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Downloaded from Brill.Com09/26/2021 09:26:45PM Via Free Access 238 Appendix 1 Appendix 1 The Role of the Armenians in the Russian Move into the South Caucasus After the mid-eleventh century the Armenians had no secular rulers in their historic homeland. Their Muslim overlords, therefore, had to deal with Armenian religious leaders as the representatives of their people. Thus, both the Safavid shahs1 and the Ottoman sultans2 viewed the supreme patriarch, or Catholicos, who resided at the Holy See of Ejmiatsin, as the khalifeh, or caliph, of the Armenian people. During his campaign which removed the South Caucasus from Ottoman control, Shah ʿAbbas I learned that the Armenians of Julfa, a town on the left bank of the Aras River, previously in Ottoman hands, had amassed their wealth by exporting Iranian silk to Europe. Hearing that the Ottomans had sent a large force against him, the Shah forcibly removed the population of numerous Armenian villages in Nakhjavan and Yerevan across the Aras River into the interior. He also ordered the entire 2,000 house- holds of the town of Julfa to be relocated in three days’ time to Iran.3 In the winter of 1605 he settled the Julfans across the Zayandeh River, from his capital, Esfahan.4 Following this campaign, the Shah also rewarded the Armenian meliks, or petty nobles of the five mahals or districts in mountainous Qarabagh5 who had resisted the 1 For example, see Shah Tahmasp’s decree in MA, folder, 1a, doc. 12; see also Shah Abbas’ de- crees, MA, folder 1a, docs. 34, 37, 39; Shah Safi’s decree in ibid., doc. 49; Shah Abbas II’s decree in ibid., doc. 68. 2 For a list of Ottoman decrees, see Simeon of Erevan, Jambr, G. Bournoutian, trans. (Costa Mesa, 2009), 373–391. The Ottomans had established the millet system for their non-Muslim subjects. For details, see B. Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (Rutherford, 1985). 3 Arakel of Tabriz, Book of History, G. Bournoutian, trans. (Costa Mesa, 2010), 71–79. 4 Such transfer of populations was done primarily to reduce the economic well-being of the enemy and to increase one’s own tax base. Catherine the Great transferred thousands of Armenians from the Crimea to the Don Region, while ʿAbbas Mirza also ordered the transfer of the Jebra ʾilu tribe in Qarabagh to Qaradagh. See Chapters 1 and 6. It is important to add that some 200 years later, the Russians encouraged the descendants of the Armenians, who had settled in Azarbayjan, to repatriate to Yerevan and Nakhjavan. 5 The five mahals were collectively known as the khamseh (see map 5). The first mahal was Dizak [Dizaq], which belonged to the Avanean family, who had fled Lori and Somkheti and had arrived in Qarabagh ca. 1535. In the 18th century, Melik Yegan Avanean joined Nader Shah in his siege of Ganjeh and was rewarded by the Shah, see Mohammad Kazem Marvi, ʿAlam-aray-e Naderi, I (Tehran, 1991), 410. The second mahal was Varanda [Varandeh] whose meliks came from the Shahnazean family. Originally from the settlement of Mazraʿ in the © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004445161_011 George A. Bournoutian - 9789004445161 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 09:26:45PM via free access 238 Appendix 1 Ottomans, by granting them jurisdiction over their Armenian subjects.6 Shah ʿAbbas and his successors also recognized the patriarch at Gandzasar in Qarabagh as having authority over his flock in Ganjeh and Qarabagh. The Shah’s relatively benign policy toward the resettled Julfans bore fruit and the new town prospered and became an Armenian enclave under royal protection known as New Julfa. The main item of trade was raw silk, which, in 1619, had become a royal monopoly, and the bulk of which was transported through the Ottoman Empire. Several decades later, groups of Armenian merchants from New Julfa had established a global trading network of agents between Asia and Europe.7 One of the routes went from Tabriz to Bursa or Smyrna;8 another took silk from Gilan and Shirvan to Bursa, Lake Sevan region they had offered Shah ʿAbbas hospitality and had been rewarded with the title of beg. Eskandar Monshi mentions a Melik Shahnazar as an officer in charge of reserve troops, AA, II, 885. The third mahal, the largest, was Khachen [Khachin] whose me- liks came from the Hasan-Jalalean clan. They claimed to be a branch of the royal house of Siunik. The fourth mahal was Chraberd/Jraberd [Chalehberd] whose meliks came from the Haikazean-Israyelean house. They built a fort in Jermuk and Chraberd and one of their fam- ily members, Melik Allah Qoli, helped Nader in his war with the Ottomans and was duly re- warded, Mirza Mohammad Mehdi Kowkabi Astarabadi, Tarikh-e Jahan-gosha (Tehran, 1991), 246–254. The fifth mahal was Golestan (also known as Talesh), whose founder, Melik Abov, belonged to the Beglarean clan from Shirvan. For more details, see Karabag-name, 159–164 and Javanshir, 50–62. See also Akty, I doc. 874. 6 MA, folder 2a, docs. 25a, 27. 7 For the most comprehensive and accurate account of this trade network, see Sebouh Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Networks of Armenian mer- chants from New Julfa (Berkeley, 2011). According to a newly published primary source in Persian, Shah ʿAbbas, in the year 1028 AH (1619), sent an order to the viziers and kalantars of Gilan, Shirvan, Ganjeh, Qarabagh, Nakhjavan, as well as the governors of Tabriz and Ardabil, which forbade anyone but Armenian merchants from buying or selling silk. The bulk of the silk trade was handed to Khoja Safar and Khoja Safar of New Julfa; see Afzal al-Tavarikh, II, 782. Aslanian, citing Pietro della Valle, notes that the Armenians had gained the right in a public auction conducted by ʿAbbas, Aslanian, 38. Although Shah Safi (r. 1629–1642) permit- ted Europeans to export silk as well, they were not able to compete with this Armenian global network, Aslanian, 2. 8 The journal of an Armenian merchant from Agulis (in Nakhjavan) describes the route in detail. His caravan, containing silk from Esfahan, Kashan and Tabriz, went through Yerevan, Erzurum, Tokat, Amasya, Çorum, Kayseri, Afyon [Afyonkarahisar] to Smyrna. After that the wares were taken by ship to Venice and from there by land to Amsterdam. The return journey from Amsterdam to Smyrna was by sea. It went through Cadiz, Malaga, Alicante and Livorno. See Zak’aria of Agulis, The Journal of Zak’aria of Agulis, G. Bournoutian, trans. (Costa Mesa, 2003), maps 1–5. George A. Bournoutian - 9789004445161 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 09:26:45PM via free access The Armenians and the Russian Move into the South Caucasus 239 via Tiflis, Kars, Erzurum, Sivas, Tokat and Angora [Ankara].9 The most frequently-used route was through Baghdad and the Levant traversing through Aleppo.10 Taking advantage of peaceful relations between Iran and Russia,11 the Armenian merchants sent a representative with various offerings, including the famed “Diamond Throne” to Tsar Alexei, hoping to obtain transit rights for their goods through Russia.12 Several years later, in May 1667, they obtained a trade convention that had long evaded the English and Dutch traders;13 mainly, the sole right to transport silk via the Caspian Sea to Astrakhan and then to Moscow.14 From there they could take their goods to Archangel (via Yaroslavl) or to the Swedish port of Narva (via Tver and Novgorod).15 Although the Armenians had promised to transport 4,000 bales16 of raw silk via Astrakhan, paying a minimum of five kopeks17 per pud in duty to the Tsar’s treasury, the actual volume ended up being far less. In February 1673, following continued Russian threats to cancel the silk trade agreement, the Armenian merchants signed a new agreement. Their representatives took an oath on the Bible promising that 9 R. Matthee, The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600–1730 (Cambridge, 1999), maps 2 and 5. 10 Ibid. maps 3 and 5. For more details, see W. Floor, The Economy of Safavid Persia (Wiesbaden, 2000). 11 An agreement was concluded between Tsar Alexei Romanov and Shah ʿAbbas II. 12 The gifts had arrived in Astrakhan on August 7, 1659. They included 15 flasks of Shiraz wine, 3 flagons of aromatic vodka, 4 flagons of rose-flavored vodka, a bottle of orange- flavored vodka, eastern perfumes, Indian sugared ginger and other exotic fruits. The throne, which was presented on March 28, 1660, was valued by the royal gold and sil- versmiths to be worth 22,943 rubles, 6 altyns (18 kopeks) and 3 dengi (1.5 kopeks). The multi-folio document is located at RGADA, fond: 100, opis: 1; delo: b, ff. 1–4, 21–34, 36–37. For a partial English translation, see Bournoutian, Armenians and Russia, doc. 5. Another source estimates the value to have been 24,443 rubles, SAAN, II, 287. 13 Although between 1618 and 1626 Shah ʿAbbas had received three Russian embassies with trade proposals, no concrete agreement had emerged. For the English and Dutch efforts, see CHI, VI, 459–465. 14 SAAN, I, 3. 15 The agreement is located in RGADA, fond 100, opis: 1, delo: 1–4, ff. 1–35. For a partial English translation, see Armenians and Russia, doc. 10. The route is illustrated in Matthee, map 4. 16 Each bale weighed just over 200 lbs. Estimates of the amount of silk produced in Iran var- ied widely; see R. Matthee, pp. 39–43. For more details on the silk trade, see W. Floor, “The Dutch and the Persian Silk Trade,” C.
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