During the Karabakh Khanate, Armenian missionaries who wanted to create an Armenian state in the territories of Azerbaijan while relying on Russian patronage encouraged Christian meliks under the Karabakh Khanate to rebel against Ibrahimkhalil Khan (1763–1806), the Khan of the Karabakh Khanate after Panah Ali Khan. In September 1781, some of the Christian meliks of the Karabakh Khanate that the Russian Empire protected wrote a letter to Catherine II, G.A. Potemkin, and V.A. Suvorov. In this, the Karabakh meliks promised to organize an armed struggle against the region’s Muslim population during the Russian army’s military voyage. They asked to send approximately 10,000 Russian infantries to Karabakh under the command of General V.A. Suvarov. They also described the natural resources and productive lands of Karabakh in the letter in order to attract the attention of the Russian Empire authorities.[1]
Intending to form an Armenian state on the cross lines of the borders of the Qajar and Ottoman empires, Iosif Argutinskii (Hovsep Arghutian), the head of the Armenian archdiocese in Russia, began negotiations with representatives of the government of the Russian Empire. To this end, in 1783, he drew up the “Armenian-Russian agreement Project,” which consisted of 18 articles. According to this project, an independent Armenian state should be created within the territory of Azerbaijan, and the Russian Empire would have the right to keep its military forces in that state.[2]
In order to carry out this plan, G.A. Potemkin, in his secret letter to P.S. Potemkin, the commander in the Caucasus, wrote that:
Ibrahimkhalil Khan, the Khan of the Karabakh Khanate, should be ousted because an Armenian province that would be subjected only to the Russian Empire would be created in Karabakh. Use all possible opportunities in order to create that mentioned province. In the end, Armenians living in other provinces and regions will move to this newly created province.[3]
Iosif Argutinskii secretly communicated with the Christian meliks of the Karabakh Khanate to prepare them for rebellion against Ibrahimkhalil Khan. However, Ibrahimkhalil Khan got information about the letter of the Russian agent Y. Reynegs to melik Abov, which indicate the “deprivation of Ibrahimkhalil Khan from his power and establishment of the Armenian kingdom.”[4] In that situation, Ibrahimkhalil Khan managed to break the resistance of the Christian meliks of the Karabakh Khanate by revealing their betrayals with high diplomatic skills.
In the spring of 1783, news spread that the Russian Empire’s military forces were marching to the South Caucasus. Ibrahimkhalil Khan realized that this military march was mainly against the Karabakh Khanate. He, therefore, tried to repulse the approaching danger via political maneuver by sending a letter to P.S. Potemkin on 6 April 1783, where he expressed his wish to “accept the protection of the Russian Empire.”[5] Catherine II tasked G.A. Potemkin with finding a solution to the Ibrahimkhalil Khan issue. In his letter to Catherine II on May 19, 1783, Potemkin wrote that Ibrahimkhalil Khan should be subordinated to the Russian Empire and his province should be controlled by the Christian meliks as soon as conditions were favorable. Furthermore, he spoke about the project of “…restoring a Christian state in Asia, according to the high promises of your Imperial Majesty, transmitted through me to the Armenian meliks.”[6]
In June 1783, G. Garakhanov, who was sent to Karabakh by P.S. Potemkin, secretly communicated with Catholicos Hovhannes and some of the Christian meliks, in an attempt to resolve the problem of food supply for Russia’s military forces. Hovhannes was afraid of Ibrahimkhalil Khan. The letter that was sent to P.S. Potemkin was therefore signed secretly by his brothers and some of the meliks, including Abov, Bakhtam, and Mezhlum (the son of Melik Adam and the melik of Chilabord) in a place called Kahakatekh (an area where the residence of the melik Adam was located).[7]
The establishment of a protectorate of the Russian Empire in the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, under the Treaty of Georgievsk signed on July 24, 1783, worsened the political situation of the Azerbaijani khanates. While relying on the support of the Russian Empire, Irakli II, the Tsar of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, began to increase his support for the separatist movements of meliks in the territory of the Karabakh Khanate. Furthermore, the joint military forces of Irakli II and S. Burnashev, the commander of the Russian military forces in Georgia, began to prepare the military march against the Karabakh Khanate rapidly. Iosif Argutinskii accordingly wrote in his letter to Potemkin that if the Russian military forces managed to march as far as the Ganja Khanate, the meliks of the Karabakh Khanate would join them, which would create favorable conditions for them to occupy not only Karabakh but also the city of Shusha.[8]
In light of these developments, Armenian ideologists openly and actively opposed the Karabakh Khanate to realize their goal of creating an Armenian state in the territories of the Karabakh Khanate and western Azerbaijan, with the support of the Russian Empire. Thus, in his letter dated July-August 1783, Iosif Argutinskii reminded the Catholicos Hovhannes and the Karabakh meliks Mezhlum, Abov, and Bakhtam that they should keep their promises and provide the Russian army all kinds of assistance when they entered the Karabakh Khanate.[9] The Karabakh meliks who escaped to the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti from Shusha prison began to prepare a military march against the Karabakh Khanate with the help of S. Burnashev and Irakli II in 1784. Along the occupation of Ganja and Iravan khanates, Irakli II was planning to divide the whole territory of Azerbaijan between Russia and the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti. In this sense, in his letter to the high-ranking officials of the Russian Empire, Irakli II wrote that “…there is a favorable condition for Russia to possess the territories of Azerbaijan. Then you may cede part of these territories to me.”[10]
However, the war between the Russian and Ottoman empires (1787–1791) prevented this military march against Azerbaijan, and the Russian military forces were forced to retreat to the Caucasus front. As a result, the Karabakh Khanate’s Christian meliks also left territories of Azerbaijan with the joint forces of the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti in September 1787.[11] Thus, the Russian Empire’s plan to seize the territories of the Azerbaijani khanates, including the Karabakh Khanate, and to establish an “Armenian State” there, with the support of Armenian missionaries and Christian meliks of the Karabakh Khanate, ultimately failed in the second half of the eighteenth century.
[1] Армяно-русские отношения в XVIII веке. 1760–1800 гг. (Сб.док.), т. IV, ч. II (Ереван, 1990), док. No 113а, pp. 183–184. See also: Иоаннисян, Россия и армянское освобедителное движение в 80 – х г. XVIII веке, pp. 199–206.
[2] Иоаннисян, Россия и армянское освобедителное движение в 80 – х г. XVIII веке, pp. 47–48.
[3] Иоаннисян, Россия и армянское освобедителное движение в 80 – х г. XVIII веке, p. 68. See also: Маркова, O.P., Россия, Закавказъе и международные отношения в XVIII веке (Москва, 1966), p. 185.
[4] Маркова, Россия, Закавказъе и международные отношения в XVIII веке, p. 185. See also: Эзов, Г.А., Сношениие Петра Великого с армянским народам (СПб, 1898), pp. LXXXVII–LXXXXXIX.
[5] Иоаннисян, Россия и армянское освобедителное движение в 80 – х г. XVIII веке, pp. 71–72.
[6] Армяно- русские отношения (1990), док. No. 148, с. 241. See also: Иоаннисян, Россия и армянское освобедителное движение в 80 – х г. XVIII веке, p. 74. See also: Бутков, Г.P., Матерuалы для новой исторuu Кавказа 1722 по 1803 г., тom II, (СПб., 1869), p. 142.
[7] Иоаннисян, Россия и армянское освобедителное движение в 80 – х г. XVIII веке, pp. 84–85.
[8] Иоаннисян, Россия и армянское освобедителное движение в 80 – х г. XVIII веке, p. 165.
[9] Армяно- русские отношения (1990), док. No. 159, pp. 254–255.
[10] Маркова, Россия, Закавказъе и международные отношения в XVIII веке, p. 175.
[11] Бутков, Матерuалы для новой исторuu Кавказа 1722 по 1803 г., p. 188.
