North Caucasus became the scene of intense fighting during the Second World War. Nazi Germany attempted to capture the Caucasus region of Soviet Union in 1942 by a two-pronged attack towards both the western bank of the Volga (intended to seize the city of Stalingrad) and southeast towards Baku, a major center of oil production. Some parts of the North Caucasus fell under German occupation, but the Axis invasion eventually faltered as it failed to accomplish either goal, and Soviet soldiers drove the Germans back west following the Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943).
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia became independent nations. The Caucasus region has become the setting of territorial disputes in the post-Soviet era, which lead to the establishment of unrecognized states of Artsakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia.
The Caucasus region gradually enters the historical record during the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age. Hayasa-Azzi was a Late Bronze Age confederation of two kingdoms of Armenian Highlands, Hayasa located South of Trabzon and Azzi, located north of the Euphrates and to the south of Hayasa. The Hayasa-Azzi confederation was in conflict with the Hittite Empire in the 14th century BC, leading up to the collapse of Hatti around 1190 BC
Arme-Shupria was a kingdom, known from Assyrian sources beginning in the 13th century BC, located in what is now known as the Armenian Highlands, to the southwest of Lake Van, bordering on Ararat proper. The capital was called Ubbumu. [3] The Diauehi were a tribal confederation in northeastern Anatolia in the post-Hittite period, mentioned in Urartian inscriptions. [4] Diauehi is a possible locus of Proto-Kartvelian; it has been described as an "important tribal formation of possible proto-Georgians" by Ronald Grigor Suny (1994), [5] although other scholars have suggested that it may have been proto-Armenian (based on the etymology of the name). [6] [7] [8] At the same time, during the 13th to 9th centuries BC, the Nairi appear in Assyrian and Hittite records. The Battle of Nihriya (c. 1230 BC) was the culmination of Hittite-Assyrian hostilities.
The Kingdom of Urartu rose to power in the mid-9th century BC and flourished for two centuries before it was absorbed into the Median Empire in the early 6th century BC, followed by the conquest by the Achaemenid Empire.
The Northern Caucasus enters the historical record later, being in cultural contact with the Pontic steppe. The Koban culture (ca. 1100 to 400 BC) is a late Bronze Age and Iron Age culture of the northern and central Caucasus. Its end presumably correlates with the Scythian expansion in the region.
During the Middle Ages Bagratid Armenia, Kingdom of Tashir-Dzoraget, Kingdom of Syunik, and Principality of Khachen organized local Armenian population facing multiple threats after the fall of antique Kingdom of Armenia.
Caucasian Albania maintained close ties with Armenia, and the Church of Caucasian Albania shared the same Christian dogmas with the Armenian Apostolic Church and had a tradition of their Catholicos being ordained through the Patriarch of Armenia. [9]
By the end of the 15th century, the Kingdom of Georgia was fragmented into a number of petty client kingdoms subject to either Persia (Kingdom of Kakheti, Kingdom of Kartli) or the Ottomans (Kingdom of Imereti). [note 1] Throughout the 16th century, the Caucasus continued to serve as a battleground between Persian and Ottoman forces, with the two great powers attempting to gain control over the region. From the 1530s to the 1550s, several Transcaucasian cities became the focal point of these imperial divides. In 1555, this culminated in the Peace of Amasya, whereby Ottoman and Persian forces agreed to establish formal spheres of influence in the region. [10] As a result of the Treaty, the Safavid Empire (Persia) assumed control over lands East of the Surami Highlands, including the Georgian kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti. [10] The Ottomans received areas West of the Highlands, including the Georgian kingdom of Imereti. [10] The nascent Russian Empire gained territories in the North Caucasus in the Russo-Persian war of 1722/3. These territories were ceded back to Persia a few years later. Following the death of Nader Shah, Kartli and Kakheti were merged into the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti in 1762; Erekle de facto seceded from Persian overlordship, but still de jure recognized the Persians as his suzerain. In 1783, King Erekle II concluded the Treaty of Georgievsk with the Russian Empire. Catherine the Great tried to use Georgia as a base of operations against both Iran and the Ottoman Empire. After her death, the Russians withdrew to the North Caucasus Line. The Qajar dynasty re-established Persia's traditional suzerainty over the Caucasus. A Persian invasion force defeated the Georgian army in the Battle of Krtsanisi in 1795. In 1801, a few years after the assassination of Agha Mohammad Khan, capitalizing on the eruption of instability in Iran, the Russians annexed eastern Georgia (Kartli-Kakheti).
While Georgia and Armenia remained Christian, the Chechens gradually adopted Sunni Islam. [11] The Circassians were mostly Islamized under the influence of the Crimean Tatars and the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century.
The khanates that soon emerged after the death of Nader Shah in 1747 were the following: [12]
The history of Armenia covers the topics related to the history of the Republic of Armenia, as well as the Armenian people, the Armenian language, and the regions of Eurasia historically and geographically considered Armenian.
The Treaty of Gulistan was a peace treaty concluded between the Russian Empire and Qajar Iran on 24 October 1813 in the village of Gulistan as a result of the first full-scale Russo-Persian War. The peace negotiations were precipitated by the successful storming of Lankaran by General Pyotr Kotlyarevsky on 1 January 1813. It was the first of a series of treaties signed between Qajar Iran and Imperial Russia that forced Persia to cede the territories that formerly were part of Iran.
The Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti was created in 1762 by the unification of the two eastern Georgian kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti. From the early 16th century, according to the 1555 Peace of Amasya, these two kingdoms were under Iranian control. In 1744, Nader Shah granted the kingship of Kartli to Teimuraz II and that of Kakheti to his son Heraclius II, as a reward for their loyalty. When Nader Shah died in 1747, Teimuraz II and Heraclius II capitalized on the instability in Iran proper, and declared de facto independence. After Teimuraz II died in 1762, Heraclius succeeded him as ruler of Kartli, thus unifying the two kingdoms.
The Treaty of Turkmenchay was an agreement between Qajar Iran and the Russian Empire, which concluded the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828). It was second of the series of treaties signed between Qajar Iran and Imperial Russia that forced Persia to cede or recognize Russian influence over the territories that formerly were part of Iran.
Prince Alexander of Georgia (1770–1844) was a Georgian royal prince (batonishvili) of the Bagrationi dynasty, who headed several insurrections against the Russian rule in Georgia. He was known as Eskandar Mīrzā (اسکندرمیرزا) in Persia, tsarevichAleksandr Irakliyevich in Russia, and Alexander Mirza in Western Europe.
Vakhtang VI, also known as Vakhtang the Scholar, Vakhtang the Lawgiver and Ḥosaynqolī Khan, was a Georgian monarch (mepe) of the royal Bagrationi dynasty. He ruled the East Georgian Kingdom of Kartli as a vassal of Safavid Persia from 1716 to 1724. One of the most important and extraordinary statesman of early 18th-century Georgia, he is known as a notable legislator, scholar, critic, translator and poet. His reign was eventually terminated by the Ottoman invasion following the disintegration of Safavid Persia, which forced Vakhtang into exile in the Russian Empire. Vakhtang was unable to get the tsar's support for his kingdom and instead had to permanently stay with his northern neighbors for his own safety. On his way to a diplomatic mission sanctioned by Empress Anna, he fell ill and died in southern Russia in 1737, never reaching Georgia.
The Russo-Persian Wars or Russo-Iranian Wars were a series of conflicts between 1651 and 1828, concerning Persia and the Russian Empire. Russia and Persia fought these wars over disputed governance of territories and countries in the Caucasus. The main territories disputed were Aran, Georgia and Armenia, as well as much of Dagestan – generally referred to as Transcaucasia – and considered part of the Safavid Iran prior to the Russo-Persian Wars. Over the course of the five Russo-Persian Wars, the governance of these regions transferred between the two empires. Between the Second and Third Russo-Persian Wars, there was an interbellum period in which a number of treaties were drawn up between the Russian and the Persian Empires, as well as between both parties and the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman interest in these territories further complicated the wars, with both sides forming alliances with the Ottoman Empire at different points throughout the wars. Following the Treaty of Turkmenchay, which concluded the Fifth Russo-Persian War, Persia ceded much of its Transcaucasian territory to the Russian Empire.
Russian Armenia is the period of Armenian history under Russian rule from 1828, when Eastern Armenia became part of the Russian Empire following Qajar Iran's loss in the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828) and the subsequent ceding of its territories that included Eastern Armenia per the out coming Treaty of Turkmenchay of 1828.
The Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813 was one of the many wars between the Persian Empire and Imperial Russia, and, like many of their other conflicts, began as a territorial dispute. The new Persian king, Fath Ali Shah Qajar, wanted to consolidate the northernmost reaches of his kingdom—modern-day Georgia—which had been annexed by Tsar Paul I several years after the Russo-Persian War of 1796. Like his Persian counterpart, the Tsar Alexander I was also new to the throne and equally determined to control the disputed territories.
The Nakhichevan Khanate was a khanate under Iranian suzerainty, which controlled the city of Nakhichevan and its surroundings from 1747 to 1828.
The Erivan Khanate, also known as Chokhur-e Sa'd, was a khanate that was established in Afsharid Iran in the 18th century. It covered an area of roughly 19,500 km2, and corresponded to most of present-day central Armenia, the Iğdır Province and the Kars Province's Kağızman district in present-day Turkey and the Sharur and Sadarak districts of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of present-day Azerbaijan.
The Bagrationi dynasty is a royal dynasty which reigned in Georgia from the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, being among the oldest extant Christian ruling dynasties in the world. In modern usage, the name of the dynasty is sometimes Hellenized and referred to as the Georgian Bagratids, also known in English as the Bagrations. David Bagration of Mukhrani is the current Head of the Family.
The country of Georgia became part of the Russian Empire in the 19th century. Throughout the early modern period, the Muslim Ottoman and Persian empires had fought over various fragmented Georgian kingdoms and principalities; by the 18th century, Russia emerged as the new imperial power in the region. Since Russia was an Orthodox Christian state like Georgia, the Georgians increasingly sought Russian help. In 1783, Heraclius II of the eastern Georgian kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti forged an alliance with the Russian Empire, whereby the kingdom became a Russian protectorate and abjured any dependence on its suzerain Persia. The Russo-Georgian alliance, however, backfired as Russia was unwilling to fulfill the terms of the treaty, proceeding to annex the troubled kingdom in 1801, and reducing it to the status of a Russian region. In 1810, the western Georgian kingdom of Imereti was annexed as well. Russian rule over Georgia was eventually acknowledged in various peace treaties with Persia and the Ottomans, and the remaining Georgian territories were absorbed by the Russian Empire in a piecemeal fashion in the course of the 19th century.
The Russian conquest of the Caucasus mainly occurred between 1800 and 1864. The Russian Empire sought to control the region between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. South of the mountains was the territory that is modern Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Iran and Turkey. North of the mountains was the North Caucasus region of modern Russia. The difficult conquest of the intervening mountains is known as the Caucasian War. Multiple wars were fought against the local rulers of the regions, as well as the dominant powers, the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran, for control. By 1864 the last regions were brought under Russian control.
The nation of Georgia was first unified as a kingdom under the Bagrationi dynasty by the King Bagrat III of Georgia in the early 11th century, arising from several successor states of the ancient kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia. The Kingdom of Georgia flourished during the 11th and 12th centuries under rulers such as King David IV the Builder and Queen Tamar the Great. The kingdom fell to the Mongol invasion by 1243, and after a restoration under George V the Brilliant it fell again to the Timurid Empire in 1403. By 1490, Georgia was fragmented into several petty kingdoms and principalities, which throughout the Early Modern period struggled to maintain their autonomy against Ottoman and Iranian domination until Georgia was finally annexed by the Russian Empire in the 19th century. After a brief period of independence as Democratic Republic of Georgia, the country soon ended up being a Soviet Republic until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The current republic of Georgia has been independent since 1991.
Islam in Georgia was introduced in 654 when an army sent by the Third Caliph of Islam, Uthman, conquered Eastern Georgia and established Muslim rule in Tbilisi. Currently, Muslims constitute approximately 9.9% of the Georgian population. According to other sources, Muslims constitute 10-11% of Georgia's population.
The Borchaly uezd was a county (uezd) of the Tiflis Governorate of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire, and later of the independent and Soviet republics of Georgia. Its administrative center was the town of Shulavery. The area of the county roughly corresponded to the contemporary Lori Province of Armenia and the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia.
The Kingdom of Kartli was a late medieval and early modern monarchy in eastern Georgia, centred on the province of Kartli, with its capital at Tbilisi. It emerged in the process of a tripartite division of the Kingdom of Georgia in 1478 and existed, with several brief intervals, until 1762 when Kartli and the neighbouring Georgian kingdom of Kakheti were merged through dynastic succession under the Kakhetian branch of the Bagrationi dynasty. Through much of this period, the kingdom was a vassal of the successive dynasties of Iran, and to a much shorter period Ottoman Empire, but enjoyed intermittent periods of greater independence, especially after 1747.
The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly called Qajar Iran, Qajar Persia or the Qajar Empire, was the Iranian state under the rule of the Qajar dynasty, which was of Turkic origin, specifically from the Qajar tribe, from 1789 to 1925. The Qajar family took full control of Iran in 1794, deposing Lotf 'Ali Khan, the last Shah of the Zand dynasty, and re-asserted Iranian sovereignty over large parts of the Caucasus. In 1796, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar seized Mashhad with ease, putting an end to the Afsharid dynasty. He was formally crowned as Shah after his punitive campaign against Iran's Georgian subjects.
The Armenia–Georgia border is the international boundary between Armenia and Georgia. It is 219 km (136 mi) in length and runs from the tripoint with Turkey in the west to the tripoint with Azerbaijan in the east.